Need your feedback on a new price guide tool

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First I want to thank you for creating this helpful tool to help collectors I appreciate you taking the time and effort to do this.

 

I do not have a GPA account, so I have nothing to compare your site to.

 

I did, however, find some "issues".

 

I decided to check on single digit Actions.

 

1) As soon as I clicked on Action, there were 10 "recent sales" that scrolled across the scene. One said Action Comics #8 in 2.0 (signature series) for $643. This surprised me. When I clicked on AC8, however, I found the recent 2.0 sale to be $3,750. That seemed a little more likely.

 

2) When I clicked on the AC5, I saw a 10.0. When I clicked on the 10.0, however, it took me to a FF #49 in 9.2.

 

3) I am curious as to how the "recent demand" function works. I looked at the "recent demand" for Actions from 1 - 10. Here are the results.

 

AC1 - 55

AC2 - 0

AC3 - 50

AC4 - 0

AC5 - 0

AC6 - 0

AC7 - 50

AC8 - 100

AC9 - 65

AC10 - 65

 

I am NOT claiming to be an expert on the demand of every Action, however, it is "difficult" for me to believe the demand for Action Comics #2, #4, #5, and #6 is ZERO. I may be mistaken, but I think there are at least one or two board members who wouldn't mind getting their hands on one of these rare treats. I sort of WISH demand was ZERO as that would cause the law of supply and demand to kick in and the prices of these books to plummet (and I would be able to buy them up cheap). In fact if anyone has one of these and no longer wants it, they should let me know.

 

I found a somewhat similar problem with the "current market supply' indicator, although this was perhaps not as significant.

 

Again, I REALLY appreciate you taking the time to set this site up and offer it free to everyone. Although it has some issues, this is still a very helpful site.

 

One question. Are all the listed data related to third party graded books?

 

If so, I would be interested in a separate tab that would allow me to view recent sales data on raw books (and what their owners claimed their grades to be).

 

Thanks again!

Hey, thank you for looking this kind of feedback is just what I need. Ill address your comments

1) This is actually a lack of explanation on my part to the users on the site. The top scroll doesn't actually show the price of the sale but the difference between this sale and the latest, that is why you are seeing $643. I will make this change to show the actual value ,again thanks for pointing this out

2) Once in a while a sale will be mistakenly assigned to the wrong issue , there are a few reasons why this happen . This is why I wanted to show as many descriptions as possible. It also reaffirms my need to have a report function for users to help me correct these types of sales.

3) This entire function works on an algorithm based on how many books hit the market and what percent of those are sold. To be honest it works quite well on silver to copper age books and the accuracy can be quite good. Now with most golden age books very few sales come up especially early Actions like yours. The -script does not have enough data to make the proper predictions. For example Often someone will post an early Action #8 on ebay asking a very high price and it never sells, the -script would look at this as low demand. I have contemplated removing this feature from all pre silver age books for this very reason.

The data is for slabbed books as this is the only way to accurately say a book is the grade the person says it is. raw books in most cases cannot be given a grade its very subjective.

If you scroll down the page and click on the completed sales Tab you can see some recent ungraded sales for the issue your looking at.

Thank you for looking and commenting

#3 above is exactly what I was describing earlier about reading between the lines with GPA? So it's very exciting if your model could use data to explain the larg story behind the prices.

By that I mean if YOU know that the data returned for Action 8 for instance is incomp,tee and misleading, and know the reason(s) why, you can display text that fills in the gaps, and issues "warnings" as to why the displayed price data is "faulty" or incomplete.

Another lever of complexity for you to code!

It took me a bit to get to various places but once I did it was easy enough. I like it a lot. Easier than hitting each of those sites (CL, HA, Ebay etc) one at a time and doing individual searches.

I have to disagree about Bob's comment regarding users being lazy. I spent 35 years in IT as a computer, software and network engineer. Over that time I managed resources for literally hundreds of thousands of users. I found users to be open to learning new processes and, once they got over the typical uneasiness, certainly willing to dive in.

I also loved seeing a PGX book listed under the Ungraded section! Nicely done.

