GPA Issues 8 8

[90sChild]

26 minutes ago, Logan510 said:

Just curious what others think about Go Collect? I was looking at the site and it looks kind of interesting and the mobile site seems pretty easy to navigate.

I use gocollect daily and fully support their efforts to bring some diversity to price tracking.  I think their existence in the marketplace has pushed GPA into feeling the need to improve.  The fact gocollect can give you so much valuable data for free is a huge plus.  If I was a collector of golden age low census books where copies were only trading hands a few times a year, then it wouldn't be helpful in that situation.  For everything else it works great.  My biggest problem with some data is not necessarily their fault, but ebays.  Best offers or Offers sent from sellers go into completed/sold auctions showing the original list price - not the ACTUAL sale price, and this can very easily skew averages on low volume books.  My other issue in general with price tracking sites and I'm not sure if this applies to both GPA and Gocollect is how sales data from certain websites is not recorded.  Can't remember if it was heritage or comiclink that was being ignored but that is a ton of data to dismiss.  

Edited December 8, 2019 by 90sChild

[Jaylam]

After giving it a few days, I still don’t find the “new” GPA as user friendly as the old. People in general don’t like change or being taken out of their comfort zone. Making slight improvements to an existing base are much easier to adapt to. This is a wholesale overhaul so being totally lost from the get go as how to even begin to navigate is beyond frustrating. Add to that, at least as far as I know, there was no heads up given that a change was going to take place or that one was even being worked on. I have been a subscriber for years, but this new format is just too cumbersome and not as easy to decipher the information I’m looking for. I’m seriously thinking of canceling as the learning curve is just too steep and in my opinion, the format is not an improvement over the old.

Just my  worth.

[blazingbob]

1 hour ago, NewWorldOrder said:

 This does make me happy and it seems to be staying saved so I do not have to keep clicking on it to filter out what I don't want to see.  At least on my end this was not available till literally tonight for me.  Again the only thing I would add is blue color next to each of the Universal grades and get rid of or minimize the "red live" icon next to the grade as per my example below in the FF 23 CGC 9.6.  That was make it perfect IMO!

 

 

John, 

When you uncheck the filters they do stay off as you navigate from book to book.  However if you logoff those filter choices are not saved.  I should have the option of having the default settings or mine.  Just a suggeston to George.

[BronzeBruce13]

4 hours ago, blazingbob said:

John, 

When you uncheck the filters they do stay off as you navigate from book to book.  However if you logoff those filter choices are not saved.  I should have the option of having the default settings or mine.  Just a suggeston to George.

As mentioned above Bob, this was my #1 request during beta testing. Apparently it was not an oft requested change with other beta testers as it didn't get done. That said as per my convo with George he is now working with his developers to institute this along with trying to find a way to make the graphs part of those choices as well.

Expanding on the post I made about what I liked and didn't when testing... among my likes I mentioned (Filtering option and ease of jumping between issues of a same title). I forgot to mention how thrilled I was how the new site worked on the phone. Its light years better than the old GPA app which was severely limited. And, if you instead accessed the full old website, there was a lot of scrolling and reducing the size to see the data. I'm not sure how this change isn't being talked about as an obvious upgrade over the previous options.

[DavidTheDavid]

6 hours ago, 90sChild said:

I use gocollect daily and fully support their efforts to bring some diversity to price tracking.  I think their existence in the marketplace has pushed GPA into feeling the need to improve.  The fact gocollect can give you so much valuable data for free is a huge plus.  If I was a collector of golden age low census books where copies were only trading hands a few times a year, then it wouldn't be helpful in that situation.  For everything else it works great.  My biggest problem with some data is not necessarily their fault, but ebays.  Best offers or Offers sent from sellers go into completed/sold auctions showing the original list price - not the ACTUAL sale price, and this can very easily skew averages on low volume books.  My other issue in general with price tracking sites and I'm not sure if this applies to both GPA and Gocollect is how sales data from certain websites is not recorded.  Can't remember if it was heritage or comiclink that was being ignored but that is a ton of data to dismiss.  

