Buy/Sell/Trade Forum

Not sure how quickly you can decide on a route forward and implement it, but your previous setup was decent for trying to find specific cards searching by team, set name/year player etc and an awesome 'dime box' style just browse and see what is in there experience.

Unfortunately right now you're not really offering either, no searching and a huge reduction in online posted stuff to browse.

Not quickly that's certain and it's looking like it's going to be the full 9 yards spelled out and imaged  to make it searchable for all.

Certainly less than a couple of thousand items only on site right now as a lot of what gets added goes quick especially since we have gone with better cards in the "reboot".

It would be amazing if i could bring it all here just to save all the website fees.

The major problem i encountered when i did try it was accessing my inventory position i had attached to the cards i entered here on TCDB

In an order i did get of 150 cards, i had to go to each card's notes to get my inventory position for each card.

It wasn't as simple as tossing it into excel and sorting it as we do for our bcs website.

No shopping cart, payment processing here on TCDB but thats minor stuff understandable since site is geared more for swaps than sales.

If there are remedies to that inventory accessability for order pulling then im all in here at TCDB.

It is a sideline of sorts as both the wife and I have full-time jobs.

The site offers layaway so a "full" purchase isn't absolutely necessary.

I would love to bring it all here ,save the website fees as well as all the time like Bruno said

the images and descriptions are already here what is missing for us is a way to point/print so that my inventory position shows up on a pick slip/order without the need to click each card for its' notes. If that 1 tiny detail can be resolved then i'm all in here at TCDB.

If it was 1/12th only that would be great but we are at 5 million not 500K as for the overstock redundant inventory it isn't at all top priority it just takes up space and much of it has barely been peeked into.

A lot of "rainy day" fun.

Over the past 3+ years we have some established regular customers who i reach out to and offer items straight to their email knowing that they are for example Dodgers fans, goalie collectors, Jays fans etc... 

A lot of this is just my conscious side hoping that the guy that collects gets it before a reseller does but i cant drag everyone over to sit there and wait for their cards to show up. 

vrooomed wrote:

I concur with Bruno.

However, I have some questions.

Let me preface it by saying that I have attempted to find specifics on the site, and did not find enough to warrant a purchase.

That said, how much of the traffic on your site is the same as the traffic on TCDB? If it's 60%-75% (or higher), you'd be better served to port everything here (and then direct the other percentage that you get from elsewhere to here).

How hard is it to get organized? I realize you have millions of cards, and I'm talking a smaller scale when I dealt with the 35-40K I had from my best friend when he moved. It contained baseball, basketball, hockey, football, and some mixed non-sport and multi-sport releases. Using a couple extra boxes to begin with, I sorted them out by sport, then once they were together, I sorted them out by year/set. When I didn't have the room to pull everything out, I sorted what I could, boxed it (with some papers inbetween to help with year identification), and filled in when the next sort happened. Again, I know this was only 40K cards, about 1/12th what you have, however, it was still an operation that was scalable. (In fact, the first sorts by sport remained in each of the boxes they were already in, just finally separated.)

Is this your business or a side project? Either way, if you're serious about moving product, get serious about it. If it's a side project, shut things down for a month or so and get it organized where you can bang out a ton of stuff. If it's your business, you may need to spend every waking hour to get your product seen.

Do you have an "outlet" for the "overstock" product you have? If you see that you have a glut of 1988 Donruss and Topps (or the like), and you have no need to list more than 10 (or 20) here, but you have 80 of certain cards, can you move them in bulk in another method? If you were able to reduce your "unmovable" stock, you'd have better access to your stock that sells. (Or store the overstock off to the side until the "normal amounts" start selling, then start bringing them into the regular stock - if you haven't shed it all.)

Again, I acknowledge that I don't have experience with an inventory the same size as yours. And my personal inventory was only one sport when it was closing in on that number, so I may not fully grasp what you are facing, but I do know that without some sort of change in your efforts, nothing will change.

For the time being we will enter with a full description and actual images on our site in hopes that TCDB may implement some sort of inventory note add on that can be printed with offers received to facilitate pulling cards.

To be honest, for set completion (or even want list filling), I don't need images (unless the card is NOT mint or in the expected condition for it's age/type). I do need the ability to search for "2006 Topps baseball #239 John Doe" (or any portion of that). And as a team collector, being able to see all the cards you have a particular team would be helpful.

Having the ability to match my want list here with your inventory would be ideal. And again, I can tell you're kinda behind the 8-ball with the amount you already have, the lack of organization you have for those cards, and the need to move them or organize them. Again, I say to you on this matter - you have to start somewhere or you'll get nowhere. I have ideas of what can work, even with that grand of a scale, but it will take your dedication to it pretty much every waking second. Forget TV and/or movies. Pop on some music, and get sorting. If you're not working your day job or eating, you're sorting. Get three boxes fully sorted - list them here. Each time 3 boxes are sorted, list them here - then combine them so they are in order as they are here (to make it easier to find them). Keep doing that. Keep track of the number of cards added to the site. Keep trading turned off. Once you reach a certain number (maybe 50,000 cards added), then open trading here. Allow a day of transactions to come through - turn it back off. Spend no more than an hour each day filling whatever transactions you received. Only once you've filled them all, turn it back on. But the rest of the time will be sorting and adding (once another 3 boxes are done).

This is just a suggestion, but it is an actionable suggestion. Whatever you do, be sure to take action. And have it be sustainable over a long period of time. And another honest assessment - you have 5 million cards - stop buying anything you already have (if you want to get newly-released product in, understandable, but don't get any 80s/90s stuff at this point). And get anything that comes through the door now on the site immediately.

And if you ever see that you have a "full stack" for me that matches my wantlist here, please feel free to reach out.

I wish I lived closer to your US residence. I'd pop in for a day and show you my methods.

In my mind Vrooomed has some truly great advice I wanted to point out and it's not forgotten or missed. "you have to start somewhere or you'll get nowhere"

Seems to be alot of folks here cheerleading for you guys.

Have a great Thanksgiving 

TV oh no, aside from the newly added vintage Price is Right episodes from the Bob Barker era TV wouldn't get a look at all and movies even far less, until someone in Hollywood actually grows an imagination movies have been out of the equation in a long time, 

There is no "urgency" in the matter, i do spend almost every non-amazon work days on cards in 1 form or another, i actually do have some cards aside for you but was waiting to gather up more before telling you.

I was hoping you had an idea of how i could match the orders/offers to be able to pull since i will not have my inventory by brand year etc.

Rarely is anything that comes in "sorted" and seriously many of the boxes i currently am working on offering are 5k counts filled with 4500 different inserts, some may be from the same insert sets but a lot is just drop down darn right gorgeous stuff that almost defies logic. and takes more time than just 1 click adding an entire set.

Thank you so much for sharing your ideas, suggestions and all I truly appreciate it.

What do you think may be done or new feature suggested to help ease pulling or am i going have to retool some filing?

That was some amazing advice, 3+ years in we have met some amazing people and on that alone we have been successful.

Thank you to all whom have participated.

We really appreciate it and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

If you want, you could see if anyone here might be willing to help with the card identification if you are okay with login credentials being shared outside of the business. Might expedite a bit of the process of that's the route you wish to go.