Adverts.ie and motors

Adverts.ie: Eddie

Hi all,

Firstly, thanks to the mods here for agreeig to my starting a thread here. Much appreciated.

Before I go any further and in case some of you are wondering, I have also been known to post a few times on boards as smashey.

We have recently upgraded Adverts.ie to make selling and buying cars more user-friendly. Since we upgraded, traffic has grown, the site has grown and we now have a better search facility for cars. We have also changed our procedures with regards to dealing with any breaches of our rules and these are a lot more user-friendly now. We are now looking at getting a few commercial sellers on board and this will happen pretty soon. In the meantime, if any of you know any reputable car dealers you think might be interested, you can let me know either by PM or on support@adverts.ie and I'll see what I can do.


So whether you’re looking to buy or sell or maybe looking for a second (or third) car, Adverts.ie should have everything you require.

If anybody has any queries on this or on Adverts in general, feel free to drop me a PM or contact us on support@adverts.ie


Many thanks

biko

Ah crap, I liked that no dealers were allowed. I fear they will spam adverts to bits. Well hopefully the improved search will have the option to exclude them from my searches.

mondeo

I don't like that idea......

Adverts.ie: Eddie

biko wrote: »

Ah crap, I liked that no dealers were allowed. I fear they will spam adverts to bits. Well hopefully the improved search will have the option to exclude them from my searches.

Not at all biko. This won't be a free-for-all and we will decide who gets to use adverts in a commercial capacity. They will also be easily identified as being a official as can be seen from a different category

B00MSTICK

I think you have to pay 3 euro to bump an ad now or wait a certain number of days for a free one (2 weeks is it smashey?)

If you can specify if you want to look at all cars or private only or trade only then I don't see the problem? i.e if you don't like dealers just hit private sales only or something like that.

If you plan on having commercial sellers in other areas then an option on the main adverts page might be a nice addition.

Adverts.ie: Eddie

Hi B00MSTICK,

Yes, there's a free bump every two weeks and I'll pass on your excellent suggestions to the developers.

Big Nasty

Yeah but sure look at done deal - there's thousands of dealer ads on there too, most posted as private mind you. The best way to do it would be to have free ads for private sales (up to 5 ads at any one time) and charge after that.

You should be able to remove your old ads too!

P.S. Looks a lot better!

B00MSTICK

I find it brilliant myself.

People are bound to be against this at the start. Sure there was uproar when adverts.ie was launched, and another load of ranting when the format changed.

In fairness the boards team offer so much so I think a bit of extra money from commercial businesses is well deserved.

pcardin

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Can I make a suggestion, and start giving warnings/bans for people offering silly amounts for cars/items. Its the reason why I dont put a lot of items up on adverts. You put something up for 120 euro and you get some plank "offering" 20 euro and being deadly serious about it.

But then again, there was guy selling used phone for more than 400e where new in the shop cost 300e. I offered 200e which was fair price in my mind. So who am I now? A plank?

ShayK1

Just found a problem Eddie.
The search engine is obviously done by matching strings so if you click on "SEAT" any ad that has leather seats or two seater or seats or whatever is thrown up and NOT a few Seat Leons or Ibizas.

Another example, if you click on "MINI" then this ad http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=208931&cat=2 is thrown up cause that lovely Astra has "two ministry of sound speakers"

B00MSTICK

They're just quick search links as opposed to true categories, its why people sometimes throw loads of car makes into their ads at the end.

Eoin

Unless I'm just missing something, the search engine just shows a list of car makes. For a proper motors classifieds I'd want to be able to search on the following:

• min/max year
• fuel type
• private/dealer
• trade-ins considered
• min/max engine size

Look at www.driving.ie/usedcars as an example of a simple to use, but effective search engine.

I realise that this would probably require a lot of changes to the database schema (unless this information is already stored in discrete columns).

That said, I do love the simplicity of donedeal.ie!

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Can I make a suggestion, and start giving warnings/bans for people offering silly amounts for cars/items. Its the reason why I dont put a lot of items up on adverts. You put something up for 120 euro and you get some plank "offering" 20 euro and being deadly serious about it.

Personally I think that's an issue for adverts.ie in general, not the motoring section - but I'll leave it up to Eddie to decide what feedback he wants here.

While we're at it though - can sold or withdrawn adverts not be shown unless specifically searched for?

Flesh Gorden

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I have seen put up items and priced them correctly and people have posted silly offers.

Thats exactly why I've avoided it when selling anything, so many messers and keyboard warriors making silly offers on cars and passing smart comments


On the flipside, cheap cars listed with blacked off number plates or little to no information about the cars condition
especially when the nct is expired and work is needed to be done


the search function in the past put me off too, 1 page of relevant results
and page two onwards randomness that had nothing to do with the original search

spartacus93

ShayK1 wrote: »

Just found a problem Eddie.
The search engine is obviously done by matching strings so if you click on "SEAT" any ad that has leather seats or two seater or seats or whatever is thrown up and NOT a few Seat Leons or Ibizas.

Another example, if you click on "MINI" then this ad http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=208931&cat=2 is thrown up cause that lovely Astra has "two ministry of sound speakers"

And "Ford" throws up all cars in Waterford and Wexford!

pcardin

Flesh Gorden wrote: »

On the flipside, cheap cars listed with blacked off number plates or little to no information about the cars condition
especially when the nct is expired and work is needed to be done

blacked out number plates is just anti-scum protection I guess. A little to no information about the cars condition simply means that there are too many problems to list

Adverts.ie: Eddie

Hi again all,

Some excellent feedback here and what I'll do is collate it all and kick it over to the developers to have a look.

Seth Brundle

I think its mandatory already on adverts but in terms of the dealers (and possibly) private sellers, make sure that an accurate price is inserted and not any kind of POA or €0 crap that is frequently used on carzone purely to benefit searching by price.

Adverts.ie: Eddie

kbannon wrote: »

I think its mandatory already on adverts but