How cheap are OA collectors? 2 2

[Brian Peck]

I was chatting with a few collectors about the CAT thread. Mentioning the Comicartfans and its premium membership. Some aren't premium and feel its a bit much for most OA collectors. One felt that if the CAF was changed from a free service to $5 or $10 a year for everyone it would cover the cost of the premium features plus other expenses.

My opinion is Bill would lose alot of members who would refuse to pay the nominal fee per year. What does everyone think of that. Are OA collectors too cheap in general to pay $10 a year for using CAF?

Edited October 30, 2017 by Brian Peck

[malvin]

24 minutes ago, Brian Peck said:

I was chatting with a few collectors about the CAT thread. Mentioning the Comicartfans and its premium membership. Some aren't premium and feel its a bit much for most OA collectors. One felt that if the CAF was changed from a free service to $5 or $10 a year for everyone it would cover the cost of the premium features plus other expenses.

My opinion is Bill would lose alot of members who would refuse to pay the nominal fee per year. What does everyone think of that. Are OA collectors too cheap in general to pay $10 a year for using CAF?

Don't forget that the crowd that frequent this boards are more involved and might be more inclined to pay than the masses who are more passive.

Malvin

[Brian Peck]

1 minute ago, malvin said:

Don't forget that the crowd that frequent this boards are more involved and might be more inclined to pay than the masses who are more passive.

Malvin

They are more involved but also know the general oa collector.

 

[cloud cloddie]

I signed up for premium shortly after I joined CAF. It's no more or less than everything else I pay for, like Hulu, Netflix, pandora, etc... and I'm probably on it more each day. 

I guess I can see not wanting to spend the money if you're spending less than maybe 1K a year on OA. That's a significant percentage of your budget gone. By if you're spending a decent amount monthly or annually on OA, to me it's a reasonable cost to accentuate my enjoyment of the hobby. 

[wurstisart]

I have been a premium member forever.

It is the least we can do. 

A single heritage purchase and the fees associated exceed the annual CAF fee.

 

[ESeffinga]

I'm often surprised to find out certain folks who I interact with fairly regularly are not members. From what I can see, they do a lot of buying and/or selling/trading via items they find on CAF. To my mind it's always been a support it for the love of it situation.

For some folks it's all just numbers, and if it's not required, they won't do it. One less night out with the Mrs. or whatever.

But how many would leave if given an ultimatum dropped down to $10-20 a year? Not sure. I've always gotten the impression it wasn't of interest to Bill to force a fee. More that he made value added services available to the folks who recognize the true value that those services add.

I can say the relatively menial amount charged for to get the "Premium membership" is hella cheap for a year's worth of potential finder's/seller's fees. I know that the classified feature alone has helped me find pieces that I've bought, and the chunks that an auction house or eBay, etc. would take from those for the sellers would be astronomical compared to the $75 for the next year's membership.

Would I prefer that everyone paid into the hat for $10, so that I didn't have to pony up the $75 for those features? Sure. But then I know some folks may not ever use those features. Some folks just want to share, some to show off, some to tire kick sellers, some to hunt for new prey. But if that fee means there's less to see, and less sharing, it could potentially hurt participation.

I think Bill has said before the percentage of folks that visit regularly vs the percentage that rarely visit or participate.

 

[John S.]

I am always surprised when some real heavy hitters in this hobby, who use CAF to showcase their items, are not Premium members. Considering how much they spend a year on art, surely the $75 for the membership is the least they could do to help support the hobby we all love.

[MyNameIsLegion]

I wish they charged $10 a year to post anything in CAF at all.  That would cut down on a lot of .  If Bill removed the ability to contact a CAF member unless you were a paid member, then a ton of guys would pay up.  

but things like FB are probably a bigger threat to CAF- it's free there, and easy, and it sucks, but people are lazy, even collectors.

