We built an app (Shortboxed) to buy and sell comics [6 month update] 4 4

[shortboxed]

For the past year, my business partner and I have been building Shortboxed, a mobile app to buy and sell comics. We officially launched it 12 days ago at C2E2 in Chicago. I held off on posting about it here during development because it was always changing and evolving, but now that it's live and available on iOS and Android, I'd like to open it up for critical feedback and discussion among boardies in hopes of improving it beyond its current state.

Since we launched 12 days ago, we're closing in on 1,000 downloads and have sold a few books for sellers on the platform, including a handful of four-figure books. The reception has been overwhelmingly positive, but there's so much more we have planned.

Here's a brief overview of how it works:

• Sellers submit books that they want to list for sale, which right now is just via email as we handle all requests manually. You can't submit directly through the app yet.
• Upon approval (i.e. you meet certain guidelines), the seller sends us photos of the slabs and we edit them, write descriptions, and create the listings to publish on the app. All you have to do as a seller is send us quality photos, that's it. We take care of the rest.
• Buyers browse comics and buy.
• If someone buys a book, the seller receives an automatic notification via email to confirm that the book is still available. If it is, we complete the purchase with the buyer. 
• The buyers ships the book to Shortboxed. We verify that it's the exact book purchased, look for any undisclosed flaws (e.g. cracks in the case) and ship it to the buyer. 
• Once the delivery to the buyer is confirmed, we remit payment to the seller, minus a 10% commission fee on the price sold. 

Our current short-term roadmap includes building these features, which are currently unavailable on the app:

• [NOW LIVE!] Make an Offer - when a buyer submits an offer, the seller will get an automatic notification to accept, counter, or decline. 
• Seller Portal - instead of manually emailing us to submit books to list on the app, we are building a robust seller portal where sellers can submit books directly from the app, and see all their books currently listed for sale with an on/off toggle switch to mark it as for sale or not for sale. 
• Sales data and CGC census data - we are partnering with comic book sales data platforms to embed sales figures/trends directly within a listing, as well as incorporating CGC census data on each book as well. 
• Ongoing UI (user interface) and performance enhancements. 

We want your feedback!

You can download the app now on iOS and Android app stores - just search for "Shortboxed" and it will pop up. Please take a look and play around with the app. What I'd like is to start a discussion primarily around critical feedback and feature requests. While "this app suckz and you're gonna fail" is feedback, it's not very constructive or helpful. 

• What do you like about the app?
• What don't you like, and more importantly, why?
• What would you change?

I value transparency, so if you have any questions or need clarification on any features or even policies, I'm here to answer them. We're building this app for the community, and it's something we think is needed to usher the hobby into a new era. But we can't do it without your feedback and support!

Apologies for the long post, but I hope it leads to a healthy discussion and guides us into building something truly valuable for the community as a whole. 

-Gene
Founder, Shortboxed

Some mockups of the app below...

 

 

3 Month Update Here:

6 Month Update Here:

 

Edited September 17, 2020 by shortboxed
Added 6 month update.

[ADAMANTIUM]

awesome @shortboxed Wish you well!

I'll download the app, but as far as mailing my comic to you once sold, what do you do if buyer has an issue in the comic once received?

If the buyer has an issue with listing, does that then fall in your concern and not the seller?

I Hope it DOES go well, just some things I was pondering  

and also is the payment from buyer through PayPal, (another 3%), or can the seller request a check instead to save 3% on higher priced, I'm not sure that would work easily for you to still get your 10%  just a curious  

[Wipple]

downloaded- good luck-

[thunsicker]

Quick feedback.

1)  Faceting seems a bit wonky.  I searched Daredevil and faceted Marvel, Silver Age, and CGC and got a Golden Age Daredevil and Amazing Spider-Man 129 (as well as three Silver Age Daredevils)

2)  Changed search to Spiderman (changed to Spider-Man, GOOD!) Told me there were no comics found.

3)  Removed facets and it showed me everything, not just Spider-Man comics.

4)  No browsing by category?

