Comic Art Live 2 2

[Bill Cox]

20 minutes ago, ShallowDan said:

Thanks for the clear and honest info, Bill!  Frankly more there than you owe any of us.

I'm sure you always get way more free suggestions that you'll ever have time to implement them, but I'll toss one on the pile:  It would be great if members were emailed or otherwise notified of changes to pieces that they have marked as "liked".  That's to say if I have my eye on ten pieces that I'm considering, and two get a price cut and three are no longer available due to being sold, that sort of update would be very useful.

That stuff is always much easier to propose than it is to code, but it was something that came to mind this weekend that I wanted to share.

 

I always figured one day someone who knew would feel the need to roll this out into a public forum to stir the pot or whatever, because it wasn't a secret. I've never been shy to talk about it when asked, though as many of you can imagine it was a humbling moment for me so not something I'm proud of. I had spoken to 3 or 4 people inside and outside the hobby looking for someone to help me fix my situation and Mike was the only person - while in the middle of a recession - willing to help me out. And I also knew he would be the only one I'd trust to never expect anything from it, which has been the case.

That idea crossed my mind about pushing updates out on Saved items, and then I thought in under 48 hours how often would it actually mean something. We'll add it to our wish list for the May show. I'm happy to hear about any suggestions like this as it will make the next show all the better. Like a lot of the ideas we have, we get the first part right, but don't even consider taking it to a natural conclusion like you've suggested. Now that we added Views and Saves data in a Booth, so a Booth owner knows how often the art is saved by people (but not by whom) they might be inclined to lower their prices near the end of the show if they knew X number of people would get notified. You could even see the seller being able to blindly notify those following an artwork that they're willing to deal, take trade, etc.

[AnkurJ]

Thanks for the hard work Bill! Can’t imagine how much time went into it.

My few simple suggestions.

1. Some auction houses were using the platform to advertise upcoming items. I didn’t think this was the proper venue.

2. When and item is sold and updated as sold, is it possible for it to be removed? I tried removing art a few times but it didn’t work. A few had multiple inquiries after the fact.

3. Any chance of an archive? 

[Bill Cox]

4 minutes ago, AnkurJ said:

Thanks for the hard work Bill! Can’t imagine how much time went into it.

My few simple suggestions.

1. Some auction houses were using the platform to advertise upcoming items. I didn’t think this was the proper venue.

2. When and item is sold and updated as sold, is it possible for it to be removed? I tried removing art a few times but it didn’t work. A few had multiple inquiries after the fact.

3. Any chance of an archive? 

1. I saw one auction house with 3 valid marketplace pieces and 3 pieces as auctions for pieces we've all seen several times. I had been asked up front by them what to do and I told them only post fixed priced items from their marketplace, that future versions of the show would allow for a PR aspect like a regular in-person Con would provide them. They didn't follow my request. I have to pick my battles and time especially in the heat of the moment - and that was done at the last minute. Since the auction pieces were priced at $0 they were at the bottom of every default search since the default search ordered by highest price first, buried 2k deep in results, so I chose not to waste the effort. But all auction houses asked in advance of setting up and I gave them all the same request.

2. We do not want to allow anyone to delete items from their booth during the show. People would just delete them rather than marking them as sold, which wouldn't help me track the success of the show. No delete means you have to mark it sold which is the goal. I agree the delete option should be hidden once the show starts since it doesn't work after the lockdown, and we don't have a message telling you it didn't work.

3. You figure once the lights are off the hall is no longer accessible. The Saved Artworks list you created is still available and I'll leave that out there for 30 days at least. We modified the Save Artwork page just before the show ended to include a link to either the CAF gallery of the owner if it was a collector, or to the Dealer website if it was a dealer. In case you wanted to inquire after the show. The link to the detail image/page for the art was removed since that would take you into the hall which is closed. So I guess the best way forward is to Save more artworks you might be remotely interested in during the show.

[AndyFish]

28 minutes ago, AnkurJ said:

Thanks for the hard work Bill! Can’t imagine how much time went into it.

My few simple suggestions.

1. Some auction houses were using the platform to advertise upcoming items. I didn’t think this was the proper venue.

2. When and item is sold and updated as sold, is it possible for it to be removed? I tried removing art a few times but it didn’t work. A few had multiple inquiries after the fact.

3. Any chance of an archive? 

I think it’s great that the booths are locked, I simply used the pull down menu to mark an item as sold and then added SOLD- into the title as an extra precaution.  The save feature was great and it’s how I went to buy items I was kicking the tires on.  Best online con by far, and it’s even high in my book with real world cons.  I’m a lifetime premium member now.  I wasn’t aware they have regular YouTube events and I’ll be watching now.  Bill is there a schedule posted anywhere?  My only complaint about CAF is the site is overwhelming when you first jump on.

