A new website "USA Coin Book" has been launched as an alternative to Ebay that is exclusively for coin collectors and coin dealers thus making it a one-of-a-kind site. An interesting feature at this new site which sets it apart immediately from other sites is that anyone can quickly look up coin values, statistics, pictures, composition and other facts about coins in a very clean, organized and fast-loading "Red Book" format. Integrated into this site is a marketplace where members can easily buy, sell, auction or just keep track of their personal collection online. There are no costs to sign up and no costs to list products or view information. The only charge to those selling numismatic items on this site is a 2% final value fee on any items sold.
Compare this site using an example of an eBay coin dealer who has a store with 20,000 coins. This dealer would have to spend $300 per month for the store front, plus $600 every 7 days in fixed listing fees (whether they sold the coins or not), on top of a 12% final value fee on anything that gets sold. This leaves very little room for dealer profits and buyers get stuck with over-priced coins. At the new site the same dealer pays absolutely nothing for listing any of the coins and pays only 2% of the final selling price for any items sold. Dealers earn more profits, the buyer gets better deals, and the casual collector gets lots of coin information, pictures and being able to catalog their collections online.
To compete with eBay, the new site uses a highly technical marketing strategy known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It is used to rank the site highly in the search engines and draw in buyers directly from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com and other major search engines. Two major factors are used in search algorithms to determine ranking. One is how simple and organized the programming code is and site navigation, which also benefits visitors. The other is how many other websites link back to the site. Even a single dealer linking back to the site from their website can provide massive boosts in the site's rankings, which will bring in more potential buyers.
This site is designed by a 14-year veteran coin collector, computer programmer and currently unemployed physicist, so there is good insight on how to best design a clean and highly organized site that is specialized for collectors of any experience level, or the average person wanting to look up the value of their old coins. At the moment, many sellers are waiting for more buyers and many buyers are waiting for more sellers to add coins. The focus now is on spreading the word in any form of media possible.
You can access the new site by clicking on the following link:
http://www.usacoinbook.com/
