We built an app (Shortboxed) to buy and sell comics [6 month update] 4 4

[MGsimba77]

What about tracking information after purchase? Do you require sellers to provide it? As a buyer would I be able to request you hold shipping until a certain date if it's a high value item requiring signature?

Edited March 10, 2020 by MGsimba77

[shortboxed]

More great questions!

15 minutes ago, MGsimba77 said:

What about the ability to read and provide feedback for buyers and sellers? We've read some horror stories on here about bad experiences sellers have had on Ebay. Infact there's a thread dedicated just to that.

It's a completely "blind" marketplace, there are no seller pages or buyer profiles. Because Shortboxed facilitates the entire transaction, there is no mechanism to leave feedback for a buyer or seller, since that is not made public. Hope that makes sense.

15 minutes ago, MGsimba77 said:

What about tracking information after purchase? Do you require sellers to provide it?

We automatically provide tracking info to the seller. They will receive a shipping confirmation email with tracking and it will also update the buyer's order status in the profile on the app. 

15 minutes ago, MGsimba77 said:

As a buyer would I be able to request you hold shipping until a certain date if it's a high value item requiring signature?

Sure, that makes sense and can be arranged and discussed via email on a one-off basis. Especially for high value items requiring signature.

[troydivision1]

16 hours ago, shortboxed said:

The only rule is that any books cannot be currently up for auction. That breaks the various auction sites' rules as well. We do not force an exclusive listing on the app, so sellers can still list their books on their own websites or bring them to cons, for instance. 

But in order to maintain an up-to-date and accurate marketplace, we regularly check in with sellers to make sure books are still available. And if any have been sold off the app, then we take it down obviously. This will also be made easier in a future release when we launch the "seller portal," where sellers can see all their books currently listed and toggle them on/off. 

This is also why we built in an automatic notification system when books are sold. As mentioned in the original post, once a book is sold, we confirm with the seller that it's still available, and if it is, we complete the transaction. If for some reason it's no longer available, we never charge the buyer and then we take the book down from the marketplace. 

We hope that all of these protocols in place will help maintain as accurate an inventory as possible, and so far it seems to work pretty well. Though we do expect there to be the occasional book that's no longer for sale, we'd like to keep that "failure rate" down to an absolute bare minimum, as close to 0% as we can get. If anyone has any ideas on how to improve this system, please chime in!

I don't have an idea on how to improve this, but I foresee "issues" (pun intended) if a book is priced low, a movie / show announcement occurs, and someone snaps it up.
But then the seller says they have already sold in order to avoiding selling low when they could relist it at a higher price at a convention.
Without a feedback system how would one know not to do business with the shady seller again?
As the intermediary (and presumably financially benefiting) for the transaction you and your LLC / INC / etc should "make it right" with any instance of an item not being available if a buyer clicks to buy it.

Edited March 10, 2020 by umyeahwhatevers

[jaxcomics]

What controls are in place to protect the slabs sent to you by sellers while in your possession? I mean, is this being run out of a house or a secure facility? Are there multiple individuals involved, enough that the possibility of a rogue employee taking off with a ton of slabs is an issue, and if so, is everything fully recorded and insured while in your possession? And how do you plan on resolving it when a seller inevitably insists that a book you received damaged was perfectly fine when it left his possession (basically insisting that you must have damaged it). Is there any video recording/documentation taking place, to protect both you and the seller? Is there any different protocol for how you handle/transact a $5000 book, as opposed to a $100 one?

Also, you mentioned that you plan on eventually offering raw books; how will that work? Are you going to go on a "gradeless" system, purely going by seller descriptions and pictures, with you just verifying the correct book/printing (if applicable) was sent? It would seem impossible to "verify" any kind of grading system on raw books as a 3rd party, as there would be so much subjectivity involved it would be a nightmare. You're also - again - going to enter an area where sellers are going to insist that you must have damaged their raw books when handling them. 

[shortboxed]

2 hours ago, umyeahwhatevers said:

I don't have an idea on how to improve this, but I foresee "issues" (pun intended) if a book is priced low, a movie / show announcement occurs, and someone snaps it up.
But then the seller says they have already sold in order to avoiding selling low when they could relist it at a higher price at a convention.
Without a feedback system how would one know not to do business with the shady seller again?
As the intermediary (and presumably financially benefiting) for the transaction you and your LLC / INC / etc should "make it right" with any instance of an item not being available if a buyer clicks to buy it.

