darkSpyro

Up-front disclaimer: this post is NOT an advertisement.

I'm curious to know where DarkSpyro members prefer to buy/sell/trade/barter/auction Skylanders goods, other than the obvious places (e.g. Ebay, Amazon, Craigslist).

Your local Elementary School...although if you are too old to attend class, it might be a little weird.

I was also curious about this.

Side note: Are we allowed to request people to pick up skylanders for us if we pay them cost+shipping+a bit extra? I know that I can personally find a lot of things some areas can't and wouldn't mind doing this at all. I'm also asking because I cannot find Bash or Slam Bam.

Thanks in advance!

The rules on this site says "No". As for Bash, he has been seen a lot more this week. Keep an eye out.

Quote: dinoah2005

Your local Elementary School...although if you are too old to attend class, it might be a little weird.

Cute.

While I appreciate the candor, I was actually seeking a serious answer to my query.

Wasn't there a post here several weeks ago talking about a new forum/website that some of our members set-up as an alternative/complement, specifically for trading?

I found 2,
http://www.skylanderstrading.com/forums/
and
http://skylanderstrading.webs.com/apps/forums/

but, like you, I remember there being talk of one a few months ago on this forum. I don't remember if it was either of those because I could have sworn I made an account but I cannot log in at either of those... However, it looks like everything mentioning it on this forum must be gone because I can no longer find anything. And I suspect this will be deleted soon, too.

Long story made short, someone from this forum made one where we can b/s/t. Maybe they will see this and post here?

I had good luck on the forum at: http://skylandersfigs.com/ but now that forum is a blog instead of a forum.

Also, try: http://forum.lairofkaos.com/

Quote: Graz73

I had good luck on the forum at: http://skylandersfigs.com/ but now that forum is a blog instead of a forum.

Yeah, that's the one I was talking about, Graz.
What happened to it? Anyone know? It had promise, it seems ... but is now defunct?

Were can I get the volcano volt I didn't even knew it existed

Quote: ShadowM

Were can I get the volcano volt I didn't even knew it existed

Best Buy pre-order for the first game. They also gave them away last Spring with the purchase of $20 of Skylanders stuff. It does not work in Giants. All it adds is a new arena for PvP (and it isn't really a great one either).

Quote: defpally

Quote: ShadowM

Were can I get the volcano volt I didn't even knew it existed

Best Buy pre-order for the first game. They also gave them away last Spring with the purchase of $20 of Skylanders stuff. It does not work in Giants. All it adds is a new arena for PvP (and it isn't really a great one either).

I'm not sure why skylandersfigs.com is now a blog. Email the guy?

I don't have the Volcanic Vault yet either, but I hear that it DOES open the same PvP arena in Giants too.

My vault does read on the portal. I tossed it on one day when my son was playing. I didn't actually look to see what it added as I haven't played skylanders since march.

Volcanic Vault dos work in Giants, it dos the same thing it did in the first game, gives a new skin'd PVP arena

I'm so glad someone posted this topic. Would be so great to have a thread here where we could --at our own risk--b/s/t---.

But I understand the rules. I've also wanted a place where people post different places they find that you can find Skylanders. For instance I just happened upon a site that is similar to ebay in the Netherlands. Found a glitter sprocket triple pack I was looking for. It'd be nice to have all these different places on one thread for everybody to use. I already mentioned the hsn -home shopping network. That just proves you never know
Thanks

Netherlands place

Marktplaats.nl

Quote: BahamutBreaker

Quote: dinoah2005

Your local Elementary School...although if you are too old to attend class, it might be a little weird.

Cute.

While I appreciate the candor, I was actually seeking a serious answer to my query.

Wasn't there a post here several weeks ago talking about a new forum/website that some of our members set-up as an alternative/complement, specifically for trading?

skylandersfigs.com although I've had TERRIBLE time getting any interest---they don't have enough eyes there. Just checked and it looks like they took it down...probably a good idea since they didn't get enough there to justify it. I tried.

Owner of this site should just open a forum, put a disclaimer, and let it ride. Anyone that does anything with skylanders peruse this site.

Quote: shelly9871

I'm so glad someone posted this topic. Would be so great to have a thread here where we could --at our own risk--b/s/t---.

