A Serious Discussion about Brick Classifieds

[Jeff Mack]

For the sake of this conversation, it doesn't matter if they can choose between them or not.  We are trying to get an idea of what people are interested in doing.  In a perfect world there can be unlimited options, but things can be too confusing.  

[Raykong]

I think it is hard to choose which model I would prefer because In reality i'd prefer whichever model saves me the most money ( based on my expected and intended use). so perhaps if I knew the rates you folks were discussing (ie. 7% a transaction or $150 a year) I'd be able to express my preference

[justafrog]

I prefer a "if it sells I pay you" model. That allows me to test it and if it doesn't work for me/doesn't get traffic that is useful to me, I am not out any money.

 

There is a problem with that model, however, from your standpoint: if I list stuff that isn't desirable (whether because I'm pricing too high, or I'm listing stuff that nobody wants), I'm using up your site space and not gaining you anything. In fact, I'm cluttering up the joint with my lame junk and making it harder for buyers to find the good stuff.

 

I don't mind a subscription based model, if I take a chance with BC and they don't pan out, I'll take it as a loss. Heck, on this site I won't even MIND the loss because I've already made a butt-ton of money from the advice and information I get from this site. Some folks, however, hate "listing fees" (which is basically what a subscription based model is) so you might get some resistance.

 

My .02.

[Bold-Arrow]

I personally prefer the multi-tier yearly subscription that would be tailored to the volume that a particular member wishes to sell. To me, planning how much I would like to sell and what the cost of doing business would be, take a lot of guess out of the equation

[Jeff Mack]

All of you have an idea of how much you are going to sell.  Websites overall need to be simple.  Here are a few option, pay this and you get this.  Adding in 20 options of possible plans is of course doable, but is that ideal.  Again, if things are too confusing to the average user, they won't use the site.

 

Do you have 100s or thousands of sets that you are going to list?

Do you sell no more than 10 sets a year?

 

Would you rather pay a flat fee of $75.00 a year and not worry about commissions?

 

Again, for the subscription plan there can be a few levels.

 

There will be a trial period for a while so you will get an idea of where its going

[Darth_Raichu]

Jeff, to me, the subscription base would be good for people who treat their inventory as a business. They would know the inventory level and the kind of subscriptipn that matches that need. However, for someone who treat LEGO as hobby and only sell periodically, the percentage based fee should fit them better. Also, if you only offer subscription, you would discourage people who sell 1 or 2 items per year from using your system.

By offering both paying models you would get the most users for the system.

[redghostx]

I like iahawks method but with two options only.

A yearly subscription model and a percent model for those who only sell for a special occasion (say to a maximum of X transactions)

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Brickpicker mobile app

[comicblast]

Speaking for myself, I prefer a fee on transactions rather than a subscription, mainly because I don't think I would ever sell enough to make the yearly subscription worth it.

Maybe Brick Classifieds could follow an eBay sort of model, with basic level sellers paying a flat fee on all transactions without any discounts, while larger sellers with larger inventory can creat "Stores", which they pay to create annually but get discounts of the fees. I think this model caters to a larger audience, since there are huge sellers/buyers who might use Brick Classifieds, and there are small sellers like myself who only sell a few things a week/month.

[MartinP]

Speaking for myself, I prefer a fee on transactions rather than a subscription, mainly because I don't think I would ever sell enough to make the yearly subscription worth it.

Maybe Brick Classifieds could follow an eBay sort of model, with basic level sellers paying a flat fee on all transactions without any discounts, while larger sellers with larger inventory can creat "Stores", which they pay to create annually but get discounts of the fees. I think this model caters to a larger audience, since there are huge sellers/buyers who might use Brick Classifieds, and there are small sellers like myself who only sell a few things a week/month.

I completely agree with you. I could never sell enough to make the subscription worth it, so it would be better for me to have some sort of small fee on each sale.

[iahawks550]

I have been holding off selling some things in hopes this would come about. I'm pretty excited about how awesome this could be.

[Undercover Boss]

Just to give you an idea of where my thoughts are on this subject.

