Questions for Bruce-EMP

Bruce · January 21

How eBay's blunder turned into one of eMoviePoster.com's BEST decisions EVER!

I read an article today in EcommerceBytes and it reminded me of one of the BIGGEST blunders eBay EVER made (and how it led to one of my BEST decisions EVER)!

What am I referring to? This article says that "eBay's purchase history only goes back 7 years". But it didn't have to be that way!

I started selling on eBay in 1999 and by mid-2001 I was one of their largest sellers. On June 30th and August 1st of that year I held my entire annual major auction on eBay, shocking the entire hobby!

The auction was a giant success, taking in over $600,000 and the collectibles department took in over $1 million that week (for the first time ever and over half due to me alone) and that made the top people at eBay want to know more about me.

So much so that they invited to visit their headquarters (all expenses paid, and by myself), and I jumped at the chance, because I wanted to give them advice.

I went there, and was introduced around as their #1 collectibles seller, and was even introduced to Meg Whitman (Pierre was no longer around).

The best part of the day was when I was introduced to a man named "Jerry" and I don't know what his title was, but I was told that if I got lucky he might talk to me for five or ten minutes, becaue there was always a long line of people waiting at his door.

But I was also told that if I told him something helpful, Jerry had the power to make it happen! I was ushered into his office and he started by showing me some pins they had made to send to sellers who reached various milestones.

He asked what I thought of them and I (ever blunt to a fault) told him I thought they were stupid, and I would much rather have a discounted rate for reaching a milestone, and that the pins were kind of insulting.

He said "That's what I told the people who came up with them!" and I knew I had found a kindred spirit. We ended up talking around an hour about all things eBay, but the part I was most excited to tell him was this.

At that time, you could only see past results going back 30 days, and I asked him if they could retrieve ALL the old results. He said "yes and no", that while they WERE still on their servers, it would super hard to retrieve them.

I said, "Then start with right now. After every auction ends, move it to an "eBay Archive Site" and make it accesible to dealers and collectors. At first it won't mean much, but after five or ten years, you will have the ultimate Price Guide to EVERY kind of collectible".

He said, "You're talking about millions of results a month and zillions of images. That would cost a ton to maintain."

I said, "But you can charge for access to it. What dealer or serious collector wouldn't pay a monthly fee to see tons of results for everything in their collectible area?".

He said, "You may be right, but they have so much else going on that I could not get it going" and I thanked him and left (and because I had stayed so long, there was a massive line at his door!).

BUT THAT GOT ME THINKING! If it made sense for eBay, then why did it not also make sense for eMoviePoster.com?

And that is how our Auction History at https://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/archive.html was born! At first it only had 2002 results, but I had employees manually enter results from earlier years (especially all my major auction results) and we were off to the races!

And now we have 2,099,771 results and 2,046,546 images and EVERY movie paper collector the world over refers to it constantly, and surely it has contributed mightily to our success!

And of course eBay ended up mostly turning its back on collectibles anyway (a pale copy of Amazon) but had Jerry listened to me, the company might currently be the foremost seller of collectibles (and I might still be a seller there)!

Charlie · January 26

Bruce we had a question pop up in another group regarding photos of lobby cards. Are they taken like regular posters or do you scan them? Just curious…

Bruce · January 26

Single lobby cards are ALWAYS scanned. 2 or more are always shot with a camera.

darolo · January 27

It's just as well you left eBay Bruce. With their ever increasing seller fees (which will eventually rival that of auction houses) you would need to charge a buyers premium and higher fees for consignors also.

Bruce · January 27

darolo said:

It's just as well you left eBay Bruce. With their ever increasing seller fees (which will eventually rival that of auction houses) you would need to charge a buyers premium and higher fees for consignors also.

I agree. eBay's rate are SO high that it makes little sense for consignors to sell there themselves (and do ALL the work, including mailing every item separately), when they can instead send their $50+ items to us and do NO work (beyond sending a single package).

And don't get me started on other auctions! Sending 100 $50 posters to an auction with $49 minimum buyers premiums would result in $5,000 in sales, $4,925 going to the auction and $75 to the poor consignor!

dedeposter · February 1

Might be a bug in the latest software update.

I clicked on My Watch List on the web page on my laptop (I don't currently have any items in MY WATCH LIST, then it took me through to the Mobile Site. Screenshot below, not where I expected to be.