 

EDIT:  

5)  Searched just Spider-Man to make sure there were some and they showed up.  Added back in facets and it showed me everything on the site.

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by thunsicker

[shortboxed]

Great questions. 

4 hours ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

I'll download the app, but as far as mailing my comic to you once sold, what do you do if buyer has an issue in the comic once received?

The current policy is no returns, since we are only offering authenticated graded books (for now). We take the books first to ensure nothing is wrong with them or that it wasn't misrepresented in some way. However, if in the rare case a book gets damaged in transit at our fault, then we have protocols in place to file insurance claims with the shipping company as well as private insurance to handle such claims. 

4 hours ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

If the buyer has an issue with listing, does that then fall in your concern and not the seller?

What type of issues with the listing? We create all the listings and ensure every book is accurately represented, and double confirm that once the book sells and is in-hand before going to the buyer. 

 

4 hours ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

is the payment from buyer through PayPal, (another 3%), or can the seller request a check instead to save 3% on higher priced, I'm not sure that would work easily for you to still get your 10%  just a curious  

The primary payment method is PayPal. We do not charge any buyer's premium and we eat all payment processing fees ourselves out of the 10% commission fee. There is only one fee that gets charged and that's on the final sale price, nothing else is passed on to the buyer, aside from any applicable sales tax and shipping, of course. Check payment is also an option and is actually required for any purchases over $2,500. For books at this price point, we ship via registered mail but do not charge any additional shipping costs to the buyer, we also eat the additional shipping and insurance costs out of the commission fee. This ensures that the books are covered by our insurance company and helps protect against fraud such as credit card chargebacks. This is all subject to change in the future of course, but for now this seems to offer the most protection for everyone involved. 

2 hours ago, RadDude said:

If this is only for slabs then I'm not going to be using it. If it is just for slabs you doing some easy pimping.

Currently we are only offering graded comic books on the marketplace. We do plan to open up the marketplace to raw books in the future, though. 

[shortboxed]

29 minutes ago, thunsicker said:

Quick feedback.

1)  Faceting seems a bit wonky.  I searched Daredevil and faceted Marvel, Silver Age, and CGC and got a Golden Age Daredevil and Amazing Spider-Man 129 (as well as three Silver Age Daredevils)

2)  Changed search to Spiderman (changed to Spider-Man, GOOD!) Told me there were no comics found.

3)  Removed facets and it showed me everything, not just Spider-Man comics.

4)  No browsing by category?

 

EDIT:  

5)  Searched just Spider-Man to make sure there were some and they showed up.  Added back in facets and it showed me everything on the site.

 

Search functionality currently searches the entire listing, not just titles. We're watching usage and considering limiting search to just title, but then that leaves out searches for things like creator names. What would you prefer?

You can filter by various categories such as genre, grade, publisher, artist, etc. I've attached a photo of the Filter and Sort functions, which are right next to the search bar in the Shop page. However, you can only Filter by one option at a time but that's something we're working on fixing right now, to allow multiple Filters to narrow down your search even further. This will be done in the next couple of weeks. 

Edited March 9, 2020 by shortboxed

[thunsicker]

6 minutes ago, shortboxed said:

Search functionality currently searches the entire listing, not just titles. We're watching usage and considering limiting search to just title, but then that leaves out searches for things like creator names. What would you prefer?

You can filter by various categories such as genre, grade, publisher, artist, etc. I've attached a photo of the Filter and Sort functions, which are right next to the search bar in the Shop page. However, you can only Filter by one option at a time but that's something we're working on fixing right now, to allow multiple Filters to narrow down your search even further. This will be done in the next couple of weeks. 

Just so I'm clear, it's either search or facet?  e.g.  If I search for Spider-Man I can't say I want to only see Silver Age issues?  So if I then facet again it will return everything?  And if so when I facet on just Marvel why does it show me Walking Dead and Wonder Woman?

What's your search?  SOLR?  Elasticsearch?

