| Discussion: ABOUT THE FUTURE OF ALL-CARDS AUCTION |
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Full Member
Posts: 31
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Hello, dear friends,quite disappointed I have noticed that all-cards auction has been loosing attractiveness in the last few month, both for buyers and for sellers.  There are just very few new or interesting cards offered, most of the offered cards are either very common or have been offered several times before.
And there and many many lots that do not receive a single bid (approximately 90% end without a bid, I guess). If you look at the actual statistics:
2365 items are currently up for auction
and only 3 (!) of them are “hot auctions” i.e. they have more than 5 bids! That´s nothing! Also the number of members is with 1012 quite low and I suppose 50% of these visit the auction site less than once in two weeks. In my opinion all-cards auction is not as attractive as it was 2 or 3 years ago…
… for sellers because there are not enough buyers and
… for buyers because the varity of cards and the number of people offering cards is too low. What do you think? Andrea, what about spending some Euros in marketing to get new users, for instance banner advertising at ebay or google. I am afraid that all-cards auctions could end like scummy auctions where the same lots are (automatically) being re-posted again and again and therefore the whole site offers almost nothing new and that will kill off the site at all sooner or later. On the other hand eBay seems now to be more attractive for buyers (and sometimes also for sellers) than 2 or 3 years ago. This is my opinion, what do you think about it? Happy collecting! Dietmar Resch
www.phonecards.andmuchmore.com
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luckyswap
Advanced Member
Posts: 95
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Hi Dietmar
As you, me too have noticed this thing... Yes it's quite sad but I think that the problem is not only for AllCards Auctions but also for many other auctions sites1°- Always the same auctions
If you consider similar auctions site like Delcampe or Scummy are terrible... there are thousands and thousands of auctions...but always the same...and most of these auctions are not convenient... the function "re-publish untill sold" is hateful... always the same auctions for months and months...
Actions divided for countries or areas? another stupid thing!Because all the buyers go to Oceania or Africa or Caribbean and nobody to Europe or South America or Asia...while here on AllCards if there are good cards from Europe you can notice them because they are published all together... 2° - A very big decrease in collecting phonecards
Buyers and sellers are always the same... about 4 years ago there was a boom in collecting phonecards then the number of collectors is remained at first the same, and then lower...in the last 12 months there has been a very big decrease in collecting phonecards in general ... not only on AllCards
Personally I think to have known in the last 3 years the 70% of regular member on Allcards... and we are always the same...
for exemple You've bought from me a chip card from Italy used in Afghanistan and I perfectly know your homepage (just to take en exemple... to see how most of the users know each other... and you are one of the users that I know less!) 3° - Not professional or honest sellers & fake cards
The biggest problems are the cheats... especially last year the was an invasion of sellers from Pakistan, Qatar, India, Iraq, Iran... etc... and I think that the 90% of the buyers/sellers have had at least one bed experience with them... Personally I've had many bed experience and now I buy only from my "friends-sellers"
Online there are a lot of not competent sellers... if you go on eBay.co.uk or eBay.com you will see that the 30-40% of the auctions are with cards from Unicom... fake cards with Princess Diana, Titanic,Madonna & Co. and none of these sellers write in their auctions that these are fake cards! None of them... And there are also sellers specialized in selling fake cards especially one in Croatia and one in Belgium (and many other in UK)... 4° - Problems with the post
Another problem is the Post.
You must send by registered mail beceuse if you send with other postal services like ordinary mail or priority air mail the letter goes lost at 20-30% of the times...
Is very common that buyers that take cards from me pays more for the shipping than for the cards! 5° - Prices too high
Sometime the prices are really really high.
Some examples... cards from China, Denmark, Iraq, Russia, Portugal... but more than any other country Spain! If you go on eBay.sp you will see cards from Andorra and other from Spain at the same price... usually at 1.5€... but note... non rare cards from Spain... common cards at that price! Another example is Denmark...chip cards with a printing of 150'000 sold at 2$... and then cards from Africa or Caribben at 1$! Is normal that if I have to chose I'll never chose Denmark. 6. The change € and $
Another thing is that for sellers is not convenient to sell cards in US$. Most of the collectors are from Europe...and for Us is more convenient to sell in €.