Great question, thank you. 

This is a valid concern, and is forcing me to re-think the feedback system, or lack thereof. Ultimately, it's up to the seller to decide whether or not they want to sell the book when a buyer enters the transaction because we verify every sale to make sure the book is available. If the seller at that point decides they don't want to sell the book, there's not much we can do about that since no money has been exchanged yet. But this does bring up the concept of an internal feedback system. "Internal" because it's a blind marketplace and there are no public buyer or seller profiles, as we are the facilitator. But, this gives me an idea to create an internal feedback system that only we see on the backend, in which buyers can rate their transaction experience on a rating scale (e.g. 5-star rating), effectively leaving feedback for the specific seller. 

For example, Joe buys a book from George, Shortboxed facilitates the sale and Joe ends up happy with the book in his possession. He rates the transaction a 5 out of 5, effectively letting us know that George the seller has completed a successful and pleasant sale. Over multiple transactions, we'll be able to have internal ratings for sellers and can act accordingly if any particular seller gets a string of poor transaction ratings. Like suspension from the platform, for instance. This can even go both ways with sellers rating transactions. I'm just spitballing at the top of my head right now and I'd like to continue this idea further if you or anyone else wants to chime in on this issue. 

And as far as "making it right" should any deal go south, that responsibility falls on us and it starts with vetting sellers beforehand, which is something we're actively doing now, which we can while we're still relatively small and growing. This is a big reason why I mentioned previously that we're taking a very methodical and controlled approach to opening up the platform to anyone right off the bat, so we can manage and learn from situations like this. 

 

[shortboxed]

1 hour ago, jaxcomics said:

What controls are in place to protect the slabs sent to you by sellers while in your possession? I mean, is this being run out of a house or a secure facility? Are there multiple individuals involved, enough that the possibility of a rogue employee taking off with a ton of slabs is an issue, and if so, is everything fully recorded and insured while in your possession?

As of now we're currently a two-person team split between Seattle and San Francisco, operating full-time out of a home office with multiple safes and 24/7 camera security.  I am the only one receiving and handling the books that come in. We have comprehensive insurance that covers not only books that are currently in our possession, but also while they are en route from sellers to Shortboxed and from Shortboxed to the buyer. We ship all the books according to the insurance company's requirements to ensure they are covered fully. For example, anything over $2,500 gets sent via Registered Mail which is what's required by the insurance company. We eat the extra cost of shipping via Registered Mail and do not charge any more to the buyer over the flat rate shipping cost. 

1 hour ago, jaxcomics said:

Also, you mentioned that you plan on eventually offering raw books; how will that work? Are you going to go on a "gradeless" system, purely going by seller descriptions and pictures, with you just verifying the correct book/printing (if applicable) was sent? It would seem impossible to "verify" any kind of grading system on raw books as a 3rd party, as there would be so much subjectivity involved it would be a nightmare. You're also - again - going to enter an area where sellers are going to insist that you must have damaged their raw books when handling them. 

We do plan to offer raw books in the future, but we're still ironing out the protocols and policies for doing so - and that includes discussing it here to get feedback. The reason why we're only dealing with graded books now is for this exact reason - to protect both buyer and seller, and selling raw books complicates matters exponentially for all the reasons you just mentioned. We plan to launch a test pilot to offer raw books first, partnering with specific Dealer Partners that we have, whose grading standards are considered to be trustworthy and accurate, and then adjusting the policies accordingly based on the data from return/refund rates. Is a blanket "no returns at all on raw books" the right option? Probably not. Or is it "returns accepted on all raw books no matter what?" I'm not sure that's the right solution either. Open to any opinions or suggestions on the matter. 

[shortboxed]

14 minutes ago, RadDude said:

Will you ban them from using your service?

As mentioned above, that's an option that would have to be considered but it's likely something that we'll take on a case by case basis versus a blanket "auto ban" policy. 

[inapicklecomics]

I will check it out!  Great meeting you at C2E2.  We signed up for next year, and requested the same location.  Hope to be neighbors again.