As far as improvements, honestly I like it as is. If you could glom all the other auction sites under one pages some folks may like that, but I actually prefer seeing them listed separately.

I guess the one thing I would like to see is the ability to type in a book title rather than select from a long list. But that is not a deal breaker.

You put in a lot of work and I really appreciate !t!

One thing - maybe mention you need to log into Heritage to see prices and to just click through the Want List that initially pops up. People may n ot realize this brings you directly to the Heritage site so you would have to be logged in to see results. But it works smoothly enough and I still like having several site under this umbrella.

I went looking for Hulk Annual 2 and gave up when I couldn't find the listing for it.

This is a good point and I could issue a warning but for all purposes I think it's a better idea to not display anything if I don't have enough data to do so. It's a much easier fix on my end to just disable it for golden and platinum age comics.

In regards to the Hulk annual , I still have a few books to upload to the db including many of the Annuals. I hope by the end of the week most will be up with their sales . Thank you for looking

This is a good point and I could issue a warning but for all purposes I think it's a better idea to not display anything if I don't have enough data to do so. It's a much easier fix on my end to just disable it for golden and platinum age comics.

how about a test that evaluates whether theres sufficient data? if YES display the results. If No, display a simple "insufficient data" with maybe a SHOW ANYWAY choice?

and then display the data greyed out or a different color.

POV, it is nice to see that you were an IT computer, software network engineer for 35 years.

I was a Programmer, Systems Analyst, Project Manager and IT application manager for over 30 years myself.

That being said I didn't always get the feeling that users are eager to dive right in.

I generally found that application developers made very lousy "users" since they tend to think logically and users didn't.

My experience with desktop/web based applications was the three click rule. If a user didn't find something in 3 clicks or less they would get frustrated or go elsewhere. Having trained a lot of users and working with application developers I saw exactly that in many many instances.

Users want intuitive websites cleanly laid out. While my default is all venues yours is a one at a time choice. Doesn't mean either of us are right. However as a user I would love a choice.

.

I've found that, as with most things, how eager a user base is to explore the nooks and crannies of software is largely dependent on the population in question.

For instance, for many years I worked for a startup that mostly targeted nurses as end users - in general, the populations of nurses in question were older, not technically savvy, and afraid of change. Everything had to be streamlined for them, even if it actually made the application more difficult to use. One path to everything, one workflow, etc.

Contrast that with my time building a payments platform at a PSP company - most of our users were young, most of our clientele in the beginning were in East Asia. They explored every nook and cranny, requested new features, suggested improvements, and even took the time to log bugs (something the nurses almost never did).

Having said that, a tool that does something as relatively simple (even if the work to get it done isn't simple) as data search, retrieval, and display should be simple to use. Users generally won't put up with workflows that they view as confusing for something they've done on a thousand other applications with one mouse click, whether that is rational or not.

This guide is AWESOME! Damn been playing with it,and love it.

Thanks , apreciate your feedback and glad you liked it

This is a good point and I could issue a warning but for all purposes I think it's a better idea to not display anything if I don't have enough data to do so. It's a much easier fix on my end to just disable it for golden and platinum age comics.

 

how about a test that evaluates whether theres sufficient data? if YES display the results. If No, display a simple "insufficient data" with maybe a SHOW ANYWAY choice?

 

and then display the data greyed out or a different color.

 

 

I like this idea.

I like the site. Clearly you have put a lot of work into it. I personally would love to see something like this for toys.

The only comment I would like to add (hopefully not reiterating something that someone else brought up already as I just skimmed through the comments) is that it would be great to be able to click the nodes on the chart and go right to the data set or listing for reference/context.

I shared this in one of the Facebook groups I admin.

I like the site. Clearly you have put a lot of work into it. I personally would love to see something like this for toys.

 

The only comment I would like to add (hopefully not reiterating something that someone else brought up already as I just skimmed through the comments) is that it would be great to be able to click the nodes on the chart and go right to the data set or listing for reference/context.

 

I shared this in one of the Facebook groups I admin.

Fantastic! This is excellent feedback , I will look into possibly linking the nodes on the chart to the main sales page. It will be tricky to isolate just the grade chosen because all grades and shown on that page but I'll see what can be done . Thanks for posting on your page I apreciate it. Let me know if any of your users have any questions also.