For example a cards sold till last year at 1$ = 1€ now if sold at 1$ is no more = at 1€ but at only 0.75€! I think that point 3 and 4 are in absolute the main causes of this decrease... ----------
Ciao Andrea
www.acards.135.it
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Jorncolding
Advanced Member
Posts: 61
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Hi. I still think the Allcards is the best auction. Abouth Denmark chipcards for $2, as
Andrea write abouth, then the price is very OK for me. I live in a town with 65.000 people, and I find or get 1 to 2 Denmark chipcards in a half of year. Difficult to get cards here. The prices of $1 for Africa and Carribean cards is to low, that is the problem I think. (Hope I am right)
Bye from Denmark, Jorn 
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wycombe1
Full Member
Posts: 33
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It is interesting to read the comments so far about the decline in phonecards collecting. There are very many causes for this but the decline was predicted at the height of the boom especially when so my many Telecoms issued - or allowed to be issued hundreds of thousands of different 'limited edition' cards. Collectors could not keep their collections complete unless they were millionaires! Then the fake cards also made a huge dent in the market - some very well known and 'respected' dealers cut their own throats offering this rubbish for sale. Some are still offering it on Ebay and elsewhere.I used to get many complaints about the fake cards - Why? I did not sell the stuff or knowingly buy it. Though I did get caught out a few times myself. Many were unwilling to complain - even now a concerted effort will get Ebay to change its policy towards those knowingly sell fake cards as genuine. But it must be a concerted effort - not just one or two persons complaining. At the moment much of the new fake rubbish is coming out of or produced in Israel by sellers who are insisting the stuff is genuine (Aron Antonovsky and his dubious scams come to mind). When new collectors get caught out they stop collecting. This has happened to several of my 'new' customers recently who were thematic collectors. People do not like to be cheated and taken for a ride and when they are most give up. As most know I sell mainly on Ebay because for me as a dealer I get 'new' customers all the time. These are not phonecard collectors to begin with but thematic collectors or persons who did a search using a key word - bought a card out of curiosity and then became a collector. For example a customer of mine (in the USA) did a search on Ebay using the word 'Seychelles' - for the only reason his wife's name was Seychelle. He has now spent with me several thousand Dollars on Seychelles items - phonecards and banknotes. Both Scummy and All Cards appear to be 'closed' communities in regard to new blood coming into the hobby. Saying this I do think both sites are fine but they need to find ways to introduce new memebers to their sites then the variety and activity will increase correspondingly. But how do they do this? That is the 'thousand dollar' question! At the moment I am listing on Scummy for the first time - mostly because I used to sell cards to a dealer who sold the cards he bought from me on this site. But he has not been active now for several months so I am not treading on his toes. For me it will be interesting to see the response to this experiment. Many will remember I used to list hundreds of items on a regular basis on All Cards but lack of time forced me to stop (and money as it was too expensive to be on dial up connection to list many cards). Ebay has a bulk loader programme (Turbo Lister) which means I can prepare my listings at any time off line and load them up to the site at any time - and I have the items saved in a data base for any future use. This is a big plus for me and probably the major reason I do not list often outside of Ebay. Also the demise of many of the phonecard magazines and clubs have made many collectors inactive. It must be remembered that many previous collectors had no access to the Internet - and this is probably still the case. I have many 'old' collectors visit me on a regular to buy cards (yes I still get new stocks of cards!) and most of these 'old timers' are not on the Internet. Without a magazine they lose contact with their hobby and stop. It will be very interesting to see what others think about this and if any solutions are forthcoming.
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gastep
Regular Member
Posts: 24
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10:56 am on Nov. 27, 2004
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Some things to say:
First, the topic was about the future of all-cards. My opinion is that Andrea should includde other collections. Coca Cola commemorative bottles are hot now on ebay.
Second, Will people still be interested in phonecards having so many cell phones ?
Here in southamerica, many countries stopped issuing chip phonecards. This is leading collectors to prepaid cards.
When this first came to my mind, some time ago, I decided to built a web site, an so I did. I think is our mission to keep this collection alive, by encouraging others to keep it as well.
