Quote:
Originally Posted by SAllen2556
C'mon now. That's naive. Look at it from a business standpoint. What was their motivation to institute, and more importantly, publicly state their stance against bid retractions? Because they determined that in the long run it would help their business, and profits. Fine.
But why go public with the policy at all? If you run your business with integrity you don't need to shout about it. Just do it. People will figure it out on their own. They went public because they thought it was in the best interest of their bottom line. And at this point, it seems to have backfired.
But remember, PWCC is the one who took to the internet and shouted, "We're the ones you can trust." Well, if you're going to go public about it and use it to market your company, you can't complain when people call you on it, can you?
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First of all just by looking at the shear volume of listings they have I am not so sure it has hurt their business. It might have been five years or so ago when I first came across their auctions as I liked to see what higher end cards were selling for. They averaged in the low 2,000 listings per auction and it was monthly if I recall.
Fast forward to today and that number has sky rocketed. There are segments of the card market that have clearly come down since their attempt at policing auctions and it is probably for two reasons. One they weeded out some bad actors and two the prices on some of the cards had risen so sharply it brought on a lot of supply. They might have actually benefited from the increase in supply. In 2008 and into 2009 people like me actually made more money at the time from people selling out of their investments and then getting into more conservative ones. The market was collapsing but my commission run was rising.
How much did their policy affect their profits? Obviously you or I have no clue but if their listings increased during that time period and they were able to auction off Pop 1's like this, it is very possible their business hasn't declined at all.
I think when Brent started posting a year and a half or so ago it was a good thing. I thought he did a good job at articulating that they were aware of some problems and it seemed sincere to this naive person. That said the crowd hasn't gotten any quieter and in the past six months since Betsy took over it hasn't helped. Like I said I would just go silent and run their business and let the market dictate their success. I also think they need to be careful with what they say as it could be used against them in court and getting into back and forth responses with people on the Internet about sensitive issues doesn't seem wise.
If you look at that situation with the Dimagio card they are dealing with a loose cannon and there is no winning a pissing contest with a person like that behind a computer screen.
If PWCC is so bad then someone out there should come up with a better model and put them out of business. In the mean time from what I can see their lead and market share just keeps growing so they are doing something right.