Trouble with Comiclink Website? 10 10

[justafan]

On 8/5/2023 at 1:15 PM, wiparker824 said:

What a week to pick to start bidding on CL…. To be fair this whole debacle has lead me to believe CL wouldn’t know how to programmatically phantom bid you to your max even if they wanted to, so I’ve come to the conclusion it’s probably just my paranoia. 

I'm not disagreeing with u on that one, lol. I do think many bidders have a similar bid in mind and often guided by gpa.  So if you tend to bid early or even late snipe you may find that your bids get run up to their max or you run someone else's bid to their max.

The one I was surprised about was the asm #305 9.8 newsstand that went for $1400 within seconds from its final 30 seconds bid of $250. Gpa had it around $300-500. Must have been 2 sniping bidders thinking the same thing: bid $1000+ at the last second thinking they were going to safely get it between $300-700.  Poor winning bidder must have put in $1500+ all in and won.  Ouch. 

This is the down side of all in sniping. Upside for clink and the seller.

[Dr. Balls]

On 8/5/2023 at 2:32 PM, justafan said:

The one I was surprised about was the asm #305 9.8 newsstand that went for $1400 within seconds from its final 30 seconds bid of $250. Gpa had it around $300-500. Must have been 2 sniping bidders thinking the same thing: bid $1000+ at the last second thinking they were going to safely get it between $300-700.  Poor winning bidder must have put in $1500+ all in and won.  Ouch.

Not comics-related, but auction related: I knew a successful dude that was into vintage cars. When he found a car part that he needed (and not easily found) that might have only been worth a couple hundred dollars - he would put a $5000 bid on it to guarantee he'd win. I had asked him if he ever got stung paying way too much for a part doing that. His response: "All the time. Other guys do the same thing, I just learned to put a bigger number down than they would."

[MAR1979]

On 8/5/2023 at 6:18 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Not comics-related, but auction related: I knew a successful dude that was into vintage cars. When he found a car part that he needed (and not easily found) that might have only been worth a couple hundred dollars - he would put a $5000 bid on it to guarantee he'd win. I had asked him if he ever got stung paying way too much for a part doing that. His response: "All the time. Other guys do the same thing, I just learned to put a bigger number down than they would."

Funny

Among some folks I knew way back when eBay introduced Buy-It-Now it was popular for them to say never sell anything that way as all it took was 2 ID10T's

Edited August 5, 2023 by MAR1979

[Pantodude]

In the meantime, Collectors Comics is having like its 7th auction with no seller or listing fees and no buyer's premium.  Their auctions appear to have been growing with each one.  I like the patience that family-run business is showing.  I wonder if this recent CL situation directs even more traffic there, especially while it remains "free" to sell/buy there.  So long as the offerings are good, it should.    

[Telegan]

Why can't this stuff happen during a good GA auction instead of when there are 37 copies of CGC 9.8 PuffPuff the Magic Man up for sale and the first 35 pages are Amazing Spider-Man? 

[wiparker824]

On 8/5/2023 at 5:19 PM, Pantodude said:

In the meantime, Collectors Comics is having like its 7th auction with no seller or listing fees and no buyer's premium.  Their auctions appear to have been growing with each one.  I like the patience that family-run business is showing.  I wonder if this recent CL situation directs even more traffic there, especially while it remains "free" to sell/buy there.  So long as the offerings are good, it should.    

It’s just about convincing the sellers to move elsewhere. As a buyer I’ve bought from all of the big auction sites, doesn’t matter to me, I go where the books are that I want. But CL’s had a grip on a lot of sellers for a long time, not sure I see that changing overnight over this outage. 

[Telegan]

On 8/5/2023 at 10:20 PM, wiparker824 said:

It’s just about convincing the sellers to move elsewhere. As a buyer I’ve bought from all of the big auction sites, doesn’t matter to me, I go where the books are that I want. But CL’s had a grip on a lot of sellers for a long time, not sure I see that changing overnight over this outage. 

Stupid question, but what grip do they have?  I usually buy there or MCS because everything I want on Heritage usually gets bid past what I want to pay.  I need to try Comic Connect one day, though.

[frank_newman]

Agreed on Collector's. I hope this experience leads people to them, I think they put a lot of work into producing a modern auction experience. There are still some issues with the flow of their interface, but I have bought a handful of books from them in these auctions and I have been happy with their communication and service.

[toro]

Before this happened I already sent books in for this Collectors Comics auction. I had not been overly happy with some Clink results lately and thought I would send in a dozen books or so just to test it out.  Ended up sending in around 75+ lots.   The website is a little clunky, but I have bought off of them and they were fairly fast.

