October 20th 2022 is RepArchive’s 5th birthday. Like every year I summarize what happened during the last 12 months and what’s planned for the next year.
At this point I have to say it wouldn’t be possible without your support. 5 years is a long time, and I saw many competitors and copy cats rise and fall during that time. Ultimately, it’s been the new, original and revolutionary ideas that have kept us relevant. I’m confident we’ll stay longer with our educational and helpful content than those capitalizing on hype and drama.
The last 12 months
Our two most successful projects went live during the last 12 months!
RepArchive TOP
RepArchive TOP was the big announcement at the 4th birthday party. And rightfully so, it’s our most popular site. It shows the most popular items from Weidian and Taobao. You can choose between the most popular items of the day, the week, the month, or all time, giving you different perspectives whether you prefer community staples or trending items. RepArchive Live has also been integrated as a part of RepArchive Top.
It received a big internal rework this summer that greatly improved speed and scalability.
RepArchive Shipping Calculator
This is another hit. It’s a the most complete and feature rich shipping calculator. It doesn’t only combine all agents; it also allows you to filter them in smart new ways.
GLFinder
GLfinder was acquired by RepArchive and completely reworked. It looks completely different and received many new features.
GLFinder is described as a functional frontend for reddit, and that’s basically what it is. You see images of QC posts and a simple analysis of the responses, whether they are green lights or red lights. In combination with filters this allows you to easily find items that passed quality control, or you can just use GLfinder as a pretty inspo album that’s nicer to browse than reddit.
Glfinder is completely community driven and has made a huge comeback recently.
The next 12 months
First of all, here’s what I’m working on.
Back to the Roots
In the nearest future we will release a new website that takes us all the way back to the original purpose of RepArchive.com, all the way back in 2017: no dead links. It will have a big community aspect and be the first site, where you have an account with a personalized album.
RepArchive Section as a web app
The second project that we’re working on is a Java Script based web app replacement for an important section of RepArchive. I won’t tell you exactly what, so no one beats us to the punch, but it will be simple, helpful, and better in every way. The focus is to pull everything closer together, and I think it’s right to optimize what we have instead of spreading out more and introducing another new site.
Toy-Links Rework
Thirdly, another site of ours, that’s always been the number 2 behind RepArchive, Toy-Links.com will receive a complete makeover that’s long overdue. It will break free of the chains of WordPress and fulfill the potential of the original idea that’s now also more than 4 years old.
When all of this is done, there are some smaller and bigger changes that are planned for RepArchive TOP and the shipping calculator. In fact, there are hundreds of ideas and these pages will remain our main pages.
Abstract Goal for the future
The overall abstract goal for this 6th year, and beyond, probably for the next 5 years, is “interconnectivity”. We have had 5 years with many different ideas, unfortunately this has led to a state of insulation. Many users don’t even know that they can use our shipping calculator to choose an agent, followed by RepArchive TOP to find interesting items, and then confirm that the items are good by looking on glfinder. We have a concept from start to finish, we just need to connect the pieces. I want to reach a point where all of our sites work together.
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