OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hello to all!
I am new to ooak forum but have been playing table tennis for a long time
Recently an idea came up: to create a table tennis equipment marketplace. I think it will be useful, because this is not on the Internet now.
I'm interested in your opinion on this. What do you think of this idea?

So, I think this will solve a few problems:
-Cheap equipment prices in one place from all online stores (tt11, megaspin, dandoy, ttstore, paddlepallace and other).
-functional product comparison with characteristics
-The most complete catalog of equipment with descriptions, photos and reviews.
-a flexible set of filters for sorting goods (by layers, thicknesses, brands, pimples - not pimples, antispin, etc).

what else is useful on such a site can be implemented? Imagine what functionality is missing in ordinary stores where you usually are and what can be implemented?

I suggest just discussing on this topic to understand whether it is worth starting?) I just have some free time and the ability to develop websites

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_price

Tamasu Butterfly charges MSRP cost differently from market to market.
-50 USD for Tenergy 05 rubber within Egypt market.
-70 USD for USA resellers..
Money rule the World we live in.

I heard about the butterfly pricing policy for each region.
but I think this is not a problem for other brands)
Correct if it is not)

I presume you're looking at a whole new website, not something part of OOAK Forum, right? If so I'll need to move it to another section, because this section is about OOAK forum ideas, not other websites.

While I think the idea is good...it's not new and a few have tried it, but it's a huge project, especially if you want to keep it up to date. I think there's a lot of issues to consider, like

1. Are you planning to do this all by yourself, or try and make it a community project where everyone can contribute?
If it's all by yourself, it's a huge project that needs continual additions as new stuff comes out. If it's a community project, how will you get people to contribute?

2. Will you fund the project?
It will cost money to host it, and will cost more as it increases in popularity. How will you fund this?

3. If you want it to be a profitable project, you want to make it clear how you plan to make money from it, and how opinions will remain independent.
I remember when revspin first started, I was asked to input my ideas, which I spent quite a bit of time on. I guess I was naive not to appreciate that this was going to be a monitised website and dealers would be charged a lot of money to get their site listed on the website. Of course this does not negate the value of the website, and I don't hold it against the owner at all (in fact he's a friend), but if I had know upfront someone was making this as a venture for profit, I might not have spent as much of my free time on it.
Regarding independence, as soon as money becomes involved, there will be the temptation to encourage people to click on links that offer something in return, like affiliate links. How will you make this fair, and ensure it does not become deceptive?

4. If you accept any types of ratings/reviews from the community, who will be the judge whether it's credible or not.
If you're going to rate retailers for example, will you rate only by price, or rate by reliability/service/support as well? How will you judge that, and who makes the decisions? How will you know if something is genuine bad feedback, or someone trying to smear a retailer?

I don't wish to discourage you, but I think you can see that it will be a huge project, with lots of things to consider.

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Thanks for your answers and questions!

Yes, this is planned as a new site separate from the ooak forum. But your opinion of forum users is important to me)
Can you show examples where this has already been implemented? maybe I will contact the developers and talk.

1. I like the question. Most likely in the beginning it will be a project by its own efforts. We need to see how users will react to this. This is very important, because if it is not popular, then the time spent by someone else will be in vain.
2. it’s not a problem to find money to launch it is not a lot of money to start (domain, hosting), I will do the development at the start)) Speaking about this, I mean that I would launch a project with prices from popular online stores and get feedback from users, how useful it is for them. there is an idea to add from Amazon affiliate links where official representatives sell, or accept money from online stores for accommodation, while there are no other models. I will be glad if you tell me a few ideas)
3. First I need to understand how interesting this will be, and then think about how to make sure that the information on the site does not conflict with its profitability. True, now I have no ideas whatsoever to implement this, but your opinion is very interesting to me, I will be glad to discuss this, for this I am writing here.
4. So far, only we are implementing the adding of current prices from other sellers. Of course, on the product pages will be available pictures, names and characteristics of products that are available to everyone. but I don’t think about more functionality yet. because this is a very big job, as you said it will be expensive.

In any case, we have no goal of forcing users to click on the links we need that are not objective. We want to give users a platform so that you can choose the best price from all sellers in one place and that the goods are declared to the quality that the manufacturer has.
I repeat I am interested in the dialogue and discussion of this idea.

I like this idea, but it will be much more complex than you expect.

Taking equipment scaling for example, Revspin already have a good template. BUT, the ratings are too subjective, in some instances, they are very skewed.

In order to make "objective" equipment testing, you will need standardized testing, and pay for all equipment to test (I don't think manufacturers are willing to supply samples for direct comparisons with their competitors. Also, if you develop good relations with one of those manufacturers, what's to stop you from giving +1 to control to them and not someone else?

You ever wonder why we still don't have a simple list of topsheet+sponge hardness table (this will tell me alot about how a rubber feels)? One reason is noone found the incentive to test them. Another is that rubber/blade batch variations are huge, test results from one batch may be completely different from the same model bought by someone else.

A better (non profit) endeavor is to teach people about the "technical" effects of equipment like: wood characteristics, constructions types, thickness and effects, different categories of feel, etc. But this would be a much longer read and not exactly beginner friendly.

TTGearlab has a good idea going. Standardized comparisons. But not beginner friendly, and honestly, I find even their results a little biased.

we have no purpose to standardize all inventory. As you say, this is an impossible task!
We want to provide an opportunity to compare inventory prices from different retailers in one place)

I think you did not supplement this) What do you think about this?

Sounds like an Expedia for table tennis equipment.

Problem is.. how do you make money? And you will need to make money, it's going to take a LOT of man-hours to set up, and will ESPECIALLY take a lot of man-hours to keep it going. What will probably happen is that it'll peter out after 2-3 years. If you're going to aggregate prices from various stores then the process should be automatic, unless you want to find yourself chained to your desk. To make it automatic you'd need the cooperation of other companies. Not sure if you need to get their PERMISSION, but these days you hear of news aggregators (e.g. Google Search) being sued by newspapers and TV channels, which are the source of their material. I'd hate to think of how you'd deal with AliExpress vendors.

Iskandar

Hi Iskandar!
You are right, it will be something like Expedia in table tennis)
we plan to start using an affiliate program from Amazon at first time. It seems to me reliable and promising in the first stage and all vendors is original on Amazon, what do you say?
Dont worry, aliexpress is not for us)

If you're only going to list Amazon vendors, why would people use your site, when they can just go directly to Amazon, which already gives you a search for the best prices? Many vendors are not on Amazon, because their fees are so high.

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Hey!
you did not quite understand correctly: the site will present prices from most well-known online sellers (megaspin, paddlepalace, tt11, etc.) and sellers on Amazon including.
Users of the site will be able to compare the prices of all of them!