I am just giving this a bump as I think it is a good tool.

thanks for the bump.

great site, it's the first time i'm seeing - a definite bookmark

thanks for the bump.

 

great site, it's the first time i'm seeing - a definite bookmark

Hey thanks man, glad you like it

Took time to walk through your site and here are some of my initial thoughts, questions and suggestions. I hope they're useful feedback - meant to be constructive criticism of course.

First off, great work overall and thank you for sharing what started off as your personal tool!! Has lots of functionality. I like the fact that you've included front cover images - I realize they are stock, but still!

Search Functionality

I find it a bit of confusing.

* What is the purpose of the "Sort by" dropdown, say when you are searching by book name? And why is the Sort By at the top of the drop-down which I deem as the first option?

* Could just be me, but it took me a while to find the search field. I started to write up suggestion to introduce free text search then I found it! Typical, I see the search field located at the top right corner...or in the case of your site, it might make sense to have it right near the drop-downs. My intuition was not to go to below the logo.

* Regarding the free text search, it would helpful if it had auto-complete.

* Overall, I am not a big fan of drop-downs, especially if the drop down list is large like 'Select A Book' or potentially 'Select Issue'

* In terms of performance, I find the search response time is a bit lagging. Obviously I don't know your tech stack, but if you could cache some of the data or use elastic search, that would help with the response time for sure.

User Interface / Experience

* I think this is more along the lines of personal preference, I do think that the banner takes too much real estate. I have no problem with the search results going beyond the fold, but I feel that is a lot of vertical space for the logo and search.

* Not liking the google ads sandwiched between the logo/search area and results. I find it distracting. I'm sure you had your reasons for placing it there, but would putting it in a sidebar be an option? But I realize this could just be a personal preference things.

* In the latest sales carousel, it would be nice for the thumbnail image to be clickable.

* As far organization of things, I prefer to see the stats features on the page grouped together. For instance, the recent searches, recent title sales might be better suited in a sidebar. By the way, in Chrome, the "RECENT SEARCHES:" label is getting covered by the target logo.

* In the comic issue details page, the 'Buy [comic title/issue]' doesn't seem to account for the select CGC grade? Or am I wrong?

* In chrome, clicking on the comic title / issue in the search results takes me to new tab. I would prefer to stay in the same tab.

Data, data, data

I think this is where the greatest challenge lies. For me, the site's look and feel could be sick as heck, but if the data is either minimal or unreliable, then I doubt I'd be a regular user.

Here are some of my questions:

* What are your sources for realized comic sales? Is it just eBay?

* If multiple sources, how do you collect non-eBay data like from Etsy or Hakes, major (and minor) comic dealers?

* Is your data collection mechanism automated or do you find yourself doing a lot of manual work to load data into your system? Of course, depending on how much manual work, it might not be sustainable.

* Do you sieve the data before it goes live?

Other stuff

"Recover Password" I don't think that should be a top level menu item. It is typically part of the login page or overlay as an action link, just below the username and password fields.

Not sure if "List Pages" is self-explanatory. How about something like "Quick Stats" or "Top Stats"?

When using the search field in the search results section, if I type #1, it filters out the results, but not when I type just 1. Minor issue, but would be nice if it knew that entering number meant i was asking for a specific issue.

Took time to walk through your site and here are some of my initial thoughts, questions and suggestions. I hope they're useful feedback - meant to be constructive criticism of course.

 

First off, great work overall and thank you for sharing what started off as your personal tool!! Has lots of functionality. I like the fact that you've included front cover images - I realize they are stock, but still!

 

 

Search Functionality

 

I find it a bit of confusing.

 

* What is the purpose of the "Sort by" dropdown, say when you are searching by book name? And why is the Sort By at the top of the drop-down which I deem as the first option?

 

* Could just be me, but it took me a while to find the search field. I started to write up suggestion to introduce free text search then I found it! Typical, I see the search field located at the top right corner...or in the case of your site, it might make sense to have it right near the drop-downs. My intuition was not to go to below the logo.

 

* Regarding the free text search, it would helpful if it had auto-complete.