I'm teaching my kids, my daugther has a very beautifull singers phonecards collection and she's only 6 years old !!!
I believe collectors are very creative people, so let's use this inspiration to help phonecards colecting grow !!!----------
Gaston Teplitzki - ARGENTINA
www.gastepcards.com.ar
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Polyglot
Full Member
Posts: 34
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I read with much interest the various contributions to this important topic.
First of all I want to express clearly that I still find Allcards the best phonecard auction site by far. But I am too worried sometimes. As phonecard buyer/collector I am disappointed because the real interesting and rare card are offered very seldom nowadays. As a seller I have problems with the decreasing value of the US$. I would be much happier if I could offer in Euros. I am one of the sellers who has to repeat items many times. I have experimented with very low starting prices quite below market value, but even then many of them ended without a bid. It is clear that we need more and fresh members on Allcards. I think the site is not so well-known outside the hard and old core of collectors. More advertizing might help here. I cannot think of any other solutions at the moment, but I know one thing for sure: A life without Allcards auction site and the many friends which I found there is completely unthinkable for me!
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luckyswap
Advanced Member
Posts: 96
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Probably the introduction of the function Buy-it-now or of a logo near the auctions that can be payed with the AllCards money transfer (that I love) it could be an incentive to buy more...Last year I've made a sounding on my homepage... and then I've not have the time to add the results on the site... the question was:
What is your favourite phonecards Auctions site?
the results was:
Allcards more than 70%
Scummy more than 14%
eBay more than 8%
Delcampe about 4%
others national auctions site: about 4% ----------
Ciao Andrea
www.acards.135.it
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Allcards
admin
Posts: 177
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Hello all. I followed this interesting discussion, and I too think that the problem is not related to this site or others, but to a general decline in phonecard collecting. Speaking with other dealers, almost all of them complain for the general decrease of their sales.Another point that nobody noticed here is that prices of the cards are very confusing. It's true that the price for some cards are high, but this is essentially for the common cards, while for better cards -in my opinion- it's too low in several cases. I've seen several times cards offered (and sold!)at 10% and even less than the catalogue price, and, if this is a good thing for the collector who is able to add a valuable card in his collection at a low price, on the contrary is very dangerous for the collecting in general.
I think that, being afraid that phonecard collecting is going to finish, some people stopped to collect, and tried to sell as soon as possible their cards; some dealers too changed their area of interest and sold their stocks. This caused that several cards went on the market, of course at a low price as the sellers were in hurry to sell them, and this disoriented the collectors who saw a big range of prices for the same card. Probably, for this reason we don't see so many good cards offered in auction at present. Most sellers are not interested in selling the good cards at so low prices, and they prefer to wait.
And if they offer them at a "normal" price, they don't get bids as collectors think that other "crazy" occasions could arrive. However, a rare card remains a rare card, and, even if some circulated at low prices, we don't have to devaluate it. Catalogue prices are too high on several occasions, I know... but if we all lower too much the value of the cards, this will cause the real ending of the collecting. Now about other points in this discussion:
Andrea, what about spending some Euros in marketing to get new users, for instance banner advertising at ebay or google.
I wish to spend a lot of money in advertising if I had them! The problem is that the general decrease of sales damaged not only the sellers, but the site management too, I'm spending a lot of money for having a good quality service. I have changed server twice, I secured it with antivirus and firewall, I installed a backup software for most important data, even the online help with chat is a paid service. And if my expenses are always the same, my earnings have lowered a lot, without mentioning all those sellers 'vanishing' without paying the commission (old problem), or the times that I must hire a technician for hardware problems. The result is that some months I have to pay more than what I earn with the site.
So, to advertise the site around, I should increase the commissions for the sales, or put a fee on posting, or something else...and I disagree with these solutions, as I understand they would be not popular among sellers...  When I introduced the "Icon logo" option for sellers, I thought this would have become a popular feature among "serious" sellers, who, for a small monthly fee, would have increased their popularity and sales, and at the same time, helped the site to grow. But only a few joined the system (and I thank them: without their help, Phonecards Auctions would be dead long ago).
