(11-18-2013, 07:00 AM)branesergen Wrote: A normal hard drive will not be able to host images for this type of thing. Try uploading 100 images to an email from your computer. It will take quite awhile. Now imagine group subs with over 500 images. To save time, and overall money (because, lets face it, money is the bottom line) a hosting site with the ability to be searched by the general public will need to be purchased and maintained. This will cost a monthly fee or yearly fee.
The $1000 was a figurative number being asked if anyone wants to basically waste $1000. That is on a personal level. The cost incured by Beckett to apply this would far exceed that. Scanners ($100 per for a cheap one that would probably burn out after scanning 1000 cards in a day considering it will be running non stop. $500 for a top of the line one that might last a month). They will get hot and they will stop working and more than 1 will be needed for the volume.
The hourly wages for a person or people to run those scanners and upload those images. Would probably need 3 people for the volume.
So all of these costs to be incured by Beckett will effect their bottom line at the end of the month. $4000 a month is not going to be absorbed by a company if it is not cost effective. This is in relation to my question - Will you spend $1000 dollars for something that wont be used? Or, another way to ask the same question, would you spend all day on the street selling bananas for a $20 a day profit? Or would you find a better way to make more money with your time?
Not everyone who has posted is not interested. Myself, and I believe Nolan, are not interested and, according to the poll, not even half the people are interested. 5 out of 9 are not. This is of course my personal opinion as yours is you would like the service. And even tho 9 people is a far cry from effective numbers it still shows a majority are not interested. Especially if a cost is incured.
As for my submissions. My resells are very minimal. Out of 900 a year I may resell 50 of them. And just yesterday I scanned and uploaded my Peyton Manning BSG registry. 258 cards took me roughly half a day to scan, upload, label and organize. It actually took me about 15 hours but much of that involved watching football and there is still 100 to be labeled and organized. At a measly 10 cents per image it still would not be cost effective or profitable for me to pay BGS to scan them for me. As pulling the images from the site/email to my computer and reuploading to my site are not worth it. I currently have a 100 card submission being graded and that $10 would grade another card which in turn could be a bigger profit if I resold it. Not to mention I like my own personal way and do not want to rely on someone elses idea of how to scan, crop and name my images.
Many people may like the idea - Me, I dont want the cost of grading to go up for something I dont need/want.
Hell I live in Texas and have to pay taxes on my submissions. $70 could have graded 5 more cards! To me that is $70 wasted for nothing. Want to pay my $70 for something you wont use? lol
Now I realize what you mean by hosting the images for people to access them, opposed to just storing them. That could definitely be costly; although perhaps BGS already has a foot in the door in that department? (I'm not familiar with the card registry, but sounds like it involves images?)
I agree with all your examples that would incur costs. But you gotta admit, certain operations are more efficient when done in bulk, even taking into account things that you mentioned like maintenance.
As I said, I figured your point was that adding this service would cost BGS a nontrivial amount of money. As we've already pointed out, it boils down to cost effectiveness, and demand. I'll add in my vote to make it 5/10. While not a majority, you gotta admit that 50% would still be a lot of "interest", albeit depending greatly on the cost to the consumer. I have no idea how many customers BGS has, but 50% of a lot is still a lot.
Thanks for your example of scanning your own cards, as I like real-life examples and cold, hard facts. Sounds like 258 cards took 15 hours with football, so lets estimate 10 hours. That's 25 cards an hour. At 10 cents a card, that is $2.50 to save yourself an hour of your time. Obviously, this is a gross oversimplification, and you mentioned other good counterpoints that would need to be taken into account. But these numbers give a good first cut for discussion's sake.
You make a great point about personal preference on the scans though, now that I think back to cards I've scanned myself.