[Garf]

Giving $75 or more to essentially what I see as a social media site to unlock features is where I draw a line. Giving a site that much support requires features I would use or a decent amount of disposable income and no inclination to donate to some other cause.

I really enjoy the free membership and features. It's nice to have a go to place to share and see what others share but I don't need any of the premium features and seem to have gotten along fine without them.

- Unlimited Gallery Rooms and Images - Don't need this. Free features seem adequate.
- Comic Art Classifieds - Rarely sell so I don't need this, people contact you anyway, people sell all the time by advertising their CAF elsewhere without this feature.
- Watch Site Member Galleries - Bookmarking/alert feature. Don't need this.
- Email Alerts - Really nice to have if you have money to spend and are looking to buy something that has been eluding you. Possibly the one thing I would want but I can live without it and it would only server to encourage me to spend more when I am sticking to limits.
- Fast Access to eBay Auctions - Can be done in eBay which goes to a mobile app.
Delete Unwanted Comments - I could delete a double post to tidy a gallery... don't need to though.
- Have a Dashboard! - Don't have it so I don't miss it.
- Multiple Image Upload - Don't need this. I am guessing it's nice for someone setting up for the first time or sellers.
- Increased Image Upload Size - Don't need this.
- About Me Page - Don't need this.
- Get Featured! - Don't need this.

People that just want to share a handful of images/convention sketches are almost never going to go premium as things stand currently. Rather than reducing the cost as a whole I think if there were more membership tiers available then it's possible quite a few would likely opt for one of the cheaper tiers to show some support even if they didn't need the features. e.g.

Tier 1 - More Gallery Features
Tier 2 - Email Alerts / Buyer Features
Tier 3 - Ability to disable Ads + Dashboard
Tier 4 - Larger image sizes + Seller Features

I think the seller features are too good to go for less than they currently do.

[vodou]

37 minutes ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

I wish they charged $10 a year to post anything in CAF at all.  That would cut down on a lot of .  If Bill removed the ability to contact a CAF member unless you were a paid member, then a ton of guys would pay up.  

but things like FB are probably a bigger threat to CAF- it's free there, and easy, and it sucks, but people are lazy, even collectors.

This makes perfect sense and it would weed out all the marginalia. Paywalls are very effective for that. But what if it turns out that nearly all the audience ends up being defined (in that pay up or shut up $10 sense) as marginalia? I don't think anybody knows what the post-paywall community size will be until post-implementation. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater comes to mind...Nobody wants that.

FB is a disaster -for comic art- us old folks didn't grow up with that general sort of anarchy and stream of consciousness content 'management'; some of us just can't (in my case "won't") transition.

[vodou]

37 minutes ago, Garf said:

Giving $75 or more to essentially what I see as a social media site to unlock features is where I draw a line. Giving a site that much support requires features I would use or a decent amount of disposable income and no inclination to donate to some other cause.

I really enjoy the free membership and features. It's nice to have a go to place to share and see what others share but I don't need any of the premium features and seem to have gotten along fine without them.

- Unlimited Gallery Rooms and Images - Don't need this. Free features seem adequate.
- Comic Art Classifieds - Rarely sell so I don't need this, people contact you anyway, people sell all the time by advertising their CAF elsewhere without this feature.
- Watch Site Member Galleries - Bookmarking/alert feature. Don't need this.
- Email Alerts - Really nice to have if you have money to spend and are looking to buy something that has been eluding you. Possibly the one thing I would want but I can live without it and it would only server to encourage me to spend more when I am sticking to limits.
- Fast Access to eBay Auctions - Can be done in eBay which goes to a mobile app.
Delete Unwanted Comments - I could delete a double post to tidy a gallery... don't need to though.
- Have a Dashboard! - Don't have it so I don't miss it.
- Multiple Image Upload - Don't need this. I am guessing it's nice for someone setting up for the first time or sellers.
- Increased Image Upload Size - Don't need this.
- About Me Page - Don't need this.
- Get Featured! - Don't need this.