Edited March 9, 2020 by thunsicker

[thunsicker]

Ok one more thing.  If something is sold you might want to either gray out the image on the search results or mark it in some way as sold.

[thunsicker]

Ok one last thing.  With some of the old style slabs it's hard to see the grade in the photo.  Either add the grade to the description at the top or signify in some other way what the grade is.

[thunsicker]

Ok I know I said that was the last thing but one more.  When you look at a picture it somehow moves the iPhone info off the screen:

[shortboxed]

19 minutes ago, thunsicker said:

Just so I'm clear, it's either search or facet?  e.g.  If I search for Spider-Man I can't say I want to only see Silver Age issues?  So if I then facet again it will return everything?  And if so when I facet on just Marvel why does it show me Walking Dead and Wonder Woman?

What's your search?  SOLR?  Elasticsearch?

That's correct. Right now, it's either or. If you use search, it pulls the search independent on what filters are set at. Same with filters. However, we are currently building more robust search and filter functionalities. That's at the top of our roadmap right now. Great feedback - thanks!

14 minutes ago, thunsicker said:

If something is sold you might want to either gray out the image on the search results or mark it in some way as sold.

All sold book are removed from the Shop but still show up in search and they are clearly marked as sold. See attached screenshot. But you bring up a good point that we should probably display them as sold from the search results as well, without having to click into the product. Noted.

13 minutes ago, thunsicker said:

With some of the old style slabs it's hard to see the grade in the photo.  Either add the grade to the description at the top or signify in some other way what the grade is.

The grade is listed at the top of every product page, as shown in the attached screenshot. 

Edited March 10, 2020 by shortboxed

[shortboxed]

6 minutes ago, thunsicker said:

Ok I know I said that was the last thing but one more.  When you look at a picture it somehow moves the iPhone info off the screen:

Keep the feedback coming! It's incredibly helpful. 

This could be a bug. Haven't run into this yet, but we'll look into it. What model iPhone are you using?

[Callaway29]

So I can’t sell on it? I must be a dealer and/or “vetted”? How does one become worthy?

[shortboxed]

1 hour ago, Callaway29 said:

So I can’t sell on it? I must be a dealer and/or “vetted”? How does one become worthy?

There's not much of a qualification process, the only real requirements are that the book(s) you list for sale have a minimum FMV of $100, you actually own the book and have it in-hand, and it's third-party graded. However books are subject to be disqualified, e.g. adult content. To list books, just simply email us to get started. We deliberately did not launch with the ability to automatically list books for sale from the app so we can control the flow of inventory coming in at the beginning so we don't get too overwhelmed and can ensure a steady steam of high-quality listings.

Each listing takes quite a bite of time because we edit each photo and write detailed descriptions for each one. To clarify, we do not adjust any color levels, by "edit" all we do is crop out the book, give it a "perspective crop" to "flatten" the image and paste it onto a pure white background. There is no manipulation of the colors on the books. 

In the future though, we will be introducing a full-featured "seller portal" that will allow users to submit books for sale directly within the app. But for now we're controlling that aspect manually so we can focus on providing high-touch support for anyone who chooses to sell. We've already had a lot of inbound inquiries and sellers in the queue, which we're actively working through. 

[Callaway29]

17 minutes ago, shortboxed said:

There's not much of a qualification process, the only real requirements are that the book(s) you list for sale have a minimum FMV of $100, you actually own the book and have it in-hand, and it's third-party graded. However books are subject to be disqualified, e.g. adult content. To list books, just simply email us to get started. We deliberately did not launch with the ability to automatically list books for sale from the app so we can control the flow of inventory coming in at the beginning so we don't get too overwhelmed and can ensure a steady steam of high-quality listings.

Each listing takes quite a bite of time because we edit each photo and write detailed descriptions for each one. To clarify, we do not adjust any color levels, by "edit" all we do is crop out the book, give it a "perspective crop" to "flatten" the image and paste it onto a pure white background. There is no manipulation of the colors on the books. 

