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Note: This question was asked yesterday, an answer was written up, but unfortunately, it never was typed into the system. Due to its importance, we are submitting an answer late.
Q: Your email to the 500 Test gropup members stated that the 2001 eTopps Ripken would be his "first and last" eTopps card. The eBay auctions description for the eTopps Ripken says "first and only".
Given these facts why are you producting another Ripken card for your Classic Event series?
A: Many of us were not around in 2001 when the Ripken email was sent out, so our decision was based on piecing together evidence, talking to former eTopps employees, and looking at the email through the context of what was going on in 2001. Our interpretation of the situation was based on the fact that Ripken had already announced his retirement for the end of the 2001 season. The intent of the email was to say that because Ripken is retiring, this is the last chance you will have to get a Ripken etopps card, more so due to the fact that he will no longer be an active player, rather than to any policy commitment by eTopps. (i.e. He is retiring; we will no longer make player cards of him).
After days of debating the meaning and intent of the email, we have come to the conclusion that giving the context that the email was written, it is not inappropriate to offer Ripken as a Classics Event card.
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This concludes our LIVE Q and A session.
Thank you once again for submitting your questions and for your overwhelming support of etopps. While we unfortunately did not get to respond to all, we hope that you enjoyed having many of the most frequently-asked questions answered.
We hope you continue to enjoy all that etopps has to offer! Please feel free to send any questions, comments or suggestions to us at "support@etopps.com" in the future!
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Q: Due to the popularity of the 2001 Pujols autograph offering, are you planning to continue offering 2001 version of a player's card to be autographed?
A: We are constantly looking for opportunities for autographs, including '01 cards. In the coming months, we would like to increase the offerings to Classics, Nascar and Football.
One note, we don't intend on offering autos weekly. We try to offer only auto's that:
(1) Are different from autos that we've offered in the past (e.g., Mark Martin) or autographs that our community would enjoy
(2) Represent a good deal for the community. For example, we felt that the Pujols auto represented good value. After shipping costs and admin costs, etopps did not profit in any meaningful manner. His auto is just that expensive.
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Q:What exactly is the thought-process going on behind the eVent cards? I always have been an avid collector of the eVent cards as they came out, and feel that they have always had a lot of potential, but misfire in many ways more than hit. For example, many actual noteworthy events have been completely missed (like perfect games, hits-for-the-cycle, Ichiro season hit record, and on and on), while totally lame or manufactured "eVents" have been immortalized in the set (too many to mention right now). I think that some of this may be remedied with the Classic eVent cards , but already I am not too encouraged--the Yogi one is pretty weak, and the 1989 World Series card has an Oakland logo over the photo of the Giant's Candlestick Park--yes, I know the A's won the series, but the design could use a bit more creativity (like both team's logos--at least since they were both from the area).
So I guess enough editorial and to the question--what is the thought process behind the eVent cards, and can you please choose more wisely which events to commemorate? And please, no lame dodging answers like "well, one event's significance is probably more for one person, and less for another, and it can change over time." It's totally clear that Ichiro's hit record is vastly more significant, in many ways, than a four-homer game from Mike Cameron (only tied a record, anyway).
A: We have previously answered the first part of your question concerning the season event cards. Look for the answer above.
As far as your question concerning Classic Event cards goes: It is more complicated than just picking the top 20 events of all time. There are many issues to consider, including: image availability, licensing issues, and the cost of acquiring certain player rights. Given these issues, we feel that we came up with the best 20 events that were available to us.
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Q:When (and for a short time after) eTopps launched, I remember all of the breathless articles about how that now sports cards have turned into practically day-trading commodities, and it still had a lot of that "new economy" sheen on it before the tech crash (and 2002 "crash" on eTopps). I am generally happy with where eTopps is today, and glad to see that particularly for player-collectors, the focus of eTopps has gone from day-trading, speculation and "adoption" nonsense, to being highly-desired in-hand at shows. That fact alone seems to have boosted eTopps' long-term viability. Are you doing anything more to distance eTopps from the speculatory rabble, and enhance the appeal of the cards further into the market and out of the warehouse?
A: We are trying to market the collectability of the etopps cards, rather than the profit model. To this goal, we are trying to promote the cards' to the true collectors via the HTA stores, Card Shows, and package delivery deals, while downplaying the wall street model.
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Q: What is going on with the cards? One of the biggest differentiators to me for eTopps has been the fact that the cards are chrome / refractor-like, but with an extra quality that differentiates the card from "any old chrome" card. I really miss the eTopps medallion put on the front of the cards from 2000-2003, and now even the limited number formerly printed on the back is not on the card any longer. So now, even lessor-quality cards out of random packs have more intrinsic appeal than current eTopps cards (and often at lower per-card cost when averaging the price of retail packs). Is there any thought to bringing back the medallion (please?), or at least printing the limited number on the cards after they have been printed? It seems clear that eTopps has removed these basically to save costs and improve the bottom line, and I don't think that I am the only one of the opinion that the new COI's are lame, and that the cards from 2004 to now just aren't the same.
