did CLINK auction results get pulled from GPA?

[G.A.tor]

Rick, I remember originally that George had wanted the transactions posted on a public website. This was one of the criteria. Don't know if it still is.

 

R.

interesting, I can easily post sales to our website ...and he could link or farm it, or whatever (I don't know the technical terms)....

[VintageComics]

Rick, I remember originally that George had wanted the transactions posted on a public website. This was one of the criteria. Don't know if it still is.

 

R.

interesting, I can easily post sales to our website ...and he could link or farm it, or whatever (I don't know the technical terms)....

 

I believe that public posting was to add legitimacy as one is less likely to commit fraud when it can be publicly tracked rather than just try something *behind the scenes* so to speak.

 

R.

 

 

[Nostalgic Attic]

I would definitely recommend to any users of CL, whether buyer or seller, that they consider individually reporting their sales data to GPA. There won't be an issue of verification if you submit your invoice along with the sales data. I'm sure that would be sufficient for George to include the sales information.

 

There's a problem with selective reporting, though. Buyers who set a record price will want to protect their investment by making sure the sale is reported, but buyers who get a great deal will prefer not to report their purchase, as they'd be bringing down the value of the "last reported sale", as well as the 90-day and 12-month averages.

 

You end up with GPA values that are skewed higher than the reality of the marketplace.

Exactly. (thumbs u

 

 

I can understand Josh's stance on not wanting GPA to include his data for two reasons. One, he has been realizing some incredible prices in his auctions, probably, in part due to the psychology of the comic collector. CL auctions give the ability to bid high , and if you lose- no need to worry about the price going up on GPA. Two, if a seller wants a piece of his high realized prices- he has to go to CL to sell his book, evidenced by some of the posts here, ebay and other auction site sellers do not gain the benefit of his sales data from GPA.

 

I have not been very enthusiastic about GPA including private sales or even dealer sales (unless they include all of them) for the reasons NearMint stated. No one has an interest in reporting a low sales price. If GPA is going to include sales data, it has to be all or nothing, or the credibility of the data is diluted.

 

 

I really don't get the rational being set forth about Josh's reluctance to include his sales data in GPA.

 

Does anyone actually believe that the various price guides that have existed over the decades are any less selective or arbitrary in how they set prices?

 

At least GPA is trying to record actual sales data. GPA can only be as good as the data that is entered into it, so who cares if it is a public or private transaction so long as it can be verified (to whatever extent that could be).

 

Josh's stance simply is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". A high percentage of his sales are exceeding GPA record highs and averages, so why change what he is doing? If sales prices start lagging, then I can certainly see him changing his mind about reporting to GPA.

 

Regarding selective reporting, I agree that the various price guides have had nebulous or selective practices of collecting sales data, but hopefully, GPA won't view the past success of these publications as permission by the collecting community to do the same.

 

What I really liked about GPA is that it captures the results from all free market transactions whether the transaction is a high or low sales price. If GPA accepts selective reporting from individuals and dealers, it increases the potential of market manipulation on low census books and reduces the credibility of GPA. GPA has done a good job of noting 'PS' for private sale...not sure how that is done in their new format. I would prefer that they not even include Private sales in their averages.

[Transplant]

Josh's stance simply is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". A high percentage of his sales are exceeding GPA record highs and averages, so why change what he is doing? If sales prices start lagging, then I can certainly see him changing his mind about reporting to GPA.

If true, this kind of attitude is usually the downfall of internet companies. By the time they can see something is wrong, someone else has stepped in and taken that business away.

[DrWatson]

Josh's stance simply is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". A high percentage of his sales are exceeding GPA record highs and averages, so why change what he is doing? If sales prices start lagging, then I can certainly see him changing his mind about reporting to GPA.

That makes no sense, especially when George and crew were recording the auction data and incorporating that information in to GPA at no cost or inconvenience to ComicLink.

 

There is truly a missing "link" in this whole scenario.

[G.A.tor]

Rick, I remember originally that George had wanted the transactions posted on a public website. This was one of the criteria. Don't know if it still is.

 

R.

interesting, I can easily post sales to our website ...and he could link or farm it, or whatever (I don't know the technical terms)....

 

I believe that public posting was to add legitimacy as one is less likely to commit fraud when it can be publicly tracked rather than just try something *behind the scenes* so to speak.

 

R.

 

I am good with it

[G.A.tor]

 

If traffic is any indicator of success, there is a free tool at Compete.com which allows you to compare traffic for any Website (up to 3 Websites at a time). I ran one on a few known consignment sites. I excluded Heritage from this trending example because the ha.com domain groups all their auction offerings (currency, comics, etc.).

 

having spoken to clink about this, one thing to consider is that Comiclink blocks spiders from crawling the web site during peak usage times (and frequently going into non peak times)...so that information (usage) is not accurate, and skewed down due to that reason...

 

if you run on our site, www.newforcecomics.com, we get a 0, because we block all spiders all the time, so that no traffic info can be capatured...

 

just a fyi...

[comicwiz]

 

If traffic is any indicator of success, there is a free tool at Compete.com which allows you to compare traffic for any Website (up to 3 Websites at a time). I ran one on a few known consignment sites. I excluded Heritage from this trending example because the ha.com domain groups all their auction offerings (currency, comics, etc.).

 

having spoken to clink about this, one thing to consider is that Comiclink blocks spiders from crawling the web site during peak usage times (and frequently going into non peak times)...so that information (usage) is not accurate, and skewed down due to that reason...

 

if you run on our site, www.newforcecomics.com, we get a 0, because we block all spiders all the time, so that no traffic info can be capatured...

 

just a fyi...

 

There are many ways to pick apart traffic stats and services like the abovementioned, and I would probably need an entire thread to properly summarize. I should have disclaimed some of these points when I originally posted it, and I really only posted it for educational purposes.

 

However, keep in mind that as soon as a companys business plan begins to expand into offering online advertising to generate revenue, blocking spiders, and not having any history of external traffic or audience intelligence will hurt your chances of making a compelling enough case for ad publishers to choose your site.

 

The other thing to note is that sites that offer trending tools like the previously mentioned aggregate their data from a variety of different sources, and while you may be intently blocking specific bots/crawlers (search engines, etc), you may be quite surprised to discover that the inbuilt traffic log software on your server may be providing the data to external sources, and the only way to ensure your data isn't being shared is to turn off the traffic log feature (might not be available in all server packages, and may need to need to be forcefully shut by an admin). However, doing the latter also means you won't be able to track or monitor any traffic at all, including visitors (real people, not bots) which could provide you with valuable insights on which books get the most views, etc.