I am afraid that all-cards auctions could end like scummy auctions where the same lots are (automatically) being re-posted again and again and therefore the whole site offers almost nothing new and that will kill off the site at all sooner or later.the function "re-publish untill sold" is hateful... always the same auctions for months and months...
Be sure that I will never add this function in Phonecards Auctions! If a seller would repost, is free to do of course, but at least not automatically (this means that he is still active on the site)!
The biggest problems are the cheats... especially last year the was an invasion of sellers from Pakistan, Qatar, India, Iraq, Iran... etc... and I think that the 90% of the buyers/sellers have had at least one bed experience with them... Personally I've had many bed experience and now I buy only from my "friends-sellers"
As you know, I do of my best to eliminate cheaters and fake cards, however this is not always possible as I myself (strange huh? ) am human... Again, I suggest the "Icon logo" option to all serious dealers...
Both Scummy and All Cards appear to be 'closed' communities in regard to new blood coming into the hobby. Saying this I do think both sites are fine but they need to find ways to introduce new memebers to their sites then the variety and activity will increase correspondingly. But how do they do this? That is the 'thousand dollar' question!
A solution, I believe, would be that all dealers introduce the site to their customers. However, I know that many sellers on the contrary try to avoid to divulgate the existence of Phonecards Auctions, as they are afraid to loose sales... 
Many will remember I used to list hundreds of items on a regular basis on All Cards but lack of time forced me to stop (and money as it was too expensive to be on dial up connection to list many cards).
Mmmmmh...DSL is no longer so expensive for a professional dealer like you... And you should also consider that on ebay you pay posting fees which are free at Phonecards Auctions.
My opinion is that Andrea should includde other collections. Coca Cola commemorative bottles are hot now on ebay.
I started to work on this...then I stopped as not so many people seemed interested in different categories. However, the project is still here, and I will finish it soon or later. But, when other collectibles categories are included, everybody should do of their best to bring here new possible buyers for these items.
As a seller I have problems with the decreasing value of the US$. I would be much happier if I could offer in Euros.
I too, I assure you...however it's impossible 
Probably the introduction of the function Buy-it-now or of a logo near the auctions that can be payed with the AllCards money transfer (that I love) it could be an incentive to buy more...
Well, I don't like too much the Buy-it-now
feature and I have no plans to add it at present. However, the logo near the auctions that can be payed with the PA money transfer in the listings (it is already present in the Auction pages  ) could be done and I will consider it. I know that this option is very popular among buyers, but still not often used by sellers as limited by the fact that - as stated in Terms and Conditions - the money cannot be withdrawn from the account. However, I understand the problem, and would say that, under certain conditions, I can do (and have already done) some exceptions for the sellers who I know better. Just contact me if you are interested, we'll find a solution.----------
Andrea Lughi
Phonecards Auctions Administration
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francois124
Regular Member
Posts: 21
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Hello Andrea,
I Have red with interest the contributions in this forum and your answer.
I have seen week after week, as the others, that interesting cards were disappearing and I found them on other sites, as ebay France - UK and USA.
I think there is a specific problem on Allcards site and that it is not only a global problem of collecting. I have seen these 3 weeks actually very good cards on ebay that I had never seen for 4 years and that I used to see on your site.
It's right too that I have bought some cards on Allcards at very low prices and I understand that it can be a problem for dealers.Dealing in dollars is really a problem because it's value is decreasing, and majority of users use euros. Why can't you let the choice to sell in euros or dollars ? Ebay europe sites are working in euros without problems . The fact that Allcard site is only in english can be a problem too. Many collectors, especially french ones, use only their language and are afraid by english sites. I think Allcards should be more opened to other collectors by being more easy to use.
"Hardcore" collectors are now in a limited number . If we want to attract new ones, we should make Allcards more easy for access. I undestand that it's difficult and may cost money.
But this is maybe the only way to save this site which gave us the best moments on internet collecting cards. best regards
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luckyswap
Advanced Member
Posts: 97
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the logo near the auctions that can be payed with the PA money transfer in the listings (it is already present in the Auction pages ) could be done and I will consider it
Great! 