But I understand the rules. I've also wanted a place where people post different places they find that you can find Skylanders. For instance I just happened upon a site that is similar to ebay in the Netherlands. Found a glitter sprocket triple pack I was looking for. It'd be nice to have all these different places on one thread for everybody to use. I already mentioned the hsn -home shopping network. That just proves you never know
Thanks

Netherlands place

Marktplaats.nl

Agreed, Shelly

I think it's safe to say that while Ebay is a very useful resource that gets a massive share of the online buying and selling market ... Ebay is also far from perfect, and the current rules and atmosphere on Ebay often make it VERY difficult for the Seller to have ANY recourse when a Buyer manipulates the system to garner free stuff, and/or make the life of the Seller miserable simply for the sake of doing just that.
Since Skylanders collectors are, in general (if the overall general amiable nature of this forum's users is any indication), a reasonable, honest, and (mostly!) rational lot, I'd REALLY like to see a trading post online specifically for Skylanders. It's obvious that the markets for used Skylanders and "collectors' item" Skylanders is quite robust. And if an Ebay-alternative website could be broadcast and advertised to the general population of parents, grandparents, collectors, and traders, I believe it could thrive, potentially to the fiscal benefit of the site owner (via hosting advertisements from retailers, etc.).

I'm unfortunately not tech-savvy enough to launch such an endeavor on my own, or I most certainly would do it. Maybe chatting about it here will inspire someone.

Quote: BahamutBreaker

Quote: shelly9871

I'm so glad someone posted this topic. Would be so great to have a thread here where we could --at our own risk--b/s/t---.

But I understand the rules. I've also wanted a place where people post different places they find that you can find Skylanders. For instance I just happened upon a site that is similar to ebay in the Netherlands. Found a glitter sprocket triple pack I was looking for. It'd be nice to have all these different places on one thread for everybody to use. I already mentioned the hsn -home shopping network. That just proves you never know
Thanks

Netherlands place

Marktplaats.nl

Agreed, Shelly

I think it's safe to say that while Ebay is a very useful resource that gets a massive share of the online buying and selling market ... Ebay is also far from perfect, and the current rules and atmosphere on Ebay often make it VERY difficult for the Seller to have ANY recourse when a Buyer manipulates the system to garner free stuff, and/or make the life of the Seller miserable simply for the sake of doing just that.
Since Skylanders collectors are, in general (if the overall general amiable nature of this forum's users is any indication), a reasonable, honest, and (mostly!) rational lot, I'd REALLY like to see a trading post online specifically for Skylanders. It's obvious that the markets for used Skylanders and "collectors' item" Skylanders is quite robust. And if an Ebay-alternative website could be broadcast and advertised to the general population of parents, grandparents, collectors, and traders, I believe it could thrive, potentially to the fiscal benefit of the site owner (via hosting advertisements from retailers, etc.).

I'm unfortunately not tech-savvy enough to launch such an endeavor on my own, or I most certainly would do it. Maybe chatting about it here will inspire someone.

I don't think it will work, look at Game Stop. They tried to do this during SSA and it did not last long. My GS only did this for 3 months and it did not go well.

Quote: BahamutBreaker

Quote: shelly9871

I'm so glad someone posted this topic. Would be so great to have a thread here where we could --at our own risk--b/s/t---.

But I understand the rules. I've also wanted a place where people post different places they find that you can find Skylanders. For instance I just happened upon a site that is similar to ebay in the Netherlands. Found a glitter sprocket triple pack I was looking for. It'd be nice to have all these different places on one thread for everybody to use. I already mentioned the hsn -home shopping network. That just proves you never know
Thanks

Netherlands place

Marktplaats.nl

Agreed, Shelly

I think it's safe to say that while Ebay is a very useful resource that gets a massive share of the online buying and selling market ... Ebay is also far from perfect, and the current rules and atmosphere on Ebay often make it VERY difficult for the Seller to have ANY recourse when a Buyer manipulates the system to garner free stuff, and/or make the life of the Seller miserable simply for the sake of doing just that.
Since Skylanders collectors are, in general (if the overall general amiable nature of this forum's users is any indication), a reasonable, honest, and (mostly!) rational lot, I'd REALLY like to see a trading post online specifically for Skylanders. It's obvious that the markets for used Skylanders and "collectors' item" Skylanders is quite robust. And if an Ebay-alternative website could be broadcast and advertised to the general population of parents, grandparents, collectors, and traders, I believe it could thrive, potentially to the fiscal benefit of the site owner (via hosting advertisements from retailers, etc.).

