NEW TRADING CARD MARKETPLACE - Looking for help testing it out!!

[SharpysSports]

Hi all,

For the past two and a half years I've been building an AUSTRALIAN OWNED Ultimate Trading Card Platform. We have been lucky to secure a sizeable investment which has allowed us to take the time to build the site from scratch. For someone like me (no coding experience) it feels like its going slow but to any other web developers I talk to, our timeframe is pretty quick!

The site is currently live and allows you to track your collection digitally in what we call your Trophy Room.

We have just about finished building the marketplace and we are in a position to have the site tested by collectors. It is all a test and won't cost you anything (we give you test credit card details). We just want you to add a few cards for sale and buy a few cards from other members. We're just looking for feedback on the site.

We will offer free membership for those who do test it out and provide us with feedback. ***EDIT: The site is now live and all testing spots were taken. We will be looking for active members of the site to test out new features as they are completed. We will reach out to our most active members on the website to try new features before they are released.

If you're interested in helping out please send me a PM! As you can imagine we've only got a limited amount of spots available for testing.

You are all more than welcome to jump on and create your own Trophy Room for free while we're in a Beta phase for the next few weeks. My Trophy Room can be seen in the following link: https://merqary.com/trophy_room/0b849ffb-0365-4b8a-a50e-1add7104994d

The below is a screenshot of how the marketplace will look! It goes live in a matter of weeks.

For those of you heading to the Hobby Hangout shows, come see me at the MERQARY stand. I'm happy to tell you all about the website and the benefits our site has over every other marketplace. I can also answer any of your questions here or via PM. There are already a mountain of features already built into the website that you won't pick up on until you start using it.

 

[shootin_card]

This looks cool. I'm a fullstack web developer by day, and I can tell you, this looks to me like a lot of work, so kudos to the team building it. Good luck.

 

[Hornso]

Very cool.

 

[SharpysSports]

This looks cool. I'm a fullstack web developer by day, and I can tell you, this looks to me like a lot of work, so kudos to the team building it. Good luck.

Thank you mate! If I had of known how much was involved 2.5 years ago I don't think I would have continued.

I'd ben keen to see what you think of it from a developers point of view if you have time?

 

[SharpysSports]

Very cool.

Thank you!

Let me know if you want to test it out. Happy for anyone who is interested and has time to test it.

 

[owen21]

Congrats

 

[shootin_card]

It is indeed quite a challenge to build it. But with passion, I would say it’s such a great venture. I have not given it an in depth trial. I’ll give it a try this weekend. I have tried it on both mobile and desktop and i like the fact that it is responsive. The loading for cards may need a tiny bit improvement but maybe because the collection is quite large. I’m not sure how much data is loaded at once.

Function-wise, looks great. Will be interesting how images can be uploaded. I’ll let you know when I get the chance to take it for a good spin.

There’s a tiny bit blanking out of the spin card feature but its minor.

 

[SharpysSports]

It is indeed quite a challenge to build it. But with passion, I would say it’s such a great venture. I have not given it an in depth trial. I’ll give it a try this weekend. I have tried it on both mobile and desktop and i like the fact that it is responsive. The loading for cards may need a tiny bit improvement but maybe because the collection is quite large. I’m not sure how much data is loaded at once.

Function-wise, looks great. Will be interesting how images can be uploaded. I’ll let you know when I get the chance to take it for a good spin.

There’s a tiny bit blanking out of the spin card feature but its minor.

Thank you!

There is a big update coming when the marketplace launches in a few weeks so a lot of the minor bugs will be fixed in that release and as I'm sure you're aware, fixing bugs and adding new features is a never ending task.

You are right about it being a challenge and I can tell you that if we didn't have such a passionate team we wouldn't be where we are today. When the marketplace gets released it will be the start of the fun part of it all!!!

 

[SharpysSports]

Congrats

Thank you!!

