The perfect coin auction site?

NBSQLGeek

What qualities would you like to see in a coin auction site.

We know free posting will never happen. Let me know what you would like to see.

LucyBop

Banning Rick T from winning Frankies from right under my nose!

mbbiker

making it manditory to include high quality pics of the coin.

airplanenut

<< <i>making it manditory to include high quality pics of the coin. >>

What about high quality pics of Shiro's foot?

mbbiker

Only if there was a really cool coin tattoo on it.

kranky

As long as we're dreaming...

Return policy (or lack of it) and shipping costs explicitly stated
If the coin is slabbed, slabbing company name must be in auction title
allow searches for sellers who are ANA, PNG, etc. members

NBSQLGeek

I have an oppurtunity of creating a coin auction website ebay style but without the insane posting fees and then the selling pecentage added on at the end.

Since my overhead costs will be extremely low around maybe $50 a month I can survive and still treat this as a hobby and not some money making oppurtunity.

Would people be interested in 50% less fees than ebay offers?

Steve27

The number one item is a large buying/selling base (in other words a large number of people who frequent the site). Even if you make listings free, you will probably only attract a small number of visitors.

KlectorKid

The percfect auction site would be e-bay with out the scammmers. And I dont have to pay for anything

NBSQLGeek

Yeah thats true, have to establish a custom base. Advertising in some magazines is no problem. Pictures required for auction post is a great idea. I dont see my self spending good money on something I cant see and know its what im looking for. There needs to be an alternative to Ebay and other high priced venues. I dont sell things on ebay but I have seen what they charge, OUCH! And when you get done with the paypal also this cuts deep into your profit margin.

greghansen

I find the 'prices paid' archive @ Heritage to be interesting and even occasionally helpful...especially when the photo is still available. I know teletrade is starting this on a lesser degree. Any coin over $100 should have a photo and keep a permanent auctions archive with prices paid and coin photo. I know that eats up a lot of storage space, but this is our 'dream' site, right?

NBSQLGeek

Photos eat up a lot of space but thats the least of my worries.

Doing the coin value selling/buying trends is no problem also just have to hookup a database, stored procedures and little bit of ASP code.

Also Forums and news would be available on the auctions ite aswell.

coppercoins

You are talking about one of the highest risk, lowest return ventures in all internet site development considering the competition. You would have to literally take over the eBay, Yahoo, Heritage, and Teletrade market to make it work. An auction site with fewer than a thousand members and fewer than 10,000 lots would be a waste of time.

Furthermore, how can you regulate "high quality" photos? The first person you told to re-do their photos because their quality wasn't good enough would create a domino effect that would waste away over half of your seller base. Frankly scans cannot create high quality images of coins, and most people cannot achieve high quality photographs...so where does that leave your listing sellers?

Would you have a minimum listing value as well? I know for an eBay auction it's not worth bothering with a photo unless the coin is worth more than a couple of dollars...what about people who want to boost the number of auctions you have on your site by listing a hundred $1 coins? If that person were me, I wouldn't want to HAVE to bother with images at all.

Good luck, if you're actually serious. I can remember at least a dozen sites that had good ideas and decent quality to what they did, but since they couldn't compete with the buyer base of the larger sites, they floundered. It's of no use to spend the time typing up descriptions of coins even for a free site unless there's a buyer base - and they are all in the places where people already go.

dpoole

I agree with CC. I don't hardly even go to Yahoo or Amazon, because it just isn't time efficient. Ebay's taken over the coin auction market, pretty much, because they have the volume of both buyers and sellers. And it's volume that buyers and sellers are looking for, despite the fees. I'm sure there's a level of fee charges beyond which people will start to rebell and leave (as has been happening with PayPal), but Ebay charges have not reached that level yet.

For a new auction site to make it, you'd have to have some pretty compelling gimic, that won't make you destitute. I'm not imaginative enough to know what that would be (no listing fee; graduated declining Auction Value fees at the end of auctions, depending upon volume?).

Good luck.