[Ryan.]

I sent three books in for the current Collectors Comics auction, to test them out. I find their website pretty annoying but they are easy enough to work with. I'm also bidding on their auction for the first time. 

[batmiesta]

On 8/5/2023 at 9:32 PM, justafan said:

I'm not disagreeing with u on that one, lol. I do think many bidders have a similar bid in mind and often guided by gpa.  So if you tend to bid early or even late snipe you may find that your bids get run up to their max or you run someone else's bid to their max.

The one I was surprised about was the asm #305 9.8 newsstand that went for $1400 within seconds from its final 30 seconds bid of $250. Gpa had it around $300-500. Must have been 2 sniping MUPPETS thinking the same thing: bid $1000+ at the last second thinking they were going to safely get it between $300-700.  Poor winning bidder must have put in $1500+ all in and won.  Ouch. 

This is the down side of all in sniping. Upside for clink and the seller.

The seller must have been doing cartwheels around the room after that, I know I would've, what a couple of clowns, I don't get the whole newsstand crack.  

[batmiesta]

On 8/6/2023 at 11:36 AM, Ryan. said:

I sent three books in for the current Collectors Comics auction, to test them out. I find their website pretty annoying but they are easy enough to work with. I'm also bidding on their auction for the first time. 

Totally agree with you, I watch him on YT and like  most of his content, but I had to laugh when he did a video about the Clink issue and was slagging the site off for being old and dated when his site is clunky as hell. 

[wiparker824]

On 8/5/2023 at 8:34 PM, Telegan said:

Stupid question, but what grip do they have?  I usually buy there or MCS because everything I want on Heritage usually gets bid past what I want to pay.  I need to try Comic Connect one day, though.

I don’t know I don’t sell there, but I can tell you they seem to get a quantity of books I don’t see on other sites. They may not get as many massive books as Heritage but they get enough of everything else that leads me to believe sellers like selling there, a lot. 

[batmiesta]

I have sold on Heritage and Clink, and I wish I had sold the books that I sold on Heritage on Clink, for example, I sold a G/S Man-thing #1 9.8 on Heritage for $450 (or around that) one just sold for $1357 on Clink, and that's not the only example I could use. 

[frank_newman]

Still getting this:

So I have to go back to the list of my bids and refresh to see if my bid is now high or not.

Just imagine if this site had customers who had actual standards of quality. I guess there is some romance in bidding in a Haitian bazaar.

[batmiesta]

This came up when I bid but the bid did actually register. 

[Stefan_W]

On 8/5/2023 at 8:19 PM, Pantodude said:

In the meantime, Collectors Comics is having like its 7th auction with no seller or listing fees and no buyer's premium.  Their auctions appear to have been growing with each one.  I like the patience that family-run business is showing.  I wonder if this recent CL situation directs even more traffic there, especially while it remains "free" to sell/buy there.  So long as the offerings are good, it should.    

They are only promising no selling or listing fees for the first undisclosed amount of time. The plan is to include those in the future and we will have to see how they compare to other auction houses. I am sure they will stay pretty reasonable for a while but who knows long term once they start building up a successful model. 

[ComicsAndCode]

On 8/4/2023 at 3:18 PM, wiparker824 said:

I guess but I assume CL isn’t even in a data center. Just some guy’s old Dell tower running Windows Sever 2003 in a closet at CL. 

probably not far from the truth.

[ComicsAndCode]

On 8/6/2023 at 11:53 AM, Stefan_W said:

They are only promising no selling or listing fees for the first undisclosed amount of time. The plan is to include those in the future and we will have to see how they compare to other auction houses. I am sure they will stay pretty reasonable for a while but who knows long term once they start building up a successful model. 

I could be totally off here, but all indications show that what they have going is a build-to-sell business model. In other words, maybe focusing less on generating profit in the short-term and more on a quality user experience, build brand, prove a viable product, and grow a respectable customer base. It's logical to assume they're gearing it up for potential buyers - but in the end it's an assumption. All in all, I got a lot of respect for them.

Edited August 6, 2023 by ComicsAndCode

[MAR1979]

On 8/4/2023 at 6:18 PM, wiparker824 said:

I guess but I assume CL isn’t even in a data center. Just some guy’s old Dell tower running Windows Sever 2003 in a closet at CL. 

I have it on good authority it's Windows 2000 with no Service Packs running on a no-name PC built by the lowest bidder.