A mobile app sounds really exciting. I too think a one-time purchase for $4.99 would fatten your wallet. I would also buy up some Deckbox merch. As for the current pricing of Premium, I can't afford it.

9700377 wrote:

jassi007 wrote:

9700377 wrote:
You can't guess why most deckbox marketplace sellers don't want to spend tons of time scraping pricing data from other sites in order to set their own prices?

I'll note that better pricing algorithms and analytics would be a perfect example of a useful premium feature.

I understand what you are saying, even in your wonderfully snarky way. However, the point remains, if you put a card up for sale, and want to sell it, your price has to be within the market value. If it isn't. you aren't going to see many sales.

I accept this. However, your original point was that "we don't want to be competitive." We do. It's just costly, and if pegging to Deckbox's algorithm doesn't make us competitive than this is something that Deckbox should be working on. If Sebi wanted to jack marketplace sales he could just lower the Deckbox price on all the cards, although sellers might end up happy if this does lead to pricing that's substantially below what sellers would like or have come to expect.

I'll also note that one risk for sellers on Deckbox is that people are very savvy at blowing you out if any of your prices are slightly-behind a price spike or if some class of cards is cheaper on Deckbox for some reason that other sites (iirc shocklands used to be unusually cheap here.) This leads me to slightly-bias my prices more on the high side than I would have otherwise. I wish I had the ability to unconditionally cancel an order within 24h of its being made... I guess I could try to outline that on my profile page as a policy, but I could see people being unhappy with it.

One thing I've noticed is that I used to make lots of sales on here but recently I haven't made any. I haven't changed my pricing strategy. Am I to blame? Is the marketplace more competitive (eg. it's attracted outlets like adventuresON)? Or are prices just too high? I don't know. My comparative advantage isn't to know. I came to this site to trade and selling is just a neat value-add but not something I want to devote tons of energy towards. If marketplace sales are falling across the board (are they?) than perhaps this is a site issue.

Every Seller probably has a unique situation. To answer the question as to why my prices may not be competitive here I'll give you some insight to my situation. I already sell cards through the following online market places:

eBay
TCGPlayer
Amazon
Deckbox
Occasionally FB groups and pojo

In addition I work a full time 9-5 job. In order to stay competitive prices can change on a daily basis. It's not humanly possible for me to update prices on all of these platforms that frequently.

My suggestion as a temporary solution would be although Deckbox no longer allows sales outside of their marketplace system that doesn't stop you from contacting the seller directly to negotiate prices and have them update their price in the marketplace to something competitive. A more permanent solution would be for Deckbox to implement a "Best Offer" option for purchases. Similar to what eBay does so that buyers and sellers can renegotiate prices.

nirvana1987 wrote:

9700377 wrote:

jassi007 wrote:
I understand what you are saying, even in your wonderfully snarky way. However, the point remains, if you put a card up for sale, and want to sell it, your price has to be within the market value. If it isn't. you aren't going to see many sales.

I accept this. However, your original point was that "we don't want to be competitive." We do. It's just costly, and if pegging to Deckbox's algorithm doesn't make us competitive than this is something that Deckbox should be working on. If Sebi wanted to jack marketplace sales he could just lower the Deckbox price on all the cards, although sellers might end up happy if this does lead to pricing that's substantially below what sellers would like or have come to expect.

I'll also note that one risk for sellers on Deckbox is that people are very savvy at blowing you out if any of your prices are slightly-behind a price spike or if some class of cards is cheaper on Deckbox for some reason that other sites (iirc shocklands used to be unusually cheap here.) This leads me to slightly-bias my prices more on the high side than I would have otherwise. I wish I had the ability to unconditionally cancel an order within 24h of its being made... I guess I could try to outline that on my profile page as a policy, but I could see people being unhappy with it.

One thing I've noticed is that I used to make lots of sales on here but recently I haven't made any. I haven't changed my pricing strategy. Am I to blame? Is the marketplace more competitive (eg. it's attracted outlets like adventuresON)? Or are prices just too high? I don't know. My comparative advantage isn't to know. I came to this site to trade and selling is just a neat value-add but not something I want to devote tons of energy towards. If marketplace sales are falling across the board (are they?) than perhaps this is a site issue.

Every Seller probably has a unique situation. To answer the question as to why my prices may not be competitive here I'll give you some insight to my situation. I already sell cards through the following online market places:

eBay
TCGPlayer
Amazon
Deckbox
Occasionally FB groups and pojo

In addition I work a full time 9-5 job. In order to stay competitive prices can change on a daily basis. It's not humanly possible for me to update prices on all of these platforms that frequently.

