A Baseball Card Social Network & Vintage Card Encyclopedia

[jrenaut]

Have you explored other options for making money besides the buyer's fee? 13% is enough that I'd be very unlikely to buy or sell on the site unless it was a really impossible to find card. I realize that's kind of what the site is about, but I also suspect you don't want to limit the usefulness of the site.

One of the main reasons I buy on forums such as this one is the lack of extra fees - transactions are quick, efficient, and cheap. Your site definitely adds things that are often lacking from the process, but I'm not sure it adds enough to justify the cost for me.

[bn2cardz]

I am glad this got bumped as I missed this when it was first mentioned, and though I saw the banner at the top of the page I never bothered clicking to see what it was.

Do any other users have any reviews to give (with beta bugs being fixed in mind)? Has anyone completed a sale on the site?

[nolemmings]

My McAfee warns me that I've gone to a "suspicious site" when I click on the link. It gave me a red warning when I first went there some time ago and now gives me a yellow warning. I'm reluctant to proceed until I know what's up with that.

[Jay Wolt]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

My McAfee warns me that I've gone to a "suspicious site" when I click on the link. It gave me a red warning when I first went there some time ago and now gives me a yellow warning. I'm reluctant to proceed until I know what's up with that.

Same thing happened w/ me too!
Maybe its a McAfee thing

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by Jay Wolt

Same thing happened w/ me too!
Maybe its a McAfee thing

The site I write for had that happen a few weeks ago, everyone was getting the warning message. It turned out to be an outdated plugin on the site that made it vulnerable.

[Collect Equity]

Thanks everyone for the great questions and comments. I'm just boarding a cross-country flight now and will respond after I land.

[Collect Equity]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

My McAfee warns me that I've gone to a "suspicious site" when I click on the link. It gave me a red warning when I first went there some time ago and now gives me a yellow warning. I'm reluctant to proceed until I know what's up with that.

I am fairly certain that this is because we have the site disabled for bot indexing (i.e., Google, McAfee, etc.) until the next release. We did this because we are changing our URL structure and we didn't want to have it indexed with the old URLs.

I am confident that this McAfee warning will go away with the new release and once we are indexed. However, I will also check our plug-ins, per z28jd's suggestion.

I can assure you that the site is safe to use.

[Jlighter]

For searching cards in the for sale section a user should be able to search Price Highest First and Price Lowest First, as well as searching by Newest Additions.

[markf31]

I've registered and I'm interested to see how the site develops as time goes on, I think it has potential to be a great resource.

While I realize the utilization of Paypal provides some security for the buying/selling of cards, I will not be participating in that aspect of the site. I do not have a Paypal account.

[AndyG09]

I met the guy who runs this site at the National. He was a stand-up guy and I wish him lots of luck. I know he has put a lot of effort into making this work. I figure most people will be board members here that visit that site, and will work out transactions outside the perimeters of the fees. It will become a glorified extension of our BST. I think the site has some neat potential.

Best,

Andy

[jrenaut]

Originally Posted by AndyG09

...I figure most people will be board members here that visit that site, and will work out transactions outside the perimeters of the fees...

This is one of the reasons I asked about other revenue streams.

[cyseymour]

It is a very cool idea, though I can understand that many users would find 13% a bit steep for a private transaction. Why not, like Wikipedia, make it a larger bbcard resource that is donation-based and edited/contributed by the entire community?

No matter which direction you take, good luck with the business and I admire your courage for starting something new!

[Collect Equity]

Originally Posted by jrenaut

Have you explored other options for making money besides the buyer's fee? 13% is enough that I'd be very unlikely to buy or sell on the site unless it was a really impossible to find card . . .

One of the main reasons I buy on forums such as this one is the lack of extra fees - transactions are quick, efficient, and cheap.

There is no way that WhiteWhaleCards can compete with the B/S/T on Net54, nor is that our goal. We are offering an additional avenue for showcasing and finding your favorite vintage cards.

13% was chosen because a) 3% of this covers the PayPal fees and b) 10% of this covers our development costs (which are significant since I'm not a programmer).

Regardless of whether you choose to buy/sell on the site, we hope you will use it to showcase your collection and contribute to the community encyclopedia of vintage baseball cards.

[jrenaut]

Originally Posted by Collect Equity

There is no way that WhiteWhaleCards can compete with the B/S/T on Net54, nor is that our goal. We are offering an additional avenue for showcasing and finding your favorite vintage cards.

13% was chosen because a) 3% of this covers the PayPal fees and b) 10% of this covers our development costs (which are significant since I'm not a programmer).

Regardless of whether you choose to buy/sell on the site, we hope you will use it to showcase your collection and contribute to the community encyclopedia of vintage baseball cards.

I get that. I just don't see how it's a sustainable business model. I don't mean to be rude - I'd love to see your site succeed, and there's definitely demand, but making it work is hard. I am a programmer, and I've toyed with the idea of a site something like yours. The programming is technically very challenging. Hundreds of thousands of cards, each site member has tens of thousands in his/her collection - it's very difficult to store that kind of data in a way that's easy to work with. And that's not even getting into image hosting.

And once you overcome all that, you have to figure out how to get it to pay for itself. I think the way ebay does it is smart - they hide the fees at the time of the transaction. At the moment of purchase, no one pays any fees. It's only later that the seller has the fee deducted. People are funny, and we as a species have a hard time accurately valuing events in the future. I bet that people would pay more for a card with a 13% fee charged in a week than a card with a 13% fee charged at time of purchase.

Anyway, best of luck with the site. I hope I'm wrong about your business model.

[ksabet]

I hope it works out as well. I am looking forward to reading the articles as I cannot get enough of reading about the history of cards.

I also am hoping if successful you will find a way to branch into football cards as I buy and sell mostly baseball but collect football. THanks for this!

[AMBST95]

I'm considering sharing my cards through white whale. For those who are using the site, what has your experience been? Is it worth the effort?

[whiteymet]

seems like this site is no more

[Bram99]

I didn't realize this thread was 5 years old, sorry