 

* Overall, I am not a big fan of drop-downs, especially if the drop down list is large like 'Select A Book' or potentially 'Select Issue'

 

* In terms of performance, I find the search response time is a bit lagging. Obviously I don't know your tech stack, but if you could cache some of the data or use elastic search, that would help with the response time for sure.

 

User Interface / Experience

 

* I think this is more along the lines of personal preference, I do think that the banner takes too much real estate. I have no problem with the search results going beyond the fold, but I feel that is a lot of vertical space for the logo and search.

 

* Not liking the google ads sandwiched between the logo/search area and results. I find it distracting. I'm sure you had your reasons for placing it there, but would putting it in a sidebar be an option? But I realize this could just be a personal preference things.

 

* In the latest sales carousel, it would be nice for the thumbnail image to be clickable.

 

* As far organization of things, I prefer to see the stats features on the page grouped together. For instance, the recent searches, recent title sales might be better suited in a sidebar. By the way, in Chrome, the "RECENT SEARCHES:" label is getting covered by the target logo.

 

* In the comic issue details page, the 'Buy [comic title/issue]' doesn't seem to account for the select CGC grade? Or am I wrong?

 

* In chrome, clicking on the comic title / issue in the search results takes me to new tab. I would prefer to stay in the same tab.

 

Data, data, data

 

I think this is where the greatest challenge lies. For me, the site's look and feel could be sick as heck, but if the data is either minimal or unreliable, then I doubt I'd be a regular user.

 

Here are some of my questions:

 

* What are your sources for realized comic sales? Is it just eBay?

 

* If multiple sources, how do you collect non-eBay data like from Etsy or Hakes, major (and minor) comic dealers?

 

* Is your data collection mechanism automated or do you find yourself doing a lot of manual work to load data into your system? Of course, depending on how much manual work, it might not be sustainable.

 

* Do you sieve the data before it goes live?

 

Other stuff

 

"Recover Password" I don't think that should be a top level menu item. It is typically part of the login page or overlay as an action link, just below the username and password fields.

 

Not sure if "List Pages" is self-explanatory. How about something like "Quick Stats" or "Top Stats"?

 

When using the search field in the search results section, if I type #1, it filters out the results, but not when I type just 1. Minor issue, but would be nice if it knew that entering number meant i was asking for a specific issue.

Hi ComicsAndCode

First of all thank you for taking the time to look at the site and write down these comments.

I would like to address gathering and maintenance of the data first since this is the most important part.

I gather sales data from 8 different sources. Long before this went live, I had already built crons and scripts to gather about 60% of the sales data automatically and the other 40% is gathered with custom made excel sheets and browser tools. Other scripts were built to assign the sales to the proper issues. Of course, this can be a straightforward thing when a sale has a proper description, and some auction houses are very good at this, but in cases like ebay its not. For sales where the -script cannot identify what issue it belongs to it is assigned to an area where it will be manually assigned.

This area can sometimes take about an hr a day to sort each sale to its proper book, the modern age variants are the real challenge here by the way .

I knew that to keep this a free tool most of it would have to be automated. The advantage here is that it's free, the disadvantage is that with anything automated there is room for errors and that means at times users may have to dig a little deeper into the data to sort out any discrepancies. I am going to add a report a sale function to help out with this.

Now the real big challenge for me was taking this data and turning it into a website. See this is not my field so trying to create a website with a proper design, content layout, proper search functionalities, proper ad positioning, making it mobile friendly, user-friendly etc... these things are where the real work lies ahead for me.

I can't tell you the amount of times I've changed the search functionality to create something that is easy to use and fast at finding what you're looking for. Often what works well on desktop does not work on mobile and with each solution another problem comes up. I created a side project to address this search issue separately. check out the search on this page and tell me if there is any improvement or ease in the functionality comicmarketvalues

I think trying to please everyone is both challenging and frustrating and the fact that you are even trying to do so, shows how patient and understanding you are.

Great work! Thanks for all the work you are doing!

I just saw this and think it's really solid. I haven't looked through it enough yet but so far so good. Thanks for the hard work! I'll definitely be keeping my eye on it.