A: We changed the manufacturing technology at the start of 2004 in order to offer etopps cards at a lower price point. If you recall, back in 2002-2003, card prices were averaging $6-$7 per card, while in 2004, the average price was under $5, we therefore did not pocket the difference, but rather passed on price reductions to customers.
The issue with print run on the back versus the COI's is a different issue. We decided this year to make more cards available to be delivered by printing them in advance. Unfortunately, print runs could not be printed on the cards when they are made up front. The solution was the COI, where we could provide card holders with a document stating the print run.
Lastly, returning to a new state of the art technology depends on the desires of the etopps community. The trade off is the price that the cards are offered. If members feel that this is a trade they are willing to make (i.e. higher prices for higher technology cards), we will offer improvements in the future.
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Q:Can we expect the George Brett card to be corrected so that it does not state the event happened in the ALCS?
A:Yes
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Q:I split up my time between a Windows PC and Macintosh system between work and home, and I have often seen on the Macintosh browsers (Firefox, IE, or Safari) weird behavior on the eTopps site (e.g., header icons in the wrong spot, but still functional), and it occasionally crashes Safari. Do you do site testing on a variety of browsers / platforms, or are you generally expecting Windows IE as the gateway application to the site? I would like to see either more QA done for a variety or browsers, or a recommendation towards using WIndows IE version X.X if not--either choice is OK, but it is important to make progress here.
A:In the past, IE has been the dominant browser. We therefore did not test other browsers for compatability. As IE loses market share, it is important that we do test compatablity with other browsers and we will do that in the future.
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Q:When will there be a large catalog like the one a few months ago? It took almost 10 minutes for all the items to get got.
A:Recently we increased the number of catalogs but made them smaller. We are trying a number of different configureations for the catalog as there are many varying opinions as to what the best formula may be. Needless to say, this is something we will continue to work on in the future.
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Q: I tried to do some gifting to a friend to get him started. It didn't work initially, but it may have more to do with his email system than eTopps. Is there any thought being given to highlight gifting as a way to actively expand the eTopps community, such as reward points, or free eTopps card stands as an incentive for gifting? Also, I would like to give my friend more than three cards--is there any consideration to allow more than three?
A: This is an interesting suggestion. We have not considered expanding gifting in the past due to limited interest. If we can provide incentives for gifting while not giving abusers an opportunity to take advantage of the system, we will consider it.
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Q: Two Trade Post improvements I would like to see would be (a) to allow not only posting an offer to trade multiple cards for a single card but to offer a single card for multiple other cards and (b) to allow eTopps reward points to be traded for cards. The latter could take some of the pressure off the catalog (whose limited time availability remains frustrating for many eTopps users), and eTopps could even replace the catalog with the Trade Post by offering cards that have been held back in exchange for rewards points. Are either of these considered for the future?
A: (a)This part was answered in a prior message - please see below.
(b)We have considered the trading of rewards points, and we do see this being a potentially popular option. However, one concern we have is that the trading of rewards points will put more buying pressure on the catalog, not less. Or, alternatively, it will reduce the value of points. We have taken some measures to improve the catalog this year and we would like to continue those improvements first before considering the possibility of offering the trading of points. Improving the catalog will make the trading of points, if/when released, that much better.
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Q:How do you set the prices for the cards?
A:There are two variables involved with setting prices for each etopps card offered: (1) price and (2) quantity. These two variables go hand in hand. We try to predict each card's demand when setting price and quantity. Rookie cards of a top new prospect will have higher anticipated demand, and we therefore will offer these with higher prices and quantities. Veterans who have been etopps subjects in the past we will tend to offer at a lower price with a smaller offering size.
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Q:What determines the date cards are available for shipping, since some cards in the 05 set are available now swhile others aren't available until August or September? Please clarify.
A:Before the season, we print some cards that we know will be in demand. However, we are constrained as to how many and which cards we can print at times due to efficiencies, available photography and licensing.
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Q: When are you going to add more Topps Chrome Basketball Boxes to the cat. There has been the same three(sold out) for the past 4 or 5 cats !!!
A: On July 1st, we will create a new catalog for merchandise that, once again, will last one month. More Topps Chrome boxes will be offered in that catalog.
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Q: We know baseball 2004 cards could not be autographed. Does that apply to 2004 football and basketball?
Also, the latest round of football classics (and the new event and baseball classics), are they capable of being auto'd or are they of the same construction as '04 baseball?