I'm unfortunately not tech-savvy enough to launch such an endeavor on my own, or I most certainly would do it. Maybe chatting about it here will inspire someone.

Ya know---this is deja vu. I was so disgusted with using eBay for buying/selling comics I ended up using the many alternatives. If the market for this continues to be robust I would say it would be a "great" opportunity for someone to pursue---unless Activision wants to get sue happy over it.

My "concerns" over doing such a site:

1. do you simply provide a venue for connecting buyer and seller but not be involved with the transaction (and as such is another wild wild west) or do you proxy the buying/selling to provide some guarantee. The later allows the web site to take a percentage of the sale but would have to in turn ship it to the buyer. This model works great for comics but the dollar value of these doesn't sound justified except for the more expensive chase variants.

2. average age for these guys involve people that can't engage in a legal transaction....risk abound.

Those are valid concerns, GhostRoaster, and they would need to be addressed if someone was to step-up and create a website similar to what I am proposing.

I do not believe that a website that would host such a "trading post" should be trying to earn profit by raking a percentage of the sale, unless that percentage is necessary/used (as you suggested) to cover the cost of shipping the item from the "middle man" to the Buyer (in which case it wouldn't be profit; just covering the overhead). Rather, I propose that the hypothetical trading post website, if it were to seek profits, would garner those profits by soliciting retailers to advertise on their website. I suspect that many retailers would be very interested in advertising at a Skylanders trading post/forum, given that the website generates enough hits/traffic to justify said advertising.

Potentially I could probably manage to make such a website, but it would be a MASSIVE undertaking and take a LOT of work... I can make websites, but I haven't done much interactive content, and not in a long time.

My concerns are along the same lines as GhostRoaster, except that the age range of people who would want to use such a site, but are still too young for legal transactions, would be small. Also, "old enough for legal transactions" is roughly (maybe exactly) the same as "old enough to have a credit card", and that's pretty much the only way to pay online (and nobody would be stupid enough to send anything before they're paid).

Also, part of the success of eBay and Kijiji, and why people feel comfortable using them, is because they offer some security, some protection. How they manage this without putting a LOT of risk on themselves, I have no idea. That's a lot of responsibility.

If the site is only a venue, like an online bulletin board to announce your wishes or whatever, you still will tend to open the door to legal action, after a bad deal some nitwit might try legally going after you, so the site would need a REALLY strong disclaimer. Plus, this would feel very risky. Also even if the site has nothing to do with the trades/transactions, it still might have to take portions of sales, as there are still costs. Although it's possible to get free webspace, interactive websites require a style of coding that requires the computer server it's on (the web space) to support such coding, and pretty sure NO free webspace supports it, you always have to pay for THAT kind of hosting. Ads are certainly a possibility for paying for things, though.

Going full-blown with this, basically a Skylanders-only eBay, would be way more work, and take a lot of planning/figuring out. Setting up a similar rating system (which would be really useless at first and for a long time anyway, since you need trades/sales/whatever to go on for people to rate these transactions) and such. For simplicity and to partially pass the responsibility-buck, it could REQUIRE that all sales are paid for through PayPal, and lean on their security, but that still leaves a lot of responsibility.

All in all, this seems like way more effort than it would be worth.

The better solution is for the ops here on Dark Spyro to allow a special transactions thread. It could only work if the title/subject included something like "(DarkSpyro and everyone involved takes no responsibility for any transactions undertaken in this thread. The rules against advertising and selling are suspended in this forum and this forum only)". This would HAVE to be in the title (making it a LOOOOOONG title), not just the first post, because chances are the thread would quickly grow beyond one page, hiding the first post from anyone who jumps right to the last page, and it would require the permission of someone in authority on the site to be able to make such claims. And it would have to be a Sticky, of course, LOL! Maybe shortening the title to "(Please read disclaimers in the first post)" would improve things, but still...

