Instagram 6 6

[spracknetch23]

I'm chliggins_comics on IG and I started my account mainly to sell cheaper comics which weren't worth listing on Ebay. Then I started sharing some of my personal collection and now I do a little of both.

I've found as a seller, buyers can be hit or miss. Some people who claim are flaky and never pay or respond to messages. Some pay quickly and the transaction goes smoothly. I had a decent sized trade with semperficomics for a mega key a few months back which went very smoothly. 

[Robot Man]

4 hours ago, speedcake said:

Lack of a reliable feedback system on instagram seems like a big negative, but I'd imagine there are ways to determine reputable sellers from the scum. I'd like to give it a shot, I've got several hundred books I'd like to sell and I'd imagine that while there are people who put very little effort into their posts (terrible pics from inside a car with no info), there must also be plenty who clearly put time and effort in.

 

Looking forward to setting up a buy/sell/trade account! This thread has convinced me to give it a go.

If you don't already, I'd give these boards a try first. I do a lot of buying and some selling here and have no bad experiences.

[lizards2]

11 hours ago, The Resurrection said:

Im on there as OldfashionPBandJ I dig the site, try and keep the content fresh. Haven't done a lot of selling though.

Thanks for the warning.

[Keys_Collector]

12 hours ago, Robot Man said:

I have yet to figure the ins and outs there. I see a crappy picture often held in some one's hand in a car and "make an offer" with no description and no idea who I am dealing with. NOT how I buy or sell comics. I guess the lazy millianiums think it's the cool way of doing biz...

There are actual reputable sellers doing business on Instagram.  Ive never been burned on Instagram and have made many transactions. Burned once here and ive only bought a few books from the boards. There are crappy sellers both on Instagram and on here who dont know how to be a good seller. Has nothing to do with 'lazy millenials' and is a poor excuse to not give the medium a shot. 

[speedcake]

8 hours ago, Robot Man said:

If you don't already, I'd give these boards a try first. I do a lot of buying and some selling here and have no bad experiences.

I've sold a few things on the boards and definitely consider this the first stop for buying and selling, but with alot of modern riff raff its tough to move books so trying more venues can't hurt. I don't have a few hundred highly desirable books,  but they are nice and I'll eventually find a good home for them haha

[lizards2]

5 hours ago, Keys_Collector said:

18 hours ago, Robot Man said:

I have yet to figure the ins and outs there. I see a crappy picture often held in some one's hand in a car and "make an offer" with no description and no idea who I am dealing with. NOT how I buy or sell comics. I guess the lazy millianiums think it's the cool way of doing biz...

There are actual reputable sellers doing business on Instagram.  Ive never been burned on Instagram and have made many transactions. Burned once here and ive only bought a few books from the boards. There are crappy sellers both on Instagram and on here who dont know how to be a good seller. Has nothing to do with 'lazy millenials' and is a poor excuse to not give the medium a shot. 

At the risk of being labeled a lazy baby boomer, I finally googled what "Instagram" was/is.

Now I know.  Sort of.

[blazingbob]

For all you social media sellers out there my latest Hulk #181 9.4 purchase as turned into a Paypal dispute.  Sent money,  no further communication from the seller.  Seems that the facebook seller is double dipping his sales.  Now I'm sure that I'll get my money back but frankly I'm not a big fan.  As with any other selling platform a deal that is too good to be true probably is not a good deal.

[Keys_Collector]

1 hour ago, lizards2 said:

At the risk of being labeled a lazy baby boomer, I finally googled what "Instagram" was/is.

Now I know.  Sort of.

Another social media site except there's now a comic community who interact with each other on there regularly.  We are able to see each others content by using #igcomicfamily or other type of hashtags to see the content.  I've met some great local collectors through Instagram and continue to branch out my network thanks to it.  There's sellers on there from here who sell books they don't even post on here and vice versa.  An entire platform whether its Instagram or this site shouldn't be judged on the occasional bad experience.  I'm out money on this site from a seller and i'm not going to disparage it in the same manner that some from this forum do to any other social media method.

[lizards2]

18 minutes ago, Keys_Collector said:

1 hour ago, lizards2 said:

At the risk of being labeled a lazy baby boomer, I finally googled what "Instagram" was/is.

Now I know.  Sort of.

