In the early days of the internet finding what you were looking for was easy but with thousands of new sites being added every day the task has become rather like hunting for the proverbial 'needle in a haystack'. At Collector Cafe, we recognised that problem and have spent the past two years looking at ways to develop a gateway to the internet which would provide millions of collectors with an easy to use 'roadmap' to thousands of dealer sites covering the complete range of collecting interests.
Producing a simple index to dealer sites is hardly a ground breaking concept but that was only the starting point to the development of Collector Cafe that we believe will soon become the world's largest online collecting community.
Providing a simple to use guide to collector sites was the starting point but we quickly realised that launching Collector Cafe would require a different approach to most other web portals, which exist to promote a range of products to consumers.
Collector Cafe would need to satisfy the needs of a wide variety of collectors who have specific requirements. It would have to have a front door with up to a hundred separate areas where each collector and dealer could be offered information and services that would match particular interests while also being part of a very large worldwide community.
The one factor which will be featured throughout Collector Cafe is editorial content. We anticipate that within six months collectors will be able to access thousands of articles, which will quickly become a massive searchable archive on a wide range of collecting interests.
As every dealer knows customers like to meet and share their interests with other collectors, which is why each of the 90 separate interest areas will have their own email 'Bulletin Board' where visitors will be able to communicate on a regular basis with other collectors. This will be organised and maintained by our editorial team to ensure that the content remains up to date, informative and relevant.
Our Classified Advertising section should prove popular with both collectors and dealers. Again this will be organised by interest and visitors will be able to view advertisements by subject and by country.
Not only will we be building our own editorial archives but we also will be welcoming contributions from publishers, dealers and collectors. Collector Cafe is a genuine community site that will represent a broad range of opinions on a wide variety of collecting interests.
Immediately on launching Collector Cafe we will be running a major campaign in hundreds of collecting titles throughout the world.
Collector Cafe has just completed the first phase of a long-term development project. Currently we are building two other portals which will be launched shortly.