The thing is, advertising such things and selling and such are forbidden in posts simply as the only way Dark Spyro can offer fraud protection to its members. They're protecting us from ourselves, from taking the risk of entering into an agreement with some unknown person. People on here tend to be decent, but you still never know. There simply doesn't exist here any protection like on other sites.

This is still the best solution because all the other sites - and especially any new site - just doesn't have the sheer population that Dark Spyro does, and of the right audience. Nobody else will have enough activity to be successful at this. Not much point in being able to say "I have a Glitter Tigerdini for sale" (picking a fake Skylander name so nobody mistakes this for advertising) if nobody SEES the announcement, right?

Quote: BahamutBreaker

Those are valid concerns, GhostRoaster, and they would need to be addressed if someone was to step-up and create a website similar to what I am proposing.

I do not believe that a website that would host such a "trading post" should be trying to earn profit by raking a percentage of the sale, unless that percentage is necessary/used (as you suggested) to cover the cost of shipping the item from the "middle man" to the Buyer (in which case it wouldn't be profit; just covering the overhead). Rather, I propose that the hypothetical trading post website, if it were to seek profits, would garner those profits by soliciting retailers to advertise on their website. I suspect that many retailers would be very interested in advertising at a Skylanders trading post/forum, given that the website generates enough hits/traffic to justify said advertising.

I think instead of worrying about how the entity goes about making a little money you look at the benefits of having the middle man---the site takes the risk for the transaction, and buyers and sellers remain anonymous. Those were the #1 caveats that make starting a transaction with someone outside of the confines of eBay a valid concern. The risk for the entity would be enormous if he weren't the middle man and it was simply a site to connect buyer and seller--I wonder how many times a buyer or seller would engage the owner over a transaction that went south even though the site would clearly state that the transaction doesn't involve the web site owner. I'm sure someone would even test this from a legal standpoint.

The flip side of this of course is that for $10 figures this doesn't make sense for the "middle man" approach. I've also seen how some people pack that I suspect that would cancel many transactions because the item would be damaged in transit. I'm not sure who exactly would advertise on a skylander site other than Activision. I'm not sure there would be enough consistent new traffic for this model to even pay the hosting bill...

So yeah, want to know why I haven't even moved on this...just look at the above. It would literally be a labor of love...For this to work, scope of the products involved would have to be basically "anything" in the toy arena both old and new to include a wider audience. That's a lot of things to become an expert on. Also, using my comics example sites that have the traffic charge only 10% which is at least 30% cheaper than eBay without all of the hassles (currently on eBay the seller is on the hook)...cost effective alternatives that have the traffic is hard to argue. I'm actually a bit concerned if/when I become seller because I hate dealing with the eBay beast.

I think this whole idea of a "Skylanders Ebay" is overrated.
Just do a trading forum, like they do for lots of other toy sites. Then, include a sub-forum for transaction ratings. If I send my item quickly or pay promptly, give me a "Graz73 +1" If I do a bad job, give me a "Graz73 -1"

THen users can see if the people they are dealing with have a good track record or not.

I have done hundreds of these deals and had almost no problems.

I agree that it doesn't have to be that "fancy". Just a place where people can post what they have available--look for what they need--and a place to arrange transactions---oh, also a rating system.
Thanks
Shelly

Agreed. All areas are loaded with different figures. For someone to swap a flashwing for a wrecking ball seems easy. I like the idea as a way for us to get what we need wo using evilbay. I am in Delaware and overloaded with gitd SB hex and chills. Maybe someone in state x needs one of this and is down for a trade of a red drill that I don't see at all.

Quote: Graz73

I think this whole idea of a "Skylanders Ebay" is overrated.
Just do a trading forum, like they do for lots of other toy sites. Then, include a sub-forum for transaction ratings. If I send my item quickly or pay promptly, give me a "Graz73 +1" If I do a bad job, give me a "Graz73 -1"

THen users can see if the people they are dealing with have a good track record or not.

I have done hundreds of these deals and had almost no problems.