In the future though, we will be introducing a full-featured "seller portal" that will allow users to submit books for sale directly within the app. But for now we're controlling that aspect manually so we can focus on providing high-touch support for anyone who chooses to sell. We've already had a lot of inbound inquiries and sellers in the queue, which we're actively working through. 

Have to say...I like how you’re handling your rollout thus far...methodical and tightly controlled. 

[s-man]

So honestly how will this improve on/be different from ebay and other websites that sell slabs?  Or is it only meant to be another way to purchase?

[shortboxed]

41 minutes ago, s-man said:

So honestly how will this improve on/be different from ebay and other websites that sell slabs?  Or is it only meant to be another way to purchase?

It's an alternative platform to eBay (and others). Of note:

• Lower commission fee for most sellers; 10% on Shortboxed versus eBay fee + PayPal fees
• No buyer's premium

However, the more important factors are:

• Ease of use - we want sellers to be able to list comic books with as little work possible, which is why we do all the heavy lifting and sellers only need to submit photos and the price they want for the book(s). Although it's a manual process now, as I mentioned in prior posts, we're building a more robust seller portal that will make it incredibly easy to list books, and with scale, we'll be able to get them up much quicker than we're able to now. We spent months talking to dealers all over the country while developing the app, and the one things nearly everyone mentioned was that it's too much work to list books for sale on eBay or to manage a website. There are exceptions, of course, but many dealers found that to be a huge hurdle, and we're hoping to help alleviate that. 
• We designed the buy/sell format to build in trust. By taking the books in hand when they sell and sending them to the buyer ourselves, we ensure the right book gets to the buyer, and the seller doesn't have to worry about chasing down payments. Once the book gets confirmed delivered, we remit the payment to the seller. Both sides win. 
• It's a niche app specifically built by comic book collectors, for comic book collectors. The current landscape is very fragmented and catch-all marketplaces like eBay are incredibly noisy. The hobby is missing a true mobile-first experience to buy and sell comics, and collectors (especially the younger ones) value and expect mobile-first experiences for nearly everything, especially commerce. We're building what we think the industry is in desperate need of. 

For buyers, we've been partnering with well-known dealers all over the country, many of whom have little to no online presence, so a lot of the books that will be hitting the app in the coming weeks are only available from certain dealers at conventions. We're giving their books exposure to a wider audience, and they came on board because we're making it as easy as possible for them, by doing all the heavy lifting.

Edited March 10, 2020 by shortboxed

[MGsimba77]

What are your rules if any about listing books on your app while having them listed on other sites such as Ebay at the same time? Do you have a website incase I don't want to download another app?

[shortboxed]

1 minute ago, MGsimba77 said:

What are your rules if any about listing books on your app while having them listed on other sites such as Ebay at the same time? Do you have a website incase I don't want to download another app?

The only rule is that any books cannot be currently up for auction. That breaks the various auction sites' rules as well. We do not force an exclusive listing on the app, so sellers can still list their books on their own websites or bring them to cons, for instance. 

But in order to maintain an up-to-date and accurate marketplace, we regularly check in with sellers to make sure books are still available. And if any have been sold off the app, then we take it down obviously. This will also be made easier in a future release when we launch the "seller portal," where sellers can see all their books currently listed and toggle them on/off. 

This is also why we built in an automatic notification system when books are sold. As mentioned in the original post, once a book is sold, we confirm with the seller that it's still available, and if it is, we complete the transaction. If for some reason it's no longer available, we never charge the buyer and then we take the book down from the marketplace. 

We hope that all of these protocols in place will help maintain as accurate an inventory as possible, and so far it seems to work pretty well. Though we do expect there to be the occasional book that's no longer for sale, we'd like to keep that "failure rate" down to an absolute bare minimum, as close to 0% as we can get. If anyone has any ideas on how to improve this system, please chime in!

[shortboxed]

7 minutes ago, MGsimba77 said:

Do you have a website incase I don't want to download another app?

it's o mobile-only experience, for now. We may toy with the idea of having a website as well but that's not in the immediate plans. Our focus is to build the best app we can.