Charlie · February 1

Same. Wondering if it’s a new look or a glitch. Also has matt@emovieposter.com at the bottom.

Bruce · February 2

"Might be a bug in the latest software update."

Yes. The update is on AuctionAnything, the company that hosts the auctions.

But eMoviePoster.com has to synch a lot of stuff to their data, and they messed a lot of that up with their update.

We are rushing to get it all fixed, but its complicated!

More on this tomorrow.

Thanks for understanding. The silver lining is that the first auctions don't close for 9 days.

dedeposter · February 2

Thanks for the update...and the headache!

Bruce · 1:44AM

Our auctions have been updated and now view differently for faster loading!

FIVE DAYS AGO, WE SENT ALL OUR REGISTERED USERS AN EMAIL THAT INCLUDED THE FOLLOWING:

1) https://www.auctionanything.com/ is upgrading their software for better loading speed, and for better viewing on mobile devices
2) THE BIDDING PORTION OF OUR SITE WILL BE "DOWN" FOR 4 TO 8 HOURS VERY LATE THURSDAY NIGHT TO EARLY FRIDAY MORNING TO UPLOAD THE ABOVE UPGRADE
3) When the https://www.auctionanything.com/ bidding portion of our site comes back online Friday morning, the individual auctions will look "different" but those are planned cosmetic changes and our site has NOT been "hacked"!

HERE IS AN UPDATE ON WHERE THINGS NOW STAND:

AuctionAnything ended up taking 2 days to complete their update,. with the auctions returning online Saturday. We very much apologize for this, although it was completely out of our control.

𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀?

Because this means that we (unlike EVERY other major auction) can't see the "secret" maximum bids our bidders place on our auctions (but every other auction can). THIS is why, when you enter a supposed secret high maximum bid on so many other auctions, somehow another bidder "magically" bids to just under your maximum.

This never happens in our auctions, because they are hosted by a third party, so we can't see what you bid (and besides, we would never do this anyway, because we want only 100% honest auctions!). A few years ago, AuctionAnything.com added a mobile version of their auctions, for the ever-growing number of people who access the auctions through their cel phones. Over that time they had to maintain two completely separate versions of the same site, which was time-consuming and costly.

Now Auction Anything has consolidated the two versions into one, which means that our auctions have a really new look. This is now in place, and, if you have not done so already, please go to our current auctions (see them all at https://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/all.html ) and click on any auction, and you will quickly see the differences.

At first, the auctions seem very different. But honestly, the changes are purely cosmetic. Some things are in slightly different places, and some are different colors, but pretty much everything that was there is still there! And behind the scenes, the auctions will load far faster than before, which is a big plus.

There is one significant change, and that is that the "bid box" is now near the top of the page, right below the time left area (which is more prominent and green). This is very good for people who bid on lots of items, because it means they won't have to scroll down past the movie description and condition description to get to the bid box, saving them a lot of time.

But because bidders will have only the condition grade above the bid box and NOT the condition description, some may not look closely at the condition BEFORE placing their bid, and then regret their bid, and if this happens a lot, we may have to move the bid box back to the bottom of the page. Time will tell!

IMPORTANT! This changeover will surely have some "hiccups" and if you find any problem with the new "look" of the auctions, let us know, so we can get it fixed. And please give yourself a chance to get used to them, because we feel sure you will soon get used to them, and like the quicker loading and the more conveniently placed bid box!

To sum up:

1) https://www.auctionanything.com/ upgraded their software for better loading speed, and for better viewing on mobile devices. The auctions were supposed to be offline for 4 to 6 hours, but it ended up lasting 2 days, and we apologize, but they returned online Saturday.
2) Our auctions have a really new look!

See them at https://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/all.html We also created a new logo for our home page!
3) The changes in the auctions are purely cosmetic changes and our site has NOT been "hacked"!

Please give yourself a chance to get used to the changes, because we feel sure you will soon get used to them, and like the quicker loading and the more conveniently placed bid box!

We also created a new logo for our home page (it is live), and we will make other changes to it as well over the coming weeks.

𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗦 𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗘𝗙𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗜𝗧𝗘, 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗔𝗨𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦 𝗟𝗢𝗔𝗗 𝗙𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗥, 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗬 𝗧𝗛𝗘 #𝟭 𝗢𝗡𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘 𝗔𝗨𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗦𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘 𝗜𝗦!

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