That was m experience in the lightsaber building hobby. But its members need to care both about the community and their standing in it.

Quote: Graz73

I think this whole idea of a "Skylanders Ebay" is overrated.
Just do a trading forum, like they do for lots of other toy sites. Then, include a sub-forum for transaction ratings. If I send my item quickly or pay promptly, give me a "Graz73 +1" If I do a bad job, give me a "Graz73 -1"

THen users can see if the people they are dealing with have a good track record or not.

I have done hundreds of these deals and had almost no problems.

I've done transactions on a bulletin board with similar feedback requirements successfully, but TOTALLY depends on the community. In my eyes, this site IS the community---and the reason a site like skylanderfigs.com was NOT successful--because they don't want to just go to a site and do transactions...catch/22 here.

I really like what I see in the recent posts here.
I think the message is fairly clear, but I may be biased and not seeing "all sides of the story" (which is why this type of discussion is a good thing).
I digress; the message is that DarkSpyro's website has already established itself as the IDEAL environment for a Skylanders trading post. This is a community that respect itself (for the most part) and where people share a common interest in promoting the Skylanders franchise and collecting lots of great Skylanders, knowing damned well that different parts of the country (and world!) have different stock of different characters.

Money does corrupt, and if a trading post was established, it would, of course, have to have rules, and people that refused to respect those rules would have to leave. But I think it's a bit paranoid to presume that Dark Spyro would suddenly shift from pleasant to a hellhole just because a modest amount of trading was tolerated in an isolated part of the website, with enforceable rules in place to protect the website's integrity, owners, and users.

Perhaps I'm being too idealistic; it's a trait of mine that I have to be wary of. But regardless, I do think DarkSpyro should reconsider its stance on hosting a Skylanders marketplace. Right now, Ebay is raking a LOT of cash off of literally THOUSANDS of Skylanders-related transactions EVERY day. While I think it's unreasonable to expect DarkSpyro to host that kind of volume, I'm just saying that picking-off even 1% of Ebay's current Skylanders-related sales would be more substantial than what many people here probably realize.

^I agree...cause a commercial or "free" site for doing trading just isn't going to happen....and let me repeat...I HATE ebay. If I could've done my trading / buying here it would've been better. I have gobs of good items I'm willing to let go on cost basically but I refuse to list on eBay.

If you're feeling ambitious, you could reach out to the people that run TCO http://www.tradecardsonline.com/ and see if they would be willing to expand their library of trading cards to Skylanders figures.

They use a tracked-trading system that's pretty great, and also includes a field for any additional money to be included with a trade as well.

If nothing else, maybe some of us should team up and create our own site with similar functionality :B

That is a FANTASTIC idea and suggestion, Kaz409!

Does anyone know how many registered members DarkSpyro has? And also how many of them are active? On the average day, how many people come to the site?

Because that's really the main thing. If the population isn't big enough, then it really just won't be worth the time. The base membership has to be great enough to get it off the ground and to provide enough value so that others are willing to join in too. Getting the other Skylander sites to link/advertise would also be a big thing. Get 1,000,000 skylander fans together and that's probably worth the time. 100 .... not so much.


I've been building web sites for a long time (18 years), and to really build something out as described above would be a lot of work. It's no small thing to track all that information, provide a clean interface, etc.

However, pre-packaged software is a little different in that you an start with a site quickly and easily. I don't believe the darkSpyro forums were built from scratch, it's a template. A good one too. If you can find someone that has already built a site, like tradecardsonline.com that will give/sell the code, then it's a much easier way to go. stackoverflow.com is a very popular site for Q and A of programming questions. They took a really solid product and made it available to anyone via: stackexchange.com I don't know if someone has created something like that anywhere, but if they had, that's probably where you'd want to start.

And if it could be accessed via Mobile devices, even better.

Wanted to again thank Kaz409 for his/her suggestion/recommendation. It helped me to discover this possible resource:

http://www.miniaturetrading.co...ame_id/97/goal/

Oh awesome! I had no idea that site existed, so I'm glad it sort of worked out! I will definitely be checking out Miniature Trading.

I'm a she, by the way

I really need a place where I can get variants.

Matteomax---ME TOO!