[shortboxed]

1 hour ago, inapicklecomics said:

I will check it out!  Great meeting you at C2E2.  We signed up for next year, and requested the same location.  Hope to be neighbors again.

We'll be back next year! Great meeting you and being booth neighbors  

[Keys_Collector]

Downloaded and briefly browsed the app.  Very clean and well done interface.  Glad to see thoughtful responses to all questions.  I'll reach out if I have any questions or have any constructive criticism.  

[bug33fouf]

[shortboxed]

4 hours ago, Keys_Collector said:

Downloaded and briefly browsed the app.  Very clean and well done interface.  Glad to see thoughtful responses to all questions.  I'll reach out if I have any questions or have any constructive criticism.  

Thanks, and please do!

[piper]

The two big things are the search feature and no shipping to Canada.

[shortboxed]

14 hours ago, piper said:

The two big things are the search feature and no shipping to Canada.

Thanks for chiming in! We're currently in a development sprint to improve search, and have taken a lot of the feedback in this thread with regards to search. 

As for Canada, we're not yet set up to handle transactions in Canada but we're working with legal and accounting to make sure we've got every covered before we do. But it's coming. 

Appreciate the feedback!

[Callaway29]

1 hour ago, shortboxed said:

Thanks for chiming in! We're currently in a development sprint to improve search, and have taken a lot of the feedback in this thread with regards to search. 

As for Canada, we're not yet set up to handle transactions in Canada but we're working with legal and accounting to make sure we've got every covered before we do. But it's coming. 

Appreciate the feedback!

Someone’s using Agile! 

[shortboxed]

4 hours ago, Callaway29 said:

Someone’s using Agile! 

It's the only way I know how to work 

[Callaway29]

47 minutes ago, shortboxed said:

It's the only way I know how to work 

I only got smart on it about a year ago...been living it ever since. The Federal government is trying to get up to speed but we’re still very much waterfall.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Callaway29

[shortboxed]

3 Month Update! 

It’s been 3 months since we launched Shortboxed at C2E2, but it’s felt like a year. I just want to chime into this thread with an update on how things have been going and what’s next.

Make An Offer

The biggest feature release we’ve launched is Make An Offer, which is exactly what it sounds like. Users can now submit offers on all books that are listed for sale. The product page also displays the current highest offer, and anything submitted below that is automatically declined. This has increased sales greatly, and we noticed a lot of activity on books that have been sitting on the marketplace unsold. Feedback from sellers has been great, with a noticeable uptick in sales as a result. 

UI and Performance Enhancements

We’ve made a bunch of small UI (user interface) and performance improvements, such as more clear navigation buttons, improved search, added more filters (you can sort by era, artist, grade, publisher, etc.), a smoother checkout process and overall faster performance. The entire app is only around 11mb, which is quite an impressive engineering feat to achieve for an app of this caliber, and something I’m personally very proud of.

Marketplace Growth

We also hit a pretty awesome milestone around the two month mark with over $1,000,000 worth of comic books listed for sale by users. It may not seem like a lot, considering some of the largest dealers alone have multi-million dollar inventories, but to hit this milestone after only 2 months, nearly all from individual users listing their books for sale, is something else that I’m proud of. Currently there are over 1,000 slabs listed for sale, increasing each day. 

Without sharing specifics, downloads, sales, and seller submissions have increased steadily over the past 3 months, and continue to climb. The number of active users is in the thousands, with the vast majority of users being buyers only, and have not yet listed books for sale. 

What’s Next

We’re always building new features and improving the app, and are constantly talking to users for feedback about what’s working and what’s not. As mentioned in my original post, we’re building a Seller Portal that will allow users to submit books for sale directly within the app, adding more sales and census data to product pages, improving the UI, as well as opening up service to and from Canada (U.S. only right now). 

Any Feedback?

Thanks to everyone in this thread who originally chimed in and shared feedback, concerns, questions, and words of encouragement. 

For those of you who downloaded the app, I’d love to continue to hear any constructive feedback that you may have after actually using it for a bit. 

For those who haven’t yet, what are your concerns or reservations with using a new marketplace app to buy and sell comics?
 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

[DiPlo75]

What’s the expected delivery time on a purchased book?  If it has to be mailed from the seller to you, then from you to the buyer?

Edited June 22, 2020 by DiPlo75