About Catawiki

What is Catawiki?

Catawiki is the online catalogue of collectables. The catalogue is filled by users in the same way as Wikipedia.You can keep track of your collection and wish list for free. Catawiki also provides the capability of buying and selling your collectables, using the central catalogue as the basis. This lets you offer items without having to add information or images to it. This sets Catawiki apart from other e-commerce platforms such as eBay and makes it easier to see who is offering what and for how much. The Catawiki catalogue has big advantages over a paper catalogue: it’s free and it’s always up to date.

History

René, the creator of the concept, is a comic collector himself. Like many other collectors, he made lots of lists to keep track of his collection. He saw that his fellow collectors did the same thing, which wasn't very handy. And the last comic catalogue was published in 1998, which meant that he had no information about the latest releases. Furthermore, he knew that managing a webshop was difficult for comic stores because of the time that it takes to update the database and scan in the front page of each new comic. The purpose of Catawiki is to solve these problems by making a catalogue to which everybody can quickly add what they have, what they are looking for and what they are selling. We started with comics but quickly expanded to new areas.

How does the site work?

Imagine you have a collection of stamps. Most of them already appear in the Catawiki catalogue. You add these existing ones to your personal collection, and then add the missing ones to the Catawiki Catalogue and your personal collection as well. Doing this also lets you help complete the Catawiki catalogue. Adding an online shop works the same way. Catawiki also has moderators who are experts in their area. They review the changes and additions that are made and keep everything clean and accurate. An item history contains all the changes, as well as who made them and reviewed them.

Is Catawiki free?

Yes! Searching the catalog, managing your collection as well as your search list, opening a shop and selling items is completely free. Just for placing items in your shopping with a market value of € 75 or more, you pay 7% of the purchase price (excluding VAT) as installation costs. After selling an item no commission will be charged. Besides these revenues Catawiki can exist by the commission from the weekly auctions, held for special collectibles (eg stamps, coins, comics, books).).

What does the name Catawiki mean?

Catawiki is a combination of the words catalogue and wiki. A wiki is a website where users add and edit the information; the term may be familiar to you from the website Wikipedia. It's from the Hawaiian and means “quick, hasty".

Who are Catawiki?

Catawiki was founded by René Schoenmakers and Marco Jansen. René is an enthusiastic collector of comic books and more. Marco collects DVD's. René looks at the concept and the community side of Catawiki. Marco is responsible for the technical aspects; he makes sure that the website is up and running.

Tour

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