 

[1980bust]

This looks sweet - definitely better than the Excel sheet I use at the moment

 

[SharpysSports]

This looks sweet - definitely better than the Excel sheet I use at the moment

I had progressed from the excel spreadsheet to a website I built myself on Wix (I'm not a web developer at all...) and then I've now got this! It has made tracking my collection so much easier now I can take it with me anywhere I've got phone reception.

One of the next steps is to build an app for it!

 

[shootin_card]

Thank you!

There is a big update coming when the marketplace launches in a few weeks so a lot of the minor bugs will be fixed in that release and as I'm sure you're aware, fixing bugs and adding new features is a never ending task.

You are right about it being a challenge and I can tell you that if we didn't have such a passionate team we wouldn't be where we are today. When the marketplace gets released it will be the start of the fun part of it all!!!

Hi Brendan,

I had a closer look, and I have to say, the membership plan seems to be well thought of!

Here are my thoughts:

1. Use an accordion under the card to save on space. The accordion is the '+' sign, which when you click will show further card details.
2. Would be nice to have a customisable page size. Adding a page size allows for the responsiveness to always fill up the gallery (except for the last page) too. I also noticed that the pagination numbers are like [1, 29, >]. Maybe more page numbers would be a greater UX, like [ <, 1, 2, 3,..., 29, >]
3. When viewing a card, and hitting the back button, it seems like all the images are re-fetched from the backend. I wonder if a modal would be a nicer user experience for it. Also reduces the traffic back and forth.
4. Being nitpicky (lol), when hitting the merqary logo on the top left, and the user is logged on, I highly suggest redirecting to "My Trophy Room".
5. Would be nice to have an import xls/csv file to merqary. This helps collectors to adopt the site easier.

When adding cards to the trophy room - are images stored in the backend and looked up before adding to the trophy room or do users upload an image of their own card? I think storing common images in the backend will save up on storage services better than accepting images from users. If a card is not found, users can submit an image.

Do you plan to eventually have eBay sales data for a card and perhaps a middleman grading service (like submitting to PSA or BGS via Merqary)?

Overall looks good. Is this a rails + react tech stack? The tech stack for mobile app options nowadays is great if that's part of your roadmap.

 

[SharpysSports]

Hi Brendan,

I had a closer look, and I have to say, the membership plan seems to be well thought of!

Here are my thoughts:

1. Use an accordion under the card to save on space. The accordion is the '+' sign, which when you click will show further card details.
2. Would be nice to have a customisable page size. Adding a page size allows for the responsiveness to always fill up the gallery (except for the last page) too. I also noticed that the pagination numbers are like [1, 29, >]. Maybe more page numbers would be a greater UX, like [ <, 1, 2, 3,..., 29, >]
3. When viewing a card, and hitting the back button, it seems like all the images are re-fetched from the backend. I wonder if a modal would be a nicer user experience for it. Also reduces the traffic back and forth.
4. Being nitpicky (lol), when hitting the merqary logo on the top left, and the user is logged on, I highly suggest redirecting to "My Trophy Room".
5. Would be nice to have an import xls/csv file to merqary. This helps collectors to adopt the site easier.

When adding cards to the trophy room - are images stored in the backend and looked up before adding to the trophy room or do users upload an image of their own card? I think storing common images in the backend will save up on storage services better than accepting images from users. If a card is not found, users can submit an image.

Do you plan to eventually have eBay sales data for a card and perhaps a middleman grading service (like submitting to PSA or BGS via Merqary)?

Overall looks good. Is this a rails + react tech stack? The tech stack for mobile app options nowadays is great if that's part of your roadmap.

Thank you for your feedback!!! It is greatly appreciated.

Some comments on your thoughts.

1. Agreed it might save some space but it is a personal preference to see the text data. We could add an option where each member gets to choose whether they want to see the text or hide it.

2. This is something I have also thought recently. It would be nice to be able to see more (or less) images on each page.

3. I'm not going to pretend I know what this means but I will send these comments on to the web developers for their comments!