 

I started on selling on EBAY a month before discovered this site and this is the brakedown

1. Month 1, sold 2 sets
2. Month 2, sold 7 sets
3. Month 3, sold 15 sets

Today, I got the chance to sell 200 sets on one transaction, but the high fees from EBAY made it unprofitable to me and to the buyer (buyer wanted a discount for a large purchase).  So a flat fee to me would make sense, but if you had asked me this question on month 1, I would have said that I preferred lower commission and I pay only if I sell.  My response would be, a trial period would be a good idea, that way you can see how much traffic is coming and how much you sell on this venue.

[iahawks550]

OK, because I enjoy this type of thing.

 

Three options

 

1. 6% fee for any single item sold

 

2. "Purchase" block of 50 sales for $50, fees drop to 3% on those sales. However, they can also choose #1 for any sale.

 

This would mean a seller who sold 50 items at an average of $33/item, would break even compared to option #1. But, if they averaged $50/item, it would save them $25 over option #1

 

3. "Purchase" block of 100 sales for $100, fees drop to 2%. However, they can choose option #1 for any sale.

 

This would mean a seller who sold 100 items at an average of $25/item would break even compared to option #1. But, if they averaged $50/item, it would save them $100 over option #1

[imirish11]

A. Free listings. Maximizes the quantity of items for sale.

B. Transaction Fee should be less than or equal to Paypal unless you are implying you offer more valuable service than what Paypal offers. This assumes ppl use Paypal to complete payment.

The result: a simple business model which encourages (literally) millions of listings (indexed by piece or set#, complete with affiliate links should users find a better offer on another website.) 1-2% commission for the site owners will add up with tens of thousands of transactions per day.

I'd avoid subscriptions of any kind. This presents an immediate barrier to entry and immediately reduces your target market.

Also, you should hire Eric from bl.

[comicblast]

I also have an idea about minimizing the amount of "moldies" and "oldies" in the Classifieds. How about a listing can only be up for x amount of time before the price/listing has to be adjusted or taken down? Of course, something like this would have problems, such as if someone listed a set that few people have the means to afford, but perhaps the time limitation could vary by price range, ie. $0-$100 3 weeks, $100+ 5 weeks.

[Jeff Mack]

Many of you are not reading what I said regarding the subscription.  There will be a few tiers.  We even talked about  a tier that will allow people to post up to 10 items for free all year long. That will work for many of you that don't post a lot.  If we charge $75 for unlimited listings and sales that works for the heavy hitters and then there can be plans in between.  Some of you may be thinkings in all or nothing.  That is not what I am saying.

[lorenm99]

I know some people don't sell much, but with eBay fees and the changes they are doing you would only need to sell $750 worth of stuff per year to pay a $75 annual subscription. That could be 1 expensive item or 100 small ones, but all of us who sell on eBay realize that after fees and shipping, PayPal included it is hard to make a profit. The only real benefits that I see in eBay is the discounted shipping fees. I don't know if shipping is part of the proposed plan, but should be looked into.

[Jeff Mack]

I also have an idea about minimizing the amount of "moldies" and "oldies" in the Classifieds. How about a listing can only be up for x amount of time before the price/listing has to be adjusted or taken down? Of course, something like this would have problems, such as if someone listed a set that few people have the means to afford, but perhaps the time limitation could vary by price range, ie. $0-$100 3 weeks, $100+ 5 weeks.

 

Well your concern is valid with us as well.  If we just do a flat 2-5% fee, then people will come on, price things like crazy and then there will be no sales and people will say it doesn't work.  We need to try and make you seller somewhat responsible.  I can do all the marketing in the world and bring a ton of people, but if your prices are out of range no one will buy it regardless of whatever the plans are.  There has to be some sort of responsibility on the sellers.  

 

Everyone will have their own store.  Its just how much you want to put in it and what you want to price the items at.

[mightycaseyatbat]

So are these stores for sets only, or is this in the bricklink/brickowl model with individual parts and minifigs?