Another social media site except there's now a comic community who interact with each other on there regularly.  We are able to see each others content by using #igcomicfamily or other type of hashtags to see the content.  I've met some great local collectors through Instagram and continue to branch out my network thanks to it.  There's sellers on there from here who sell books they don't even post on here and vice versa.  An entire platform whether its Instagram or this site shouldn't be judged on the occasional bad experience.  I'm out money on this site from a seller and i'm not going to disparage it in the same manner that some from this forum do to any other social media method.

This site is the extent of my social media - my wife calls it "Facebook for Nerds".

[Callaway29]

Someone should start a "trusted" and "untrusted" thread for Instagram sellers, similar to the eBay block list. NOT IT! 

[AustinReece_GRRC]

I would say Instagram is great for connecting with the community, but not so much for buying/selling. Of course, if you treat it like a business and hustle, you will have sales and CAN do well. But generally I think it's a cool place to showcase books and see what other people are picking up. The inherent benefit to Instagram is that once you're following the right people, you can pick up your phone and scroll through your feed very quickly to see what's going on. I have made a few deals off of Instagram, but had far more people come up to me at a show because of it, and that is the fun part. I've even made a few friends from people that I met just because we followed each other on IG first. The other cool thing I see is that a lot of younger collectors tend to gravitate towards IG, and it's a good place to pick up some knowledge before heading out into the wild. Based off of our account's follower demographics, 70% of our followers are between the ages of 25-44, and another 12% are 18-24. 

If anyone wants to follow along with our own posts, our handle is: @reecesrarecomics

-Austin 

[Robot Man]

1 hour ago, AustinReece_GRRC said:

I would say Instagram is great for connecting with the community, but not so much for buying/selling. Of course, if you treat it like a business and hustle, you will have sales and CAN do well. But generally I think it's a cool place to showcase books and see what other people are picking up. The inherent benefit to Instagram is that once you're following the right people, you can pick up your phone and scroll through your feed very quickly to see what's going on. I have made a few deals off of Instagram, but had far more people come up to me at a show because of it, and that is the fun part. I've even made a few friends from people that I met just because we followed each other on IG first. The other cool thing I see is that a lot of younger collectors tend to gravitate towards IG, and it's a good place to pick up some knowledge before heading out into the wild. Based off of our account's follower demographics, 70% of our followers are between the ages of 25-44, and another 12% are 18-24. 

If anyone wants to follow along with our own posts, our handle is: @reecesrarecomics

-Austin 

This place is a FAR better place to learn about comics, connect with other collectors and buy-sell. It is organized and concise. You can get to what you want a lot quicker. People here take the time to do what they are here for. 

[Robot Man]

9 hours ago, Keys_Collector said:

There are actual reputable sellers doing business on Instagram.  Ive never been burned on Instagram and have made many transactions. Burned once here and ive only bought a few books from the boards. There are crappy sellers both on Instagram and on here who dont know how to be a good seller. Has nothing to do with 'lazy millenials' and is a poor excuse to not give the medium a shot. 

Not saying that there are not very reputable people there. It just seems a little sloppy and disorganized. Very rushed and quick.

I collect Golden Age books. They are often very expensive. I need to know the grade, more than one photo and a price. I don't want to "text" or dance around back and forth about it. If you want big money, you need to provide the service and attention to get it.

This place and Ebay are very organized. There are specific places to go for what you are looking for. You have a pretty good idea on what you are spending your money on. Showing a crappy, hand held, glarred off center photo of your book with the dashboard in the back ground and "make an offer" might work for cheap beaters or moderns but not when several thousand dollars might be involved. Besides, on IG you have to work so hard to find decent sellers of the material I want there. I have better things to do than to walk around all day with a cell phone in my hand. 

"Make an offer"... I NEVER make an offer. If you don't know what you want for something or fishing I just walk away. Again, lazy... Making "an offer" almost never results in a purchase for me. It is usually interperted as "low ball" or used to get more money out of the next guy. If you don't want to do your research, just put it up for auction and let the book go for what it does that day. It is your piece. Put a price on it. If you screw up or I want it for that price, I'm on it. If it's off a little and I can make a reasonable offer, I will. Take the time to know what you are doing. I have.

Hey, if it works for you, great. I haven't been able yet to make it work for me. 