4. This is interesting! The first edition of the website did take you back to the Trophy Room when you clicked the MERQARY logo. I got them to change it so it takes you to the home page. Might be worth rethinking this.

5. It would be handy to have something like this. I think the problem might be that we have set the checklist data based on the data received from the manufacturers. If a member has added their own card description which doesn't match ours then it might not work. I will have a chat to the dev team and see what they think.

Card Images
We ask members to add images of their own cards. There are a few reasons for this:
- Adding a card to the marketplace will be easier if each member must add their own images when they are adding cards to their collection.
- It makes each members Trophy Room feel like personal if they upload images in their preferred way. I like to take scans of my cards in One Touches (PC) or Top Loaders (card FS/FT).
- We can keep a copy of each image uploaded. This is useful in tracking autographs and patches which will help in identifying if a patch has been swapped out or if an autograph has been altered. One of our features to be built is a fake patch/autograph tracker.

If a card image is being uploaded for the first time it will be stored as the 'default' image and will be visible to other members when they are searching the database. Admin have the ability to change this image if a better scan/photo of the card is taken. We will be looking to partner with the manufacturers to get stock images of all cards to add to the database to make it easier to search for the card you have.

eBay Sales Data
At this stage we are not looking to add any data from eBay. It's not that we can't do it, it's just that we're building our own marketplace and will upload information for cards sold on our marketplace.

Stack
I think this has been built on the react tech stack. I am not a developer so I could be completely wrong

It is all just the beginning in a way. There's plenty of new features to add in and plenty more to refine and make the user experience better.

 

[drobfan8]

So is this like a COMC for Australians also?

 

[SharpysSports]

So is this like a COMC for Australians also?

Not really. We don't store or scan your cards in. You do that all yourself!

The site allows you to upload and manage your PC digitally but also has the benefit of a marketplace attached. This way you can note down which cards you need and then members who have the card can find who needs it on the site OR if they list it on the marketplace you will get a notification straight away. It's our way of matching buyers and sellers instantly.

We also have heaps more hobby specific features to implement after the release of the marketplace in a few weeks. Exciting times ahead!!!

 

[GarnettFan4Life]

Adding some cards now @SharpysSports and can't find a BGS 9.5 option? only whole numbers?


cheers

 

[SharpysSports]

Adding some cards now @SharpysSports and can't find a BGS 9.5 option? only whole numbers?


cheers

Awesome! Let me know how the process is with it as I'm in the middle of pulling together some 'How to' videos.

I didn't even notice we had missed those on the BGS cards. Just shows how many BGS graded cards I own or have been uploaded onto the site... I'll get this fixed for asap. It might take a day as it is something my web developers will need to fix. I'll let you know when it's done.

 

[GarnettFan4Life]

Awesome! Let me know how the process is with it as I'm in the middle of pulling together some 'How to' videos.

I didn't even notice we had missed those on the BGS cards. Just shows how many BGS graded cards I own or have been uploaded onto the site... I'll get this fixed for asap. It might take a day as it is something my web developers will need to fix. I'll let you know when it's done.

All good thanks mate!

I've added some in - is there a publish button or just a delay with them showing up as visible to others? when I look at "what others will see" I don't see any in there yet but I can see them in my actual Trophy room

 

[SharpysSports]

All good thanks mate!

I've added some in - is there a publish button or just a delay with them showing up as visible to others? when I look at "what others will see" I don't see any in there yet but I can see them in my actual Trophy room

That's strange cause I can see them in the admin portal for the website. Generally once you upload a card to the website it is also shown on the home page under Recently Added Cards.

Let me make a phone call and I'll come back to you straight away.

 

[SharpysSports]

All good thanks mate!

I've added some in - is there a publish button or just a delay with them showing up as visible to others? when I look at "what others will see" I don't see any in there yet but I can see them in my actual Trophy room

You didn't add the status as 'Vaulted Hidden' did you?

If you did, only you will be able to see the cards. We added this feature for those members who have cards they want to track but don't want others to see (high value cards etc).