My suggestion as a temporary solution would be although Deckbox no longer allows sales outside of their marketplace system that doesn't stop you from contacting the seller directly to negotiate prices and have them update their price in the marketplace to something competitive. A more permanent solution would be for Deckbox to implement a "Best Offer" option for purchases. Similar to what eBay does so that buyers and sellers can renegotiate prices.

You can already basically do this, actually. A buyer can make a proposed order and then ask for a discount to make it "competitive", and the seller can apply that discount. Maybe some people don't know about this feature, though.

What you suggest touches on one idea that I found cool before, though... that users should be able to specify buy prices for cards on their wishlist similar to how you can have sell prices for cards on your tradelist, and then sellers would be able to reach out to buyers directly.

9700377 wrote:

nirvana1987 wrote:

9700377 wrote:
I accept this. However, your original point was that "we don't want to be competitive." We do. It's just costly, and if pegging to Deckbox's algorithm doesn't make us competitive than this is something that Deckbox should be working on. If Sebi wanted to jack marketplace sales he could just lower the Deckbox price on all the cards, although sellers might end up happy if this does lead to pricing that's substantially below what sellers would like or have come to expect.

I'll also note that one risk for sellers on Deckbox is that people are very savvy at blowing you out if any of your prices are slightly-behind a price spike or if some class of cards is cheaper on Deckbox for some reason that other sites (iirc shocklands used to be unusually cheap here.) This leads me to slightly-bias my prices more on the high side than I would have otherwise. I wish I had the ability to unconditionally cancel an order within 24h of its being made... I guess I could try to outline that on my profile page as a policy, but I could see people being unhappy with it.

One thing I've noticed is that I used to make lots of sales on here but recently I haven't made any. I haven't changed my pricing strategy. Am I to blame? Is the marketplace more competitive (eg. it's attracted outlets like adventuresON)? Or are prices just too high? I don't know. My comparative advantage isn't to know. I came to this site to trade and selling is just a neat value-add but not something I want to devote tons of energy towards. If marketplace sales are falling across the board (are they?) than perhaps this is a site issue.

Every Seller probably has a unique situation. To answer the question as to why my prices may not be competitive here I'll give you some insight to my situation. I already sell cards through the following online market places:

eBay
TCGPlayer
Amazon
Deckbox
Occasionally FB groups and pojo

In addition I work a full time 9-5 job. In order to stay competitive prices can change on a daily basis. It's not humanly possible for me to update prices on all of these platforms that frequently.

My suggestion as a temporary solution would be although Deckbox no longer allows sales outside of their marketplace system that doesn't stop you from contacting the seller directly to negotiate prices and have them update their price in the marketplace to something competitive. A more permanent solution would be for Deckbox to implement a "Best Offer" option for purchases. Similar to what eBay does so that buyers and sellers can renegotiate prices.

You can already basically do this, actually. A buyer can make a proposed order and then ask for a discount to make it "competitive", and the seller can apply that discount. Maybe some people don't know about this feature, though.

What you suggest touches on one idea that I found cool before, though... that users should be able to specify buy prices for cards on their wishlist similar to how you can have sell prices for cards on your tradelist, and then sellers would be able to reach out to buyers directly.

I would use the shit out of that feature. I would love to list a buy price, and let someone propose a sale to me. I'd pay for premium for that type of feature.

jassi007 wrote:

9700377 wrote:

nirvana1987 wrote:
Every Seller probably has a unique situation. To answer the question as to why my prices may not be competitive here I'll give you some insight to my situation. I already sell cards through the following online market places:

eBay
TCGPlayer
Amazon
Deckbox
Occasionally FB groups and pojo

In addition I work a full time 9-5 job. In order to stay competitive prices can change on a daily basis. It's not humanly possible for me to update prices on all of these platforms that frequently.

My suggestion as a temporary solution would be although Deckbox no longer allows sales outside of their marketplace system that doesn't stop you from contacting the seller directly to negotiate prices and have them update their price in the marketplace to something competitive. A more permanent solution would be for Deckbox to implement a "Best Offer" option for purchases. Similar to what eBay does so that buyers and sellers can renegotiate prices.

You can already basically do this, actually. A buyer can make a proposed order and then ask for a discount to make it "competitive", and the seller can apply that discount. Maybe some people don't know about this feature, though.

