Nah
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I doubt the mods would want to take on the added work and possible issues. The mods already have enough on their plate, so I doubt they would want to deal with more shipping labels, which mod to send to, having to confirm each side of the trade, etc.
Way too much can go wrong for a small reward
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Totally I’m not trying to pitch anything just chattin
I also collect records, and I’m part of a collecting community with a message board similar to this one. We buy/sell/trade amongst each other all the time, and it’s pretty great. Each member of the board has a trader/seller feedback score so you get an idea if they honest traders. You can also rate transactions very similar to ebay. It’s worked out really well. I love buying/selling from people there. It would be awesome if there was something similar here.
Fo sho… I guess I imagine a guy building a good rep and trust and eventually getting in on a big trade and boom… takes the card and bails… It would only take the bad guy one try
Idk I dont trade so I dont have any data or anything
E4 used to have trades
it was bad
pls no again
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Ahh gotcha trading isnt the move
Fair enough
Trading is inherently problematic.
For years I, among with others here, used to trade on another dead site.
Individuals try to overvalue their own items, while undervaluing the items they wish to receive.
A very good example is back when bulk was more valuable, people would trade say… 1 prime worth $3 for 900 bulk (valued at $0.05 each). Trades like that happened all the time, and the sad thing is, people didn’t really mind!
We are all at a caliber that trading isn’t beneficial anymore. We know the value and prices that each of our cards garner and the archaic point value systems or straight trades don’t fly here. The individuals who used to make trade threads, used their “trade fodder” to circumvent the no sales rules, to hope their fodder caught the eyes of passerby’s and a deal would be struck in PMs.
Not to mention escrows are also dicey.
Both people send to the escrow. The escrow says “x” didn’t sent their item(s).
X says they do. Who do you believe? There is no real way to check.
If the card(s) get damaged in post, or in opening the package who’s at fault now?
Too many what-ifs…
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Yeah I hear ya there…Sounds messy
Well thats with anything no way around that… If the escrow middleman place does a bad job they would be eventuallt replaced by the next place…just like any business
The escrow assumes some liability in accepting payment but the customer is relieved and that’s part of of the service
I’d personally like trading to come back.
Tax implications of selling to buy is becoming messy with these new 1099 regulations. I totally understand the reason for doing away with it on these forums though.
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I’m lenient to believe trades will not return for the obvious burden imposed on mods.
When we buy and sell, we pay taxes and fees to third parties, as a part of the process of acquiring our target collectible.
I don’t know for certain, but if we instead paid a transaction fee to a trustworthy volunteer based on declared trade value percentage, I feel like there would be control over trade spam. Also, I can’t speak for everyone, since we all have different schedules, but surely, there are likely people out there interested in picking up the job for an extra stream of income.
I’m not looking too deeply into it because it’s highly unlikely for trades to return in the first place, as stated before, many times, but there are a few pros to consider (unfortunately even bigger cons).
I want to add, that regarding the burden imposed on mods, there is also a huge burden in middlemanning PSA submissions, I actually would argue that one is even more difficult. But there are still businesses out there for that service. Ludkins, TCA, and GradedGem all accept the burden of middlemanning other peoples’ collectibles because they deem the burden to be worth the stream of income.
I’m not sure grading middlemans can be mirrored to trading middlemans, but my belief is that if there are people who can manage thousands of cards from strangers looking to grade, there are people who can manage cards from strangers looking to trade.
However, its conceivable that the E4 staff is not willing to accept the trading burden for the stream of income, and while that’s totally fine, I wonder if Ludkins, or GradedGem, or TCA would be interested in the trade burden as there is loss of business in their grading service at the moment.
Just my thoughts.
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You’re right, it has to be a reputable service providing the middleman. I think the entities you mentioned should look into offering trade services for sure.
Ultimately online market places are still “trading” just with high fees and many steps. Seems many people only ever started selling to trade for other cards/collectibles. I definitely would like to see a trading exclusive platform some day.
I used to think of the idea of trading, and it sounds like a good idea on paper and it thought (seeing as well, hell, this is a trading card game after all) but at the end of the day as many have already stated here it can get very problematic and cumbersome.
But as with all things over time, my idea just evolved into seeing “selling” used in place of “trading”. Its safer, easier, and far less stressful than going through the realms of making deals, then having source out additional resources in order to make those things run properly. Thats no what I use ebay for. If i wanna trade, i sell a card, get the money for it, then take that money and trade that for the item in particular I want. Sure it sounds like more of a process to do so, but in the end its far more secure and easy than sending my card to someone to dictate the trade, paying them a fee, then having them send me the card from another individual.
The best i see e4 doing with trades is Vetting individuals proving they are an active member in a community and reputable to trade with. Anything else is just overworking those in charge who just do this out of the kindness in their hearts to manage a safe and sound talking space for collectors/sellers/individuals.
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e4 is not a marketplace. There are plenty of other places to create trade deals including Facebook, reddit, instagram, discords, etc, do we really need another one? Do we really want thinly veiled sales threads, garbage offers or extremely specific trade requests mucking up the New Topics? From my perspective, removing trades has been a net positive for the forum.
If you want to use a middleman for trading, there are plenty of people that would do it including people here. You are free to message anyone privately to ask. Personally, I am immediately turned off by the “small fee”. The job of the middleman is to accept liability. You have everything to lose and only a “small fee” to gain. If any of the four packages to/from you get lost then what? What if something is damaged? What if one party lies and claims they didn’t receive their item? It takes a long time to build reputation and it’s extremely easy to destroy.
It’s not a simple as paying for the actions of receiving a cards and reshipping them. You’re paying for reputation and, unless the middleman is naive, the liability should also be factored into the cost. So if someone wants to leverage whatever reputation I have and also shift the liability to me a “small fee” is almost insulting.
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Since we’re brainstorming, the way I could see barter work for the efour community without a direct impact to the forum itself would be a separate site (similar to pokemonprice) where each of us could publish our haves and our wants and be automatically notified whenever there was a match. It would then be up to the matched users to decide whether they trusted each other enough to trade.
As an added benefit, this would likely simplify the current buy thread system as well since the site could include a search function in which I could search for a card I want to sell and see if another user had it on their want list.
It’s not something I would use, but for US collectors it may indeed be worth the risk to avoid the new 1099K regulation @retrocollector92 mentioned.
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We’ve come up with a similar idea that includes E4 members but not on E4. Members were proposing a startup for a Facebook group with only E4 members. Just like any other platform, their is inherit risk.
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For 6.4% (on $100 trade value) you can “trade” fully protected both ways.
Scenario- A wants to trade with B some cards valued at ~$100.
A sends B $100 via PayPal goods and services and B sends A $100 via PayPal goods and services. $6.40 in total fees which is probably less than any middleman would charge anyways especially when you figure the two shipping charges you save this way.
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