Hey Garf, this is approximately me as well. Thanks for doing this so I can just piggyback on your work

I wonder how we would feel if CAF disappeared though? Your quote above assumes that status quo (most baseline casual collector-friendly features can/will be free) is maintainable. Not a given that. Fees for all is a reality if the net negative burden becomes too much for Bill to subsidize or whoever inherits it from him isn't as generous. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I could live without CAF, easily actually, but I think the comic art world is a much better place since it came along and I hope it stays. I also realize that last statement is probably not one that many (or even any?) other folks would make!

[kbmcvay]

I don't think it has to do with being "cheap". I personally don't have any need to pay for premium. If I was more of a seller I would probably pony up the dough, but the free membership suits my needs just fine.

[Garf]

11 minutes ago, vodou said:

Hey Garf, this is approximately me as well. Thanks for doing this so I can just piggyback on your work

I wonder how we would feel if CAF disappeared though? Your quote above assumes that status quo (most baseline casual collector-friendly features can/will be free) is maintainable. Not a given that. Fees for all is a reality if the net negative burden becomes too much for Bill to subsidize or whoever inherits it from him isn't as generous. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I could live without CAF, easily actually, but I think the comic art world is a much better place since it came along and I hope it stays. I also realize that last statement is probably not one that many (or even any?) other folks would make!

+1 I also wouldn't want CAF to vanish and agree the hobby as a whole is all the better off for having it. I also should have mentioned it has made me get up off of my arse and catalogue most of my collection.

[▫️]

I don’t have much need for CAFs premium services and have less than ten pieces posted there out of my small collection of maybe fifty. The main thing I collect comes from just one art dealer.  But I pay the premium to support Bills site which has brought me so much enjoyment over the years and helped me discover new artists I’ve never heard of.  I’ve also found and purchased art from other CAF members which can be done with the free account but I recognize the value of even being able to do that at all.  The art I’ve acquired from other CAF members (none of which were ever listed for sale) is easily worth my premium support.

[SquareChaos]

3 hours ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

I wish they charged $10 a year to post anything in CAF at all.  That would cut down on a lot of .  If Bill removed the ability to contact a CAF member unless you were a paid member, then a ton of guys would pay up.  

but things like FB are probably a bigger threat to CAF- it's free there, and easy, and it sucks, but people are lazy, even collectors.

If they do something like this, I'd advise that they implement it such that at least one side of any potential conversation is required to be a premium member. The last thing you want to do is make premium members feel like they may miss out on sells because someone couldn't contact them about a page without signing up and paying a fee.

[Weird Paper]

I think CAF should cap comments in non-premium galleries to, say, three (or some relatively small number). People who enjoy that interaction would be more likely to pony up.

[Brian Peck]

3 hours ago, kbmcvay said:

I don't think it has to do with being "cheap". I personally don't have any need to pay for premium. If I was more of a seller I would probably pony up the dough, but the free membership suits my needs just fine.

For me the features pay for themselves. the twice daily emails are the best feature I have bought a number of great pieces because I find something is posted on CAF, dealers or the classified.

[Garf]

1 hour ago, Weird Paper said:

I think CAF should cap comments in non-premium galleries to, say, three (or some relatively small number). People who enjoy that interaction would be more likely to pony up.

...or they would soon discover that the Facebook groups get a lot of instant interaction/likes/comments.

[BCarter27]

What are the good Facebook groups for buying or selling OA?

[Hekla]

Additional premium memberships features I would recommend include:

• Blocking certain categories (say for example, convention photos)

• Blocking certain members

• ‘New Art in the last seven days’ as opposed to 24 hours

Conversely (or in addition to expanded premium features), free membership features could simplified – for example, maximum number of pieces or limit of pieces posted per month or year.

I like the idea of having a tiered membership – Free w/ basic features, $10/year tier, etc.

What is the maximum someone would pay for an expansion of features? $100/year? more?