What you suggest touches on one idea that I found cool before, though... that users should be able to specify buy prices for cards on their wishlist similar to how you can have sell prices for cards on your tradelist, and then sellers would be able to reach out to buyers directly.

I would use the shit out of that feature. I would love to list a buy price, and let someone propose a sale to me. I'd pay for premium for that type of feature.

It would be nice. I'd also add that afaik no other site with nearly as many users has a feature like this. Pucatrade fixes the prices that cards are traded at. It'd be like letting users specify their own buylists, which I don't know is something that currently exists at any site.

Yeah, if a premium account let you specify your own buy list a commission system would work or it'd be worth $20-$30/month if you wanted to just link buylist carts to paypal and not bother with commissions/reimbursement policies/etc (which would avoid a layer of complexity).

@$10 a year, I would definitely pay.
@$20 a year, I might pay.
@$70 a year, no way.

I would pay (one-time fee) $5 or so (maybe up to $10) for a mobile app that works well.

Ken

p.s. If there was a donate button, I would donate $10 or so.

As soon as the mobile app goes live, I am all in on Premium.

9700377 wrote:

jassi007 wrote:

9700377 wrote:

You can already basically do this, actually. A buyer can make a proposed order and then ask for a discount to make it "competitive", and the seller can apply that discount. Maybe some people don't know about this feature, though.

What you suggest touches on one idea that I found cool before, though... that users should be able to specify buy prices for cards on their wishlist similar to how you can have sell prices for cards on your tradelist, and then sellers would be able to reach out to buyers directly.

I would use the shit out of that feature. I would love to list a buy price, and let someone propose a sale to me. I'd pay for premium for that type of feature.

It would be nice. I'd also add that afaik no other site with nearly as many users has a feature like this. Pucatrade fixes the prices that cards are traded at. It'd be like letting users specify their own buylists, which I don't know is something that currently exists at any site.

Personal buylists would absolutely be something I'd be interested in.

Having the Premium features grayed out, dangling in front of those who love Deckbox and the new features but can't afford Premium is a bit of a dick move.

NoxFish wrote:Having the Premium features grayed out, dangling in front of those who love Deckbox and the new features but can't afford Premium is a bit of a dick move.

—1

Happy to support the site. I am looking forward to the Android app. Keep up the great work!

NoxFish wrote:Having the Premium features grayed out, dangling in front of those who love Deckbox and the new features but can't afford Premium is a bit of a dick move.

Can you give me an example of this?
I didn't even know Premium was a thing until I saw the link at the bottom of the page.

Sebi I think one issue here is that if you are doing this yourself you are trying to go in too many directions at the same time. For example once you decided to have the marketplace as an area of potential revenue for the site you should have put all efforts into making that all it can be with feedback from your community before jumping into another area of revenue, otherwise you are just offering a bunch of incomplete products that people will be less likely to use thus lowering your chances of getting the returns you hoped to get to better help you financially upgrade Deckbox with perhaps more help. Just a helpful suggestion and observation there really is a lot of great things about this site.

Love the site and would go premium if it was cheaper.

Kammikaze wrote:

sebi wrote:Even deckbox users that seem to like it here still do shop on tcgplayer and other places, and not here. I am not sure why... I suppose it also takes time for it to gain some footing...

The answer to this question for me is simply the Mass Card Entry and Cart Optimizer options that TCG offers. I would love to devote 100% of my Magic budget to Deckbox, but buying a decent number of cards (10+) is simply much, much easier and faster on TCG.

If I build a deck on here, it's clear what cards are not in my current inventory. Let me click a "Finish this deck" button and buy the cards.

This is why I buy from TCG. I can put a list of cards in, click a few buttons, and get presents in the mail for days. The catch is on there, I have to build the deck here first, figure out what I need, THEN go buy it over there. I'm already here building decks, and there's already a marketplace. You just need to integrate the two.

elroy72 wrote:

NoxFish wrote:Having the Premium features grayed out, dangling in front of those who love Deckbox and the new features but can't afford Premium is a bit of a dick move.

Can you give me an example of this?
I didn't even know Premium was a thing until I saw the link at the bottom of the page.

Look at the header on any of your decks. You'll see something called "Deck Type." It's a drop down list set to "Idea." If you try to change it, you'll get pushed to premium, because there's only one non-premium setting. That's actually how I discovered there was now a Premium level. I came here from a trade-related email, then went straight to the deck I was trading to complete.

