In A Christmas Story, the only thing Ralphie wanted was an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle. As a lifelong Star Wars fan and collector, my "Red Ryder" air rifle was a life size R2-D2 cooler released in 1996 by Pepsi as a promotional store display. Every time I saw one for sale at a toy show or antique store, my mom would veto the purchase, telling me I didn't have space for it or it was too expensive. As an "adult", I finally had an opportunity to buy one on eBay for a mere ~$200! Without even thinking, I purchased it, only to realize the seller wouldn't ship it to me. So I had to drive from Cincinnati, Ohio to eastern Pennsylvania to pick it up from the seller... in a Walmart parking lot. It wasn't until the seller drove away that I realized I couldn't fit the cooler in my VW Jetta. After several hours of playing Tetris with an oversized cooler in a parking lot, and a long drive home in a car without A/C, I was able to add this piece to my collection. I finally had the droid I was looking for!
I share this story with you because it is a classic example of the crazy things that collectors like me will do to own their most prized possessions. Collectors are like treasure hunters, and CompleteSet is their map.
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Hunter
@garydarna Side note-- A Christmas Story is set 2 miles from my hometown :-)
I've watched @garydarna build Complete Set over the years - and this app is an amazing step forward for the product. Excited to see the next steps and to finally log all those Pokemon cards I have!
Thanks @cridenour! It's great to finally have an app for everyone to enjoy. Looking forward to seeing those Pokemon cards, but it's going to be awhile before we finish archiving all of those. There's so many of them!
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Hunter
I love products with niche markets. This is a fun one of those! My buddies in HS collected horror movie figurines and my brother is a Star Wars nerd. This is their haven.
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Hunter
I'm reading @SachaGreif Brick-By-Brick e-book about building and growing community. Do you have any insight in to building community? What's been the biggest challenge?
@uxandrew We still have some work to do when it comes to building a sense of community within the app. Currently, the website and now the app are intended for individual use and enjoyment, but we are quickly introducing new features to foster the community, like the ability to follow other collectors for updates about their Haves and Wants. We also have a fantastic Community Manager, @spinney, who interacts with our members daily.
@uxandrew Our main challenges are cultivating a dedicated core user base while attempting to appeal to all different types of collectors. With such a large and diverse amount of things to collect (Ex: My Little Pony collectors and James Bond collectors usually don't overlap very much) we have to make sure our social media draws in collectors of all kinds while not alienating anyone. I'd say our 2nd biggest challenge is keeping track of and adding the insane amount of user suggested items to the site. Sifting through the requests and adding them to our archives in a timely manner is important to us and can prove difficult as new collectibles are released weekly.
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Hunter
What trends in collection have you seen lately? What are some things coming out now that might be collectible in the future?
@uxandrew By far, one of the most popular collectibles today are the FunKo Pop vinyl figures. There's over 5000 people collecting the brand on CompleteSet and with more being released every couple weeks, it shows no signs of slowing down. See www.completeset.com/funkopop. Another product that's quickly becoming collectible are 'toys to life' products like Disney Infinity and Nintendo amiibo. In fact, CompleteSet was recently used as a source by The Wall Street Journal. In an article covering the popularity of toys to life, the reporter used our data and interviewed some of our members for the story. You can read the article here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/toy-...
@uxandrew As far as what will be collectible in the future, that's tough to say. In my experience, it seems like the products that are considered collectible NOW won't be in the future. When products are made to be collected and marketed as such, they tend to lose their value over time unless they are truly limited edition. For instance, when Kenner/Hasbro started releasing Star Wars toys again in the 1990s, fans and dealers speculated they'd be as valuable as the vintage ones someday. That didn't happen. In fact, the opposite occurred. They were so mass-produced that they're pretty much worthless today.
@uxandrew We earn a commission by referring buyers to partner sites, such as eBay and Amazon. However, our current priority is to grow our community and the archives.
CompleteSet for iOS
CompleteSet for iOS
Cladwell
CompleteSet for iOS
CompleteSet for iOS
CompleteSet for iOS
CompleteSet for iOS
CompleteSet for iOS
CompleteSet for iOS