This month I'm making a lot of hooplah about my latest project, a new site called EDCSource.com, which is all well and good, but what is it, and what's it all about? In a nutshell, it's a new auction site, but there's more than that, and although it's brand spanking new, there's already a bit of history behind it.
The past year has been rough on knife collectors, from the proposed ban on assisted opening knives in the US to eBay's black listing of knife sales in the UK, knife collectors in general have been greatly affected. As you have all seen from the updates I have been sending out regarding the Assisted Opener Ban from Blade Magazine and other sources, I have been trying to do my part to help fight these kinds of things from affecting SOSAK Members- at least as much as one man could.
My efforts to counter eBay's decision on the UK took a little longer, and a lot more effort than simply forwarding some emails or copy and pasting someone else's words and providing email addresses. In fact, it was a small idea that grew and grew and grew form some pretty humble beginnings- here's an excerpt from the actual thread that got it all started:
Link to actual thread in case anyone wants to read the whole thing!
Since late February Esteban (site technician), Micah (web designer) and myself have been working like crazy testing different pieces of software to try and find something functional- a long and painful process if ever there was one! I'd initially hoped to have EDCSource up and running in March- the cutoff date for knife sales on eBay, but none of the software we'd tested initially were up to the standards I'd set for SOSAK members.
Eventually however, we did find software that was functional and after rigorous testing and configuring, EDCSource.com is born, ready to serve the needs of the knife collector community- but that wouldn't have been enough on it's own. Even with the correct software we needed to expand the idea to make it functional- it's no secret that in order for an auction site to be successful, there needs to be content. While knife buyers are a significant sized community (as the US Government recently learned!) in order to make EDCSource feasable, we decided to expand the site to Every Day Carry (EDC) gear of all kinds- flashlights, clothing, pens, camping/hiking/outdoors goods and other things that might appeal to knife and tool collectors the world over.
Opening EDCSource.com to support as many needs as possible means that SAK collectors can have a new site that will support not only their buying and selling habits, but also the community that keeps the pieces they want available. By supporting EDCSource, SOSAK members will also be supporting SOSAKOnline, Multitool.org and many other sites that specialize in the various gadgets and gear that brought us all here in the first place.
Planning, building and marketing a site like this is one thing- making it work is another. As such, I've tried to design the fee structure in such a way as to encourage buyers and sellers alike. There are lower fees than the big guys- listing fees are lower, and there are no commissions on any items that sell for under $25US, making it a great place to sell smaller items, and discounts for relisting items in case they don't sell, or if someone has similar or multiple items to list.
And, just in case supporting the community isn't enough reason to give EDCSource a test drive, how about this- for the month of October, there are no fees of any kind. No listing fee, no commissions, no highlighting fees, no bold fees, no extra category fees... nothing at all for all of October, so it's worth giving it a shot. If nothing happens, well all anyone is out is a few minutes of their time for registry! This also gives us an opportunity to get feedback on the software and options we have set up, and suggestions on how to do it better.
It's also worth noting that we'll be seeing some familiar sellers on EDCSource.com, including Tim from Felinevet, Tom (aka Rotokid), and Marc, the top man at EDCDepot.com. I have to say this is a big leap for me, but I'm confident that with the literally thousands of members here and on Multitool.org, EDCSource.com will be a huge success!