And, just jumping in on pricing, there is currently not a single site I'd pay $70/year for. None. In any subject. Bring Premium to the $20-30 range, and it's a snap-buy for me. Any higher, I have to think. Over $50 is almost completely out. (I've paid $60/year before for specialty information, so I'm not saying never.)

(Edit: You'll see I have the Premium check mark on my profile: I cashed in the Seller deposit to try it out. I figure, at worst, I'll use the bulk inventory add feature, then let it slide unless the price drops.)

I have a feeling part of the backlash on this was that it (like nearly every other update on here) came out of the blue, with no discussion, no warning. There's been quite a few times new features have been added that people didn't want. (The recent default deck sorting change, the front page defaulting to "news," etc.) Lack of communication compounded with too-high pricing is going to lead to backlash. Particularly on the internet.

I believe Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, had a good insight on pricing. He knew he could sell a specific quantity of a product at a high price/margin, but he bet he could make more money if he lowered his margins and sold more product. I believe you'll have better premium subscription revenues if you significantly drop the price.

Sebi, I really appreciate what you've made thus far. Remember, however, that you chose to do most of this on your own. Many have volunteered their time and talents to help you over the years, but you've opted (to the best of my knowledge) to keep all the development work to yourself. I can't fault you for wanting maintain control, but--imo--delegating tasks to others could have allowed you to maintain control without having to do it all yourself.

That said, look at how many are signing up and paying. If not enough, poll the community to see how many would sign up at different price points.

Would you rather have 100 users who each agree to pay $7.00 per month, or 1,000 users who pay $2.00 per month?

If the feature set is right, I'd pay $30.00/year for premium features here. If you really knock my socks off with features (and if the marketplace prices eventually better match prices across other sites and marketplaces so that my local trading partners trust them), I might even pay $40.00-50.00/year. Today, however, I don't see features that would entice me to pay even $2.00/month, much less $7.00/month.

BTW--thank you for grandfathering the "Private" inventory feature for existing accounts that had been using it.

I'm looking forward to more good things in the future. Good luck on this next leg of your voyage.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. There are many ideas that are very cool and that I would like to do. Sadly the answer to most of the suggestions is that there is just no time, I do not have time to do all that :(

I might have time to do some very small part of all these suggested things, the trick as always is deciding what...

Also sorry but I cannot answer all posts. I hear the feedback on more communication, and that some people are upset their feedback has not been responded to.

Sadly, I have to say the same thing, it's the same answer: there is just no time to do that... or I would do just talking and no development or maintenance or anything else...

One of the reasons for the premium account is just that... to be able to at least answer some of the users feedback and wishes.

Boogada wrote:If I build a deck on here, it's clear what cards are not in my current inventory. Let me click a "Finish this deck" button and buy the cards.

This is why I buy from TCG. I can put a list of cards in, click a few buttons, and get presents in the mail for days. The catch is on there, I have to build the deck here first, figure out what I need, THEN go buy it over there. I'm already here building decks, and there's already a marketplace. You just need to integrate the two.

Yep, it's on my gigantic todo list :). Not trivial to find a matching set of sellers though. This is a very hard problem to solve correctly (It's similar to this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapsack_problem which is NP-Complete).

It needs compromises to find a solvable solution, but I definitely want to do it.

elroy72 wrote:Happy to support the site. I am looking forward to the Android app. Keep up the great work!

Thank you for the support!

Kammikaze wrote:And in reference to the posts above mine, I would absolutely buy Deckbox deckboxes, sleeves (if good quality, see: DragonShield, KMC), and for sure a t-shirt. :)

Yep, also nice idea, I need to find time to look into what I'd need to do to support that, I have no clue yet.

d72B wrote:As a frequent user and supporter, I have spent time providing feedback on the site and I have enjoyed quick responses and even quick bug fixes. But recently I feel that my feedback has not received any attention - so I stopped giving feedback. That being said, here's some now: ;)

As a seller, I feel that selling desperately needs improvements... and none have been made in months!