This is a pretty good take on GoCollect. The issue with data gathering from auction houses is that you need an agreement with the auction house to scrape and use it.

GC has been my sole service for a while. It’s a bit cheaper, serves my needs, is easy to use, and I like the blog and market articles.

[badback83]

10 hours ago, BronzeBruce13 said:

Lastly, those of you who sent him horrific, nasty, personal emails... you are POS's. One guy said he'd run George over in the road if he saw him. Some emails were so beyond nasty his team wouldn't let him see them. What a world we live in.

Just one quick thing about this.  This is absolutely total garbage.  People emailing things like this.  100% unnecessary and uncalled for.  You don’t like the changes, that’s fine.  Express it in a civilized way.  Because I guarantee, that 99% of the people that emailed nasty and ridiculous things wouldn’t say it to your face.

[comicdonna]

32 minutes ago, DocHoppus182 said:

Just one quick thing about this.  This is absolutely total garbage.  People emailing things like this.  100% unnecessary and uncalled for.  You don’t like the changes, that’s fine.  Express it in a civilized way.  Because I guarantee, that 99% of the people that emailed nasty and ridiculous things wouldn’t say it to your face.

This is very disturbing.  Throwing mass amounts of unkind words at someone over website issues is wrong on so many levels.  I feel these issues  that are concerning many, will be worked out over time.  Patience is a virtue.  

[Jaylam]

Still, the information given only represents a part of the whole picture. All sales are not reported on the GPA. I would dare say the GPA data may represent about 40% of total sales if that (and yes I’m just pulling that number out of my @$$, but considerIng the number of sale venues that aren’t reported...).

A real and meaningful improvement would have been for them to attempt to have more inclusive sales data, even including Voldemort.

[BronzeBruce13]

4 hours ago, Jaylam said:

Still, the information given only represents a part of the whole picture. All sales are not reported on the GPA. I would dare say the GPA data may represent about 40% of total sales if that (and yes I’m just pulling that number out of my @$$, but considerIng the number of sale venues that aren’t reported...).

A real and meaningful improvement would have been for them to attempt to have more inclusive sales data, even including Voldemort.

I could be missing something, but as far as I'm aware, out of all the major auction venues only ComicLink is not interested in reporting their sales to GPA. I'm confident that GPA is gathering a much higher perentage of CGC sales than 40%. 

As for the competition, GPA and CGC have been working together closely for many years... and that relationship will remain exclusive, so that's not an option. There are also some interesting new features being discussed for the future involving both companies... but, first things first of course. Some things need to be, and will be tweaked. 

[Jaylam]

I was thinking along these lines.... are sales between members here on the boards reported, are sales from online or brick and mortar stores that are not auction houses reported, are sales at the many conventions reported, are sales between me and my neighbor reported? If you consider all the transactions that are falling outside what GPA is reporting, 40% may be pretty generous. Is there any way to know for sure, probably not!

[blazingbob]

3 minutes ago, Jaylam said:

I was thinking along these lines.... are sales between members here on the boards reported, are sales from online or brick and mortar stores that are not auction houses reported, are sales at the many conventions reported, are sales between me and my neighbor reported? If you consider all the transactions that are falling outside what GPA is reporting, 40% may be pretty generous. Is there any way to know for sure, probably not!

I agree with this.  GPA probably reports a much stronger percentage of the Public Auction market then 40% but probably less then 10% of Dealer/private CGC transactions.  Which makes GPA a very strong tool to track auction sales but very weak when it comes to what the rest of the seller universe is doing.  Now while a response could be "Well report your sales to GPA and increase that number" my response would be "Why would I give business knowledge away for free" to a company that makes money off it?

[BronzeBruce13]

20 minutes ago, Jaylam said:

I was thinking along these lines.... are sales between members here on the boards reported, are sales from online or brick and mortar stores that are not auction houses reported, are sales at the many conventions reported, are sales between me and my neighbor reported? If you consider all the transactions that are falling outside what GPA is reporting, 40% may be pretty generous. Is there any way to know for sure, probably not!