I love this site and just opened a store on bricklink although I only have like 3 items.

[Jeff Mack]

So are these stores for sets only, or is this in the bricklink/brickowl model with individual parts and minifigs?

I love this site and just opened a store on bricklink although I only have like 3 items.

 

Will you be able to post parts, yes, but it is not really about parts.  We need to see how this works first before sinking a ton of time in to parts.  Brickpicker has never really been about parts and Brickowl and Bricklink already do it well enough.

[dbost01]

This is like putting the cart before the horse. It is really hard to judge the value of something(fees) before we can see what it can do.

[Jeff Mack]

This is like putting the cart before the horse. It is really hard to judge the value of something(fees) before we can see what it can do.

 

My initial post was to have an open discussion, I asked you to "pretend".  Looking for opinions. I think we can close this discussion for now, I don't think this helped honestly, Ed and I will just put what we think will work best for the site and the user. Thank you.

[dbost01]

There you go:)

[belljohn]

Many of you are not reading what I said regarding the subscription.  There will be a few tiers.  We even talked about  a tier that will allow people to post up to 10 items for free all year long. That will work for many of you that don't post a lot.  If we charge $75 for unlimited listings and sales that works for the heavy hitters and then there can be plans in between.  Some of you may be thinkings in all or nothing.  That is not what I am saying.

 

I like this plan.  If the first tier includes free listings with a sale fee, then that might be all anyone needs until they hit that limit.  Then, when they know it will be profitable, they can bump up to a yearly subscription.  This seems perfect to me, and it will allow everyone to try it out without any initial cost.

[brickmaster]

My initial post was to have an open discussion, I asked you to "pretend".  Looking for opinions. I think we can close this discussion for now, I don't think this helped honestly, Ed and I will just put what we think will work best for the site and the user. Thank you.

 

Wait! Before you close it (hope this gets in)..

 

I guess this was hard for some people to figure out what they actually do.  I guess they have no idea on how to figure out what their business is capable of.  Jeff did ask for people to just go with it and pretend that things were good and it was time to make a decision.  You don't need to know all the features for this discussion, just a thought.

 

1. Ed and Jeff have always been fair on what they do here.  They give too much if you ask me

2. He said there would be a trial, so you will have a chance to see how it works without costing you anything.  I am sure there will be ample time to see what happened

3. He is right, the success of this is not just about his the features it has, it has to do on how we are as sellers and our prices. They would be able to market more if we are good at what we do.

4. If you can't have an idea of how many items you "may" sell in a year, then maybe you should get out of lego investing.

5. He mentioned a possible free plan for low volume investors.  You can't really argue with that can you? 

6. For high volume sellers, even if the fee was $75, does that really crush you?  I would say that there is a pretty good chance you will make that money back fairly quick if you are not pricing your stuff out of reach of people.

7. I personally would be fine with either fee plan, but to know that $75 is all I could possibly pay in commissions and the site takes off.  Merry Xmas all year to me

 

I know there are questions and mysteries on how this will do.  I know some of us have probably saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars on their daily deals and other things.  Chalk the fee up as a donation to the site to help it grow. We all win.

[BrickLegacy]

This might be slightly off topic, but I think it applies.

 

I'd like to see Brickpicker charge for premium level services, including access to the daily deals, premium content, price guides, and a certain number of free listings.  I know most people don't want to hear this, but the service you guys provide is incredible and shouldn't be free.  Think of Morningstar where they offer some basic mutual fund information to the general public, but if you are a serious investor and what more valuable information, you pay for it.

 

I wouldn't mind paying $50 per year if that meant I had exclusive access to the best deals, the best information, and the best resources in the Lego investing community.  If all the power users and most knowledgeable investors were posting to the premium forums, I would pay for that.  When certain users post deals or post comments, I listen.  I know Brickpicker has saved me well over $50 this past month alone on deals based on tips in the daily deal threads.  If you threw in 20 free listings, that would make the premium service even more attractive.

 

I guess I'm just a firm believer that if you provide a service worth paying for you should charge for it.  Just my $0.02.