• What is the state of the Deckbox pricing algorithm?
• I would likely pay for Premium if it allowed me to set dynamic prices.
• I can't set static prices based on a filter. [[url]https://deckbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=22334][/[url]
• I can't enforce a minimum order size (# cards or $). [[url]https://deckbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=22333][/[url]
• I can't automatically apply a discount. [[url]https://deckbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=22333][/[url]
• I can't set it to require my approval before an order goes through.
• I can't enforce a rule for buyers to choose certain shipping options, i.e. forcing them to pay for tracking under certain conditions.
• I can't give feedback on buyers so we can weed out the bad ones as a community.
• It's hard to fill large orders since I can't sort the card list (my cards are not sorted as one giant alphabetical list (same goes for filling trades).
• It's really difficult to determine if the buyer has left feedback or not.
• I can't see the tracking # I gave the buyer.
• Shipping options gets difficult to maintain the more you have.
• Since you haven't improved the Marketplace or asked your community what you can do to fix it, it seems like it's dead/dying.

On building the Deckbox brand...

• Another idea for making money: sell Deckbox-branded merchandise, e.g. t-shirts, sleeves, playmats, DECKBOXES, scorepads, pens. Maybe only the strongest supporters will buy it, but it will also help get the Deckbox name out there to players at LGSs and kitchen tables.
• Give some sort of bonuses for building up user scores. People love "leveling-up"! This could mean free Premium, exclusive subforums, etc.
• Communicate better. You don't have the time, so get volunteers to do this for you. Send out the missing newsletter and have a presence on Facebook and the like - especially Reddit!

Even a single bullet point of those takes days to iterate design on, then implement, then test, then bugfix, then iterate again after user feedback. Doable with a development team, not doable with 1 part time person. I try to do it, but I see your list, and I have to pick one bullet point and scratch down the other 19. It is hard to do, believe me I'd like to have this website have most of those bullet points in one way or another.

wonderdog79 wrote:However i must say that you baffle me sometimes. This will be my 4th post on this issue with no reply from you at all.
https://deckbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=24043

Going to sound like a broken record, I know, but I did read your posts, just did not have time to post on the forum too much.

I am right now working on a more streamlined support system. The Site Feedback forum / email support and current Trade Disputes done on the forum are not working... too chaotic. Will make a post today or tomorrow with my suggested implementation to solve this.

HikingStick wrote:Remember, however, that you chose to do most of this on your own. Many have volunteered their time and talents to help you over the years, but you've opted (to the best of my knowledge) to keep all the development work to yourself. I can't fault you for wanting maintain control, but--imo--delegating tasks to others could have allowed you to maintain control without having to do it all yourself.

Delegation has a cost, I have been a team leader at my job, I know things take time, you can't drop a developer that just volunteered into a 6 year old codebase and have him produce solid code that you trust and can vouch for.

NoxFish wrote:Having the Premium features grayed out, dangling in front of those who love Deckbox and the new features but can't afford Premium is a bit of a dick move.

How about having the rest of the site free for your use?

Is there an ETA on the mobile apps, esp. iOS? Also, will you open up the API's for other developers? I have, like, 85% finished app built on the promises you made, and cutting me off right now would really be unfair.

HikingStick wrote: Remember, however, that you chose to do most of this on your own. Many have volunteered their time and talents to help you over the years, but you've opted (to the best of my knowledge) to keep all the development work to yourself.

As an addition to my point earlier, I started a draft todo list for what I would need to do and have in place to accept external work, be it contractors / volunteers or employees, for developer positions. It is rough and incomplete, just a starting point, but I will paste it to better highlight how many things would need to be done just to start accepting external work. Bear in mind none of this is in place yet, and not for lack of wanting it, but again, for lack of time and resources:


Need to do on my end:

- code sanitization and security review to make sure access to private user data in not possible by external contributors with access to codebase
- security review for possible weaknesses in production environment access for external contributors with acces to codebase
- collaboration contracts, non-disclosure, legal documents
- documentation on code style, contributing best practices
- documentation on high level overview, and onboarding document. Best way to get started on getting familiar with the codebase.
- a code review process (and document best code review practices)
- a team task management process


Information to get from possible contributors / interviewees:

Please describe your history & experience with the following:
- security & performance best practices with server backend code
- ruby & the rails web framework, and their use in non - trivial projects (40+ kloc)
- background processing servers & job delegation best practices
- sql - and best practices of programatically generating complex filtering queries, database views
- sql - using explain to investigate performance bottlenecks
- javascript best practices for highly dynamic & custom U.I. components, mostly with server-side rendered UI updates
- experience with working & coordinating remotely, with no supervision or assistance

Additional questions:
- how many hours a week you estimate you would be available, and the approximate time of day you’d mostly be available (in CET) for occasional feature or implementation discussions.