[Unstoppablejayd]

1 minute ago, AndyFish said:

I think it’s great that the booths are locked, I simply used the pull down menu to mark an item as sold and then added SOLD- into the title as an extra precaution.  The save feature was great and it’s how I went to buy items I was kicking the tires on.  Best online con by far, and it’s even high in my book with real world cons.  I’m a lifetime premium member now.  I wasn’t aware they have regular YouTube events and I’ll be watching now.  Bill is there a schedule posted anywhere?  My only complaint about CAF is the site is overwhelming when you first jump on.

Andy- I follow the Comic Art Fans Facebook page which has all the you tube events coming up

[AndyFish]

Trouble is I don’t do Facebook.

[Bill Cox]

6 hours ago, Twanj said:

Was there a way to see (search) by pieces that had been marked down?

There were a few pages I like but nothing priced what I thought was fair, so it would've been nice to see what prices had lowered.

I didn't realize there was a save feature either.

Unfortunately there was no way to do show mark downs on prices. When we built the IX-Online.com site, we did allow for artwork to be shown as on sale, ie there were two fields for price, the original asking price, and if they added a sale price we'd put a strike through the original price and also show the reduced price. We then added a search option to search only for art with reduced prices. Now, on IX I figured most people would play by the rules and use the fields honestly. Here, I thought what we'd see is people asking 20% more than normal in the asking price, and then 10% more than normal in the sale price, which would just a mess. 50% of the art being shown this way, etc. Now, I might be wrong about that, but that was my feeling. I think it would be better to have a announcement section where people can say that everything in their booth is 10% off, and honor that reduction when a request is made, without having to edit the prices of everything in the booth.

[Unstoppablejayd]

1 minute ago, AndyFish said:

Trouble is I don’t do Facebook.

Then  I am no help

[Bill Cox]

3 minutes ago, AndyFish said:

Trouble is I don’t do Facebook.

Hi Andy, I do my best to get the schedule posted ahead of time, at least by a few days. I'm behind at the moment thanks to CALIVE.

We do a Tuesday show usually two weeks consecutive them one week off, and I try to always do an every Thursday show which is a CAF Update for popular artwork from the week previously, and I also try to work in an interview too. Both shows start at 9pm EST. We have a show tomorrow night where we'll be doing a Comic Art LIVE show recap, and taking suggestions from the chat, and I know Glen, Will and Mike have comments on things they'd like to see done differently. This Thurs along with my CAF Update I'll be chatting with Malvin V. The Tuesday after next we'll be doing another Heritage Signature Auction Review. I've not scheduled these into the system yet, but that's the upcoming schedule.

[Bill Cox]

27 minutes ago, AndyFish said:

I think it’s great that the booths are locked, I simply used the pull down menu to mark an item as sold and then added SOLD- into the title as an extra precaution.  The save feature was great and it’s how I went to buy items I was kicking the tires on.  Best online con by far, and it’s even high in my book with real world cons.  I’m a lifetime premium member now.  I wasn’t aware they have regular YouTube events and I’ll be watching now.  Bill is there a schedule posted anywhere?  My only complaint about CAF is the site is overwhelming when you first jump on.

Agree that it's overwhelming. We are going to start a site redesign soon where I hope to fix  many of the congestion issues we have. The reason we want to move CALIVE to a stand alone site is to that everything is clear to a first timer to the show. First timers see the CAF Gallery Updates in the top right, ads all over the place with auction house links leading them here and there. They don't know what the hell to do when they get there, and I bet many just give up and leave. 

[Bill Cox]

20 hours ago, malvin said:

hmm.. so your main question is that most sold pieces were under 1k or $500? I think that feels right. I threw up a few things over that amount and they didn't sell.  There are few people who fork out over $1k anyways and generally unless something feels like its a good deal, people don't quickly buy things over $1k.

One of my purchases was over $1K and I thought it was cheap.  Of course what I think and reality might not be the same thing. 

Malvin

Most purchases were in the $500 - $2,000 range. $700,000 in total sales for the weekend not counting commissions and cross selling, about a 12% to 13% sold rate for all art offered.

[John E.]

24 minutes ago, Bill Cox said:

Most purchases were in the $500 - $2,000 range. $700,000 in total sales for the weekend not counting commissions and cross selling, about a 12% to 13% sold rate for all art offered.

Bill, is your site on your end able to record actual sales even though the seller/dealer marks it at “$0?” 
 

I’m sure I’m in the minority opinion but I wish the sale price on sold items stayed up throughout the weekend. 
 

I’d love to know what percentage of sales were in what range. For example, what was the percentage of sales in the sub-$100 group? 

[Bill Cox]

2 minutes ago, John E. said:

Bill, is your site on your end able to record actual sales even though the seller/dealer marks it at “$0?” 
 

I’m sure I’m in the minority opinion but I wish the sale price on sold items stayed up throughout the weekend. 
 