[october]

2 hours ago, AustinReece_GRRC said:

I would say Instagram is great for connecting with the community, but not so much for buying/selling. Of course, if you treat it like a business and hustle, you will have sales and CAN do well. But generally I think it's a cool place to showcase books and see what other people are picking up. The inherent benefit to Instagram is that once you're following the right people, you can pick up your phone and scroll through your feed very quickly to see what's going on. I have made a few deals off of Instagram, but had far more people come up to me at a show because of it, and that is the fun part. I've even made a few friends from people that I met just because we followed each other on IG first. The other cool thing I see is that a lot of younger collectors tend to gravitate towards IG, and it's a good place to pick up some knowledge before heading out into the wild. Based off of our account's follower demographics, 70% of our followers are between the ages of 25-44, and another 12% are 18-24. 

If anyone wants to follow along with our own posts, our handle is: @reecesrarecomics

-Austin 

It's a nice way to see cool collections and connect with other people in a casual way, but it doesn't have 1/1000th of the content that this board has. If you want to learn about comics from the internet, I don't think there is a better place than here. Whenever I have a obscure comic-related issue that I need to Google, this board is often the first (or only) result. It's an unreal treasure trove of information that I try not to take for granted. 

Instagram is a nice way to kill 5 minutes. This place is a nice way to gain 10 years worth of knowledge in 6 months. It's Twitter vs the Library of Alexandria. 

[Keys_Collector]

There should be no doubting the difference in this as an established source of information with years of data against a form of social media with a small subset of the platform being comic based.  That doesnt mean that Instagram as a source of information and as a buyer/seller community cant continue to improve and become better than it is especially if more forum members give it a shot and lend more credibility to the outlet.  The way I look at it, the more eyes on the hobby and the more ways to interact on what we all love, the better. 

[elibowman]

I have made a couple purchases on there. No bad experiences yet. My pet peeves are:

 

- There are basically zero rules. Everyone does things their own way, and you kind of have to feel your way through.

- Many sellers demand or expect F&F payments, which I am allergic to, unless I actually consider you a friend. I have been guilty of asking for that on here a couple times, but I am way over that. It's just better to do things with the protections and benefits.

- No centralized feedback. You have to dig for it, and ask around.

 

All this is similar to Facebook, though the only buying/selling group I use on FB has some (loosely enforced) rules. Overall, it hasn't been bad for me, but I cannot see doing a major purchase there without some significant history with the seller.

[Unstoppablejayd]

On 10/27/2018 at 10:00 AM, Keys_Collector said:

Definitely a good forum with some solid sellers and a great collector community.  Stay away from those garbage mystery boxes and raffles though.  Search hashtags like #comicsforsale and you'll see a bunch of comics for sale.  Most being cheap comics with a sprinkling every once in a while of an expensive key book, sometimes GA, sometimes PCH.  Other good sellers are shortboxed, elite_comics11, semperficomics, dgallo1291, e_rich_j, bampowcomics_, rich_grinch, shortboxhero to name a few with obviously some already being active board members here.  Some excellent artists doing commissions too.  I'm fairly active on there so feel free to connect with me on there (same screenname) and shoot me any particular questions.

I just started following you the other day!

After buying my first book via instagram a couple weeks ago from elite comics I set up separate insta accounts to post my comics check me out if you like ... unstoppablecomics51

As far as buying and selling, only the one purchase so far, but seems a little like the wild west... even worse then facebook...not much structure no clue who you are dealing with and crazy raffle type things. I already saw a raffle for a af 15 and one for xmen1 !

[Jking3437]

I’m like the selling / buying on there , I think it is more active then on here sometimes 

[AustinReece_GRRC]

18 hours ago, Robot Man said:

This place is a FAR better place to learn about comics, connect with other collectors and buy-sell. It is organized and concise. You can get to what you want a lot quicker. People here take the time to do what they are here for. 

 My main point was that younger people are less likely to use an online chat forum vs. Instagram. Both places are cool for their own reasons and letting people connect and talk about comics. The boards are like an encyclopedia where you can search for any topic and find deep threads going back years where Instagram is a much more surface level knowledge. 

[october]

3 hours ago, AustinReece_GRRC said:

 My main point was that younger people are less likely to use an online chat forum vs. Instagram. Both places are cool for their own reasons and letting people connect and talk about comics. The boards are like an encyclopedia where you can search for any topic and find deep threads going back years where Instagram is a much more surface level knowledge. 

I agree. Instagram is also a less intimidating platform for newer collectors. This place, for all of its benefits, is not at all welcoming to casual fans. Or people who don't do their homework first. Or people who fail to read the rules before posting. Or a million other types of non-hardcore hobbyists.

Edited October 31, 2018 by october