A:2004 Football cards have proven difficult to auto due to the nature of the coating on the card.
However, we have not experienced any difficulties in having 2004 Basketball cards autographed.
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Q:With the push to get more cards in-hand, is eTopps considering publishing the in-hand numbers or the numbers left in port?
A:The problem with publishing this information is that it adds complexity to an already complicated site. We believe that complexity is a barrier to recruiting new etoppers.
If we can determine a way to meet this requirement while satisfying the more sophisticated etoppers, we would be happy to add this information.
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Q: Why can't we offer a single higher valued card in return for multiples of a lower price item... example: I have 1 Troy Aikman classic to trade for 5 04 Al Jeffersons... This is very frustrating and would be a huge value to the tp....
A:Due to the customer demand, this is a feature we hope to implement in the future. Keep in mind that any improvement to the TP has to be approved by our partners at eBay. We don't believe that eBay will have any reason(s) to stop such functionality, but it is a part of the process.
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Q:What is eTopps' plan for the continuation of the 2005 baseball season events set? Clearly, some of the events included do not rise to the major milestones in earlier events series. Is this intended to be a Chronicles-type set that provides roughly 1 (or 2) cards per week of the most notable events of that week? If so, is there a commitment to continue this through the entire 2005 season?
A:Our intent was to provide a chronicle of the entire season. However, we drifted away from that by being over converned with the collectability of each individual card. In the coming weeks, we will refocus our efforts on offering a series of cards that tell the complete story of the 2005 Baseball season.
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Q:How come Etopps didn't have a card for Ichiro Suzuki's single season hits record in 2004?
A:Unfortunately, there are licensing issues involving Ichiro Suzuki.
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Q: Having decided to produce more BB Classics, will you be doing the same with Football? There are still many greats who do not have cards (Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith, Andre Reed, Bart Starr, Dick Butkus, V. Lombardi, Hornung, Sam Huff, Alworth, Maynard, L. Dawson, Bobby Layne, John Mackey, Jack Kemp, Bobby Bell, Franco Harris, L. Csonka, James Lofton, G. Halas, Ken Stabler, Carl Eller -- twenty-one more off the top of my head that are deserving of consideration-- and there are many, many more).
A:We are also considering offering additional Football Classics cards. The nature of that offering has not yet been decided. Stay tuned in the future for any announcements concerning etopps Classic Football.
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Q:The Baseball Classic Set was to have been complete at 60. Your decision to add to it has disappointed some collectors who thought they had a complete set. Why didn't you just release a new offering such as "Archives" or "Fan Favorites" to produce more cards of retired stars instead of expanding the Classics?
When the new opportunity to offer cards on players such as Roger Maris came up, we considered the alternative between capping the set at 60 and providing collectors with the opportunity to have access to these great players. We decided that the pros were greater than the cons in this special case and that is why we went forward with the 5 additional classic cards.
To answer to your second question, as a policy, etopps does not have special insert sets or SP sets, so creating a new offering did not make sense.
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Q:Will you continue to add players to the '05 BB set (Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Ervin Santana, etc.) as they are promoted to the majors?
We are planning on offering 2 weeks of late season call ups in September. Fielder and Weeks will definitely be part of that group.
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Q: I was wondering if you could make more Nascar eTopps. Thats what I want to see. Thanks.
A:Unfortuantely, NASCAR is very difficult for us to offer because we need to arrange licensing agreements with each individual driver, rather than with a league or association.
We have considered coming up with an update set, featuring just drivers that we haven't done in the past and we are still looking into the feasibility of doing this.
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Q:How is it possible that the Detroit Pistons won the 2004 Championship and no player cards were made last year? If low demand is the case isn't that a good way to make a scarce card.
A:Our editors consider many factors when chosing the subjects for a particular card set, including: Player popularity, player collectability, number of times a player has been issued, number of players from a particular team, and usefulness in games. We did not intend to skip the Pistons last year, but using the stated criteria, no Piston made the final list. One glaring omission is Tayshaun Prince, who should be in next year's set.
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Q: I want to know if I am referred to the site by another person, and I register, does the person who referred me get anything for the referral.
A: At present, etopps does not offer an incentive for referring others to our site, although we are continually reviewing our policies. While we do not presently offer such incentives, please don't let that stop you from spreading the good word about etopps!
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Welcome to etopps LIVE Q and A, and thank you to all who have submitted questions to us!
Over the course of this hour, we will be posting answers to many of the questions we've received at our "qanda@topps.com" mailbox over the past few days.
We will also be reviewing questions we receive today (through 1:00pm (ET)) and will post replies to as many as we can within the hour. (Note: You may need to refresh your page from time to time to view the latest posts.)
Like the last Q and A session, we ask for your patience - We will be reading and responding to as many questions as we can within the hour.