Ah, I see your point better now. That makes sense. What those transactions represent I could only guess.

[BronzeBruce13]

15 minutes ago, blazingbob said:

I agree with this.  GPA probably reports a much stronger percentage of the Public Auction market then 40% but probably less then 10% of Dealer/private CGC transactions.  Which makes GPA a very strong tool to track auction sales but very weak when it comes to what the rest of the seller universe is doing.  Now while a response could be "Well report your sales to GPA and increase that number" my response would be "Why would I give business knowledge away for free" to a company that makes money off it?

I get that Bob, and Josh apparently agrees... although there are other concerns in his reluctance I won't get in to. I'm not sure what GPA would have to charge its subscribers if it had to pay each venue for their data though... $25-30 a month? Probably not viable. I've heard you routinely eclipse GPA figures for early ASMs and FFs... so, I understand your position. That said, if you reported your sales, I'm guessing at a minimum a multitude of early ASM and FF CGC owners would be grateful that their books were worth more due to your ability to set the market and move those books at higher numbers. 

[Drew Stair]

I will say that a few days later the site is responding faster so there's that. I do like the filtering, but the added clicks and inability to quickly compare multiple grades on the same screen is a big negative for me. I think given time we'll probably get used to it and it sounds like George is working on some of the more irritating design elements. I do appreciate his efforts.

[alexgross.com]

1 hour ago, Drew Stair said:

I will say that a few days later the site is responding faster so there's that. I do like the filtering, but the added clicks and inability to quickly compare multiple grades on the same screen is a big negative for me. I think given time we'll probably get used to it and it sounds like George is working on some of the more irritating design elements. I do appreciate his efforts.

agreed. today i noticed it's not ridiculously slow anymore. i may decide to start a new subscription at a later time. it is certainly useable now. also the other day only one of my saved books showed up, probably because it was still loading when i gave up. now everything is there. 

 

[LordRahl]

4 hours ago, blazingbob said:

I agree with this.  GPA probably reports a much stronger percentage of the Public Auction market then 40% but probably less then 10% of Dealer/private CGC transactions.  Which makes GPA a very strong tool to track auction sales but very weak when it comes to what the rest of the seller universe is doing.  Now while a response could be "Well report your sales to GPA and increase that number" my response would be "Why would I give business knowledge away for free" to a company that makes money off it?

Because it would help you sell your books faster and at higher prices?

Edited December 9, 2019 by LordRahl

[jeffreyk]

Many of the books I buy are at shows, through Instagram, or directly through a dealer, and these are not reflected in GPA.  I use GPA as a guide and it helps.  Hopefully, the speed of the site will speed up soon. 

[LordRahl]

11 hours ago, DocHoppus182 said:

Just one quick thing about this.  This is absolutely total garbage.  People emailing things like this.  100% unnecessary and uncalled for.  You don’t like the changes, that’s fine.  Express it in a civilized way.  Because I guarantee, that 99% of the people that emailed nasty and ridiculous things wouldn’t say it to your face.

Completely agree. As Bruce said, these people are POS and if I were George I’d ban them. No reason to do business with nasty little “people” like that. I haven’t seen any personal attacks here and while there has been some harsh criticism, it’s mostly been constructive. It sucks for George I’m sure to see all of this negativity regarding what is his livelihood and probably his “baby” but we as consumers have a right to voice our displeasure with a product we pay for. If you can look past the negativity, George is getting some very valuable feedback for free and it should help him improve his final product. Also probably a lesson learned about communication or in this case lack thereof as I believe that the reaction would have been tempered had we known a major change was coming.

[blazingbob]

58 minutes ago, LordRahl said:

Because it would help you sell your books faster and at higher prices?

Do you buy and sell books?

[LordRahl]

3 minutes ago, blazingbob said:

Do you buy and sell books?

I do, yes.