I know that the logo is present on the auction page but I mean in the main pages of the auctions where all the auctions are listed... close to the auction... it could be good for buyers like me that loves that function and that don't want to open all the pages of the auctions to see if inside there is that option...
I suggest the "Icon logo" option to all serious dealers...
In my personal opinion... think that this function is not so popular because good sellers like Polyglot, Baycards, Frutti69,Jason, Juancito(just to take few exaples) are already known by buyers and they don't need a logo to sell more...personally I use the function "view seller's other auctions"... The logo probably is good for new sellers... now yet known by the collectors of Allcards.
But this is only my opinion.
Anyway I think that the old sistem with all the logos of the sellers already shown was more functional. (to be more clear I mean the logos on the top of the page like on Scummy)
I've also noticed that sellers with that logo publish very few auctions...
For example actually only 3 of the 11 qualified sellers have cards on auctions...
This happen everytime I look at the qualified sellers... so I look once...twice... but then I see that among that sellers only CenterCards,Chinajika and Viccards publish auctions and usually I'm not interested in Greek or Chinese cards... so for me remain only CenterCards!Anyway I still think that the biggest problem is that there are very few collectors... the remanent one are all advanced collectors and so for this reason they are not interested in common cards or they already have many of the rare cards published on auctions... this is the biggest problem... Andrea can add thousands of new features... but if there will not be new collectors it will be difficult that something will change... Another small note... on eBay sales of phonecards are growing because they have a bigger community made of all the sellers not only of the local site but also of all the other national sites. And on the local sites buyer can buy in their own language... this is a big difference...
We have also to consider that not all the people are able to speak a good English and so many of them don't want to risk with a misunderstanding of the description of the item, or of the payment...etc... so they buy directly from their regional auction site. ----------
Ciao Andrea
www.acards.135.it
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Allcards
admin
Posts: 179
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Dealing in dollars is really a problem because it's value is decreasing, and majority of users use euros. Why can't you let the choice to sell in euros or dollars ? Ebay europe sites are working in euros without problems.
Oh well...as I said, I would be the first who would prefer euros, but it's a great problem to change now. I should convert all accounts, running auctions, closed auctions, etc...and I should study a software doing this, as it's impossible to do manually of course.Ebay did it, I know...but we cannot forget a simple thing: ebay has armies of programmers working on that software...I'm alone, and I'm even not a programmer. Phonecards Auctions has been my first dynamic site, I didn't go to any school but I just learned by myself. So, working on a conversion from dollars to euro is of course possible, but I haven't neither the experience, nor time to study it now.
Anyway I think that the old sistem with all the logos of the sellers already shown was more functional.
You are right, and I am planning to work on a new display.
----------
Andrea Lughi
Phonecards Auctions Administration
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Allcards
admin
Posts: 180
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I add just a short note...I just added the feature asked by Luckyswap.
Auctions posted by sellers who accept PA Money Transfer are now identified by this icon:  A good way to have your auctions in evidence too! ----------
Andrea Lughi
Phonecards Auctions Administration
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luckyswap
Advanced Member
Posts: 98
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Thank U very very very very very very much Andrea!
It's a great thing! ----------
Ciao Andrea
www.acards.135.it
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Polyglot
Full Member
Posts: 35
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11:34 am on Dec. 29, 2004
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I understand that it is difficult to offer a choice between dealing in US$ and Euro or to convert all actual US$ transactions to Euro, but I still think that it is very important that future prices will be in Euro. Therefore I suggest to freeze the site for a week or two and then start with all prices in Euro. Then the converting effort will not be too big. As long as the prices are in US$ it is for me not so interesting to sell on Allcards anymore as I can sell at the same prices in Euros on other sites. I still think that Alccards is by far the best phonecards site, but when there are so few bids although the prices are so low there must be done something to keep the site attractive.
Moreno (Polyglot)
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jaanus
Newbie
Posts: 7
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Think positive! I am still patriote of All-Cards phonecards auctions. Even if Estonia issue a very small number of new chipcards, I try to find material of Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, also to offer older better cards. Last time there are new buyers from Russia, France Israel and I work for them.----------
Estonian pc catalogue http://www.hot.ee/phonecard
Tartu Collectors Club http://www.hot.ee/tartuklubi
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