*I read an article today in EcommerceBytes and it reminded me of one of the
BIGGEST blunders eBay EVER made (and how it led to one of my BEST decisions
EVER)!What am I referring to? This article says that "eBay's purchase
history only goes back 7 years". But it didn't have to be that way!I
started selling on eBay in 1999 and by mid-2001 I was one of their largest
sellers. On June 30th and August 1st of that year I held my entire annual
major auction on eBay, shocking the entire hobby!The auction was a giant
success, taking in over $600,000 and the collectibles department took in
over $1 million that week (for the first time ever and over half due to me
alone) and that made the top people at eBay want to know more about me.So
much so that they invited to visit their headquarters (all expenses paid,
and by myself), and I jumped at the chance, because I wanted to give them
advice.I went there, and was introduced around as their #1 collectibles
seller, and was even introduced to Meg Whitman (Pierre was no longer
around).The best part of the day was when I was introduced to a man named
"Jerry" and I don't know what his title was, but I was told that if I got
lucky he might talk to me for five or ten minutes, becaue there was always
a long line of people waiting at his door.But I was also told that if I
told him something helpful, Jerry had the power to make it happen! I was
ushered into his office and he started by showing me some pins they had
made to send to sellers who reached various milestones.He asked what I
thought of them and I (ever blunt to a fault) told him I thought they were
stupid, and I would much rather have a discounted rate for reaching a
milestone, and that the pins were kind of insulting.He said "That's what I
told the people who came up with them!" and I knew I had found a kindred
spirit. We ended up talking around an hour about all things eBay, but the
part I was most excited to tell him was this.At that time, you could only
see past results going back 30 days, and I asked him if they could retrieve
ALL the old results. He said "yes and no", that while they WERE still on
their servers, it would super hard to retrieve them.I said, "Then start
with right now. After every auction ends, move it to an "eBay Archive Site"
and make it accesible to dealers and collectors. At first it won't mean
much, but after five or ten years, you will have the ultimate Price Guide
to EVERY kind of collectible".He said, "You're talking about millions of
results a month and zillions of images. That would cost a ton to
maintain."I said, "But you can charge for access to it. What dealer or
serious collector wouldn't pay a monthly fee to see tons of results for
everything in their collectible area?".He said, "You may be right, but they
have so much else going on that I could not get it going" and I thanked him
and left (and because I had stayed so long, there was a massive line at his
door!).BUT THAT GOT ME THINKING! If it made sense for eBay, then why did it
not also make sense for eMoviePoster.com <https://emovieposter.com/>?And
that is how our Auction History
at https://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/archive.html
<https://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/archive.html> was born! At first it
only had 2002 results, but I had employees manually enter results from
earlier years (especially all my major auction results) and we were off to
the races!And now we have 2,099,771 results and 2,046,546 images and EVERY
movie paper collector the world over refers to it constantly, and surely it
has contributed mightily to our success!And of course eBay ended up mostly
turning its back on collectibles anyway (a pale copy of Amazon) but had
Jerry listened to me, the company might currently be the foremost seller of
collectibles (and I might still be a seller there)!*
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