I’d love to know what percentage of sales were in what range. For example, what was the percentage of sales in the sub-$100 group? 

The Seller set the price to $0 after the sale - I have no control over what the seller does. Some claim the buyer asked them to, so other collectors don't know the sale price. Obviously something most buyers want to remain hidden from public knowledge based on KV's comments earlier, and understandable. I'm sure many people don't like my market reports since they record sale prices, either. However, we do have a snapshot of the booths and artworks at lockdown, so I'm able to run reports based on that when needed. Sorry, I don't have price range reports like that. Around 180 of the 450 sales were $250 or under.

[RBerman]

2 hours ago, Bill Cox said:

Glad to hear that a new user had more than one good experience. I stressed in all my messages to potential sellers that the biggest complaint with the first show was slow replies. 

I received swift replies from sellers for both of the pieces I bought. It might actually be good to poll buyers about their experience after the next CAF show, since published metrics have a way of making vendors more responsive to their clients. (I say this as someone who's still waiting for delivery of a published page that I purchased through an artist's dealer back in February. Not through CAF, just an example.)

[John E.]

18 minutes ago, Bill Cox said:

Around 180 of the 450 sales were $250 or under.

This is good data to have. At least for me. If I did my math right, that's 40% of sale. Of course, I don't have the data for $250-$750 or $250-$1k range etc., but marking something at $245 vs $255 may be the difference between making a sale or not. It's like the analogy Felix made with Moneyball during y'all's interview. 

[jaykza]

3 hours ago, AndyFish said:

Trouble is I don’t do Facebook.

Easiest thing to do is subscribe to the channel on YouTube and you can set alerts to inform you of new videos. Bill usually gives a couple days (at least) notice of upcoming shows/videos. 

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCYljwk2DLVK8K67u7NPOgEA

[Rick2you2]

6 hours ago, John E. said:

This is good data to have. At least for me. If I did my math right, that's 40% of sale. Of course, I don't have the data for $250-$750 or $250-$1k range etc., but marking something at $245 vs $255 may be the difference between making a sale or not. It's like the analogy Felix made with Moneyball during y'all's interview. 

I’d also love to see the sales ”curve”. The information would be even more valuable if differentiated by type/artist/other, to see what is actually hot.

[Bill Cox]

2 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

I’d also love to see the sales ”curve”. The information would be even more valuable if differentiated by type/artist/other, to see what is actually hot.

I'm not really sure what I'll share aside from totals and general sorts of data about art types. I'm going to do a CALive Market Report and post it Thursday or Friday similar to what I do with the Dealer and Auction House reports. 

My guidance on bringing new art to market and art priced to sell is still the winning combination if you want to do well during the show. Leave the art you're more firm on or that demand a premium in your CAF Classifieds, and mention that in your booth description, and artwork descriptions. All Booth pages link to your CAF Classifieds if you're a Collector or Artist. I've always said the art in your booth is your back wall to get buyers to stop and look, and your Classifieds or your Dealer site are the portfolios on your table. 

[hmendryk]

CALive was once again a great virtual con. I picked up 3 pieces. Although to be honest 2 of them I had seen before and considered purchasing. My only complaint was that I was in YouTube waiting for your interview with Felix. Instead I got a message saying there was some failure and it would try to reestablish connection. After a little while I went back to CALive panel section to find the interview no longer listed. A quick check on the previous interview showed it still running. After which I gave up only to find out on the next day that Felix interview followed the artist interview. No real harm done since I could watch the replay on YouTube and just move the viewing past the first interview. But it would have been nice to have a message about what was going on.

[Bill Cox]

1 hour ago, hmendryk said:

CALive was once again a great virtual con. I picked up 3 pieces. Although to be honest 2 of them I had seen before and considered purchasing. My only complaint was that I was in YouTube waiting for your interview with Felix. Instead I got a message saying there was some failure and it would try to reestablish connection. After a little while I went back to CALive panel section to find the interview no longer listed. A quick check on the previous interview showed it still running. After which I gave up only to find out on the next day that Felix interview followed the artist interview. No real harm done since I could watch the replay on YouTube and just move the viewing past the first interview. But it would have been nice to have a message about what was going on.

That was just something we had to roll with on the fly. I had originally set the Felix/Tradd Moore panel in one Studio, and we had a Studio set up for my Panel with Felix after Tradd's. The Tradd Moore interview was running late - right up to the start of my panel with Felix - so at about 3 min before the hour I was forced to delete the Studio for he and I, and coordinate via text that I'd let them run long for a few minutes. So I hopped into the Tradd's panel and a few minutes after the hour and Felix and I just started our Panel there. it made it easier for Felix since he didn't have to log out and back into a second panel. After the Simonson interview with Dunbier it was the second best attended panel during the show, oddly enough. I'm sorry you didn't get to watch it live. Felix and I discussed after the panel that we might do something over on one of his channels after the new year to continue the conversation.