26 Reply by d72B

(25 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

9700377 wrote:

It'd be nice if you could have it so that you can only list a subset of your cards for sale. eg. If I have 10 Wooded Foothills, I might want to keep a playset and have the remaining 6 for sale.

In this case you set your inventory count to 10 and you tradelist count to 6... or are you saying this doesn't work?

9700377 wrote:

I'm a bit loose with my inventory - I'll list cards that I'm receiving as parts of other trades before I actually have them, for example, so that I can negotiate trades with them while they're coming to me.

This is poor practice. While it doesn't seem to be against site rules, I'm sure this will cause headaches when cards come in late or in poor condition.

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27 Reply by d72B

(7 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Helios52 wrote:

To be honest, It just makes more sense to double check prices in multiple places than to rely on one source. I have been cross checking between DB prices and all other sources since the begining so its pretty much second nature to me by now.

Yes longtime users know that Deckbox pricing has never been reliable and so they use outside sources. What about new users? Should they be warned to not trust Deckbox prices? What stops them from being taken advantage of?

Deckbox provides prices that are often wildly inaccurate and this is probably more damaging than not providing any at all. Should Deckbox remove its prices until they work?

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28 Reply by d72B

(25 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

One week. Bump.

Sebi I'm not expecting you to have all the answers - I'm hoping to start a discussion. I think you need more feedback from your user base and we need more info from you.

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29 Reply by d72B

(7 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Many users try to take advantage of Deckbox's broken pricing. This is why I stopped trading.

Sebi obviously needs to fix the algorithm and/or the data sources. In the interim he (or some skilled volunteer) should write a tool that compares Deckbox prices to TCGMid and lists all the broken prices so Sebi can manually fix them.

Sebi, you can't rely on users to report each broken price because many will be motivated to not do so in order to take advantage. The  pricing issues thread doesn't cut it.

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30 Reply by d72B

(25 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

9700377 wrote:

One additional point is that sellers can also write these conditions into their *shipping options*. This guarantees that buyers see them.

Good point, sellers should be aware that they can do this. It helps, but doesn't solve the problem.

To reiterate, the problems with putting conditions in the profile and/or shipping options:

- For the seller: will Sebi back me up and remove negative feedback based on my text? Will Sebi do it fast enough that I won't lose sales? Which conditions will Sebi back up and which ones will he not?

- For the buyer: I don't want to have to read all that and I don't know if the seller's conditions will be enforced anyway. Some seller's conditions may be unfair or break site rules or laws (!). And this is just text that can change any time, so who's to say that the seller doesn't change it after my purchase to justify cancelling my order? Sebi having to dig through server logs to see if the text changed would be a nightmare.

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31 Topic by d72B

(25 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Sebi, I'm hoping you can provide an update on the Deckbox Marketplace for us:

1. The state: how are we doing? Is the marketplace growing in terms or buyers? Sellers? $ spent?

2. Advertising: is anything being done to advertise the Deckbox marketplace? How do new customers find us? Also I still think Deckbox merch would go a long way to get the word out.

3. Deckbox pricing: previously you stated that adding stores as sellers would go a long way to improve pricing. Since then I've seen only one store added (and it's US-only sad). Is anything being done to get more stores on here? Is there anything else being done to improve pricing? i.e. updating algorithm accuracy, spike protection, update more frequently, provide users a method to "flag" card prices as inaccurate (instead of the Pricing Issues thread)

4. Seller pricing tools: still woefully inadequate (This thread)

5. Optional seller conditions: currently sellers can only try to protect themselves by writing conditions in their profile and then hoping you'll back them up vs negative feedback when buyers ignore these conditions and orders get cancelled. This is a bad experience for everyone. Conditions must be enforced by the site. (This thread and many others) i.e. min & max order $, min & max order # cards, forcing shipping options with tracking based on order $ or # cards, automatically applying discounts, requiring seller order approval before an order can be paid for

6. Sealed Product: is anyone selling sealed product? Buyers need to be able to view what is actually in stock instead of only viewing by category. What was the driving force behind this large investment of your time?

7. Other stuff:
- It's hard to fill large orders since I can't sort the card list
- Shipping options get difficult to maintain the more you have
- Can you put a link to the Marketplace in the top bar in addition to the shopping assistant?

Thanks!

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32 Reply by d72B

(2 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Sebi looked at switching to a tagging system, but he had difficulty with the implementation. I'll note that the tagging system would be the fix for the most requested change: using cards from your inventory in your decks instead of placeholders.

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33 Reply by d72B

(9 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Sellers should be given the tools to set whatever conditions they like on their sales. If they miss out on sales because of these conditions then that's on them.

The marketplace has MUCH worse hindrances than some sellers making it difficult for Sebi's shopping cart tool...

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34 Reply by d72B

(4 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

I noticed that the "Show Value" feature now shows the value of the filtered list so I'm thinking maybe there's hope for operations on a filtered list...

Will we ever be able to set all prices in a filtered list? This is one of the biggest things holding back selling (the biggest is Deckbox pricing).

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35 Reply by d72B

(24 replies, posted in Announcements)

Excellent! Thank you Sebi for protecting sellers and for clarifying the "sealed" product question.

One quick idea to prevent buyer confusion is to duplicate each product and prefix the name with "FACTORY SEALED" or "OPENED" (or even "NEW" and "USED"), e.g. Instead of "Battle for Zendikar - Fat Pack" have "FACTORY SEALED Battle for Zendikar - Fat Pack" and "OPENED Battle for Zendikar - Fat Pack". Perhaps a warning banner could be displayed when viewing "OPENED ..." listings that instructs the viewer to look at the listing's notes for details. I'm sure you could come up with something more elegant, but this quick fix could prevent confusion in the meantime.

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36 Reply by d72B

(24 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:

@d72B Right now yes, but perhaps it would make sense to not allow them to?

Yes, please give sellers the ability to block buyers. Otherwise they would have to cancel the order and be vulnerable to negative feedback.

d72B wrote:

After looking at what "sealed" product is available now on Deckbox I'm wondering: what is the intent of this feature? Is it literally for only FACTORY SEALED products or can sellers list parts like this:

  • list an Intro Pack with a note that says the boosters have been removed

  • list an Fat Pack with a note that says it's just the box, booklet, and spindown

  • list a Booster with a note that says it's a repack...

Sebi, still looking for an answer to this please ^

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37 Reply by d72B

(8 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

I used to have something like "ask me for a discount before paying" in my profile. Buyers who actually read my profile were rewarded. Those who didn't still got what they expected. So I wouldn't sweat it if buyers don't wait for the discount before paying. If they come back after payment asking for a discount then you can do a PayPal partial refund, offer them a bonus card, - or better yet, offer them a bigger discount on their next order wink

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38 Reply by d72B

(24 replies, posted in Announcements)

After looking at what "sealed" product is available now on Deckbox I'm wondering: what is the intent of this feature? Is it literally for only FACTORY SEALED products or can sellers list parts like this:

  • list an Intro Pack with a note that says the boosters have been removed

  • list an Fat Pack with a note that says it's just the box, booklet, and spindown

  • list a Booster with a note that says it's a repack...

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39 Reply by d72B

(24 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:

Additionally, if you had a bad experience with someone and do not wish to receive trade proposals or emails from them, you can block them, via an option in the menu when you visit their profile. This will have the following effects:

- you will not see them in Trading Opportunities, Shopping Assistant, or the marketplace.
- they will not be able to email you
- they will not be able to propose trades to you

Good stuff! Can someone I block can still buy things from me?

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40 Reply by d72B

(8 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

  • PayPal is 2.9% + $0.30 (ref). PayPal also charges for currency exchange (2.5%) and international (outside Canada & US) transactions (1%).

  • Selling on Deckbox is 6.9% (ref) + PayPal

  • Selling on eBay is 10% (ref) + PayPal/Credit Card fee

  • Selling on TCGPlayer is 11% + $0.50 (ref) + PayPal/Credit Card fee

Instead of stopping selling you might as well try this: try to effectively implement a minimum order on your own using shipping options: increase your shipping charges to cover the flat fees: +$0.30 across the board and + 3.5% for each international. Then increase it to the point that the minimum order would be worth it to you to send. To remain competitive you can then decrease your card prices a little bit.

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41 Reply by d72B

(3 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

It seems to me that this falls under "various other reasons" for a seller to cancel an order (ref).

The blanket statement "Buyers are able to leave negative feedback for canceled purchases" leads me to believe that you would NOT be protected from negative feedback.

It's possible that this is out of date ("Last Modified: 10th March 2014"), but given Deckbox will NOT implement minimum order sizes (ref) I wouldn't expect Deckbox to back you up on this.

That being said, if you do get negative feedback in this case you should open a dispute to have it removed.

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42 Reply by d72B

(17 replies, posted in Announcements)

Thanks! big_smile

I appreciate that all BFZ cards have prices set! (except Bring to Light)

Filling out prices for the Expeditions would be valuable whenever possible!

Also Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger has a weird mana cost "1""0" instead of "10" when viewed in a table.

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43 Reply by d72B

(3 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

The_Captains_Booty wrote:

So does anyone know how I can make my "starting from" .70 in stead of 2.50?

Put the lower $ shipping higher in your shipping options list. Deckbox just picks the first one it sees (going top to bottom) per country for the default - not the lowest. This is a bug that has been previously reported.

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44 Reply by d72B

(7 replies, posted in Announcements)

Excellent, thanks! Looking forward to more! big_smile

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45 Reply by d72B

(32 replies, posted in Announcements)

Thanks for the work on the My Orders page! Works great.

sebi wrote:

Thoughts?

For the sake of transparency: ideally the fix would be the tagging system implementation which allows members to tag specific cards in their inventory for each deck instead of using this other representation of that card. Of course that is a large implementation, so in the meantime...

IMO keep it simple and just use the latest printing - whether supplementary or not - since that price (if accurate) is usually indicative of the "going rate" for that card. If excluding any printings I would say exclude only the foil-only printings like FTVs and Premium (foil) Decks. Duel and Event decks should be included since they're often the best edition to buy since they're cheaper.

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46 Reply by d72B

(3 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I believe this is already implemented: "Edit Profile & Settings" > under "Trading Information" select "Will send", set to "Not Trading: I do not wish to trade".

Not sure if this is the default for new members, but it probably should be.

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47 Reply by d72B

(32 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:

Agreed. Suggestions welcome on what would help sellers to easier price inventories.

See this post

Also see Support Case # 143

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48 Reply by d72B

(32 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:

I think any kind of transparency will encourage people to manipulate pricing.

I agree that we don't need to know the formula. We only want to know because it needs improvement and we want to help. That being said, without knowing how it works... IMO the formula should have a majority weighting towards completed sales (as opposed to current prices) and should weigh the sources (e.g. eBay, Deckbox) by number of sales completed (so while the Deckbox Marketplace is small it will have a small impact on the price). These two factors would make it more resilient to manipulation from Deckbox sellers.

Other concerns:
- Can you update prices more than once per day? Doing this often, but at irregular intervals should help prevent manipulation.
- With the current algorithm if I update my prices to 90% of the Deckbox price once per day will that not continuously drive prices down? My suggestions above will help vs this, but any hope for dynamic pricing in the future?

sebi wrote:

I will be looking to get more stores involved in selling which will further stabilize pricing.

How do stores price their cards on Deckbox? Do they enter each card price individually (for hundreds of thousands) or do they have a better interface than the rest of us? If regular Deckbox sellers had better tools then they would have better prices and that would feed back into the Deckbox price.

sebi wrote:

Back when we used tcgplayer there were still many, many reports and emails I got that pricing is bad on some cards, and missing on many others.

Yes, there will always be corrections needed so the process of alerting you to an incorrect price should be built-in functionality. Put a button on the card page. When someone clicks it, add the card to the price review queue. The more users that click it, the higher in the queue it goes.

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49 Reply by d72B

(2 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Incorrect Prices Thread

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50 Reply by d72B

(32 replies, posted in Announcements)

Kammikaze wrote:

Please stop asking Sebi to manually set prices for every copy of every single card that's ever been printed.

With the seller pricing tools severely limited it's important that Deckbox has a price for each card so that a seller can price all their cards to a % of the Deckbox price (the only viable way to price a large number of cards).

Kammikaze wrote:

... the value that Deckbox shows is (I'm pretty sure) heavily weighted toward the prices of copies that people currently have listed for sale. If no one has any copies of that card listed for sale then DB doesn't know what price to give it.

If there's no price because there's no Deckbox sellers then obviously the algorithm doesn't use external sources (and is not weighted).

The bottom line is that the Deckbox pricing algorithm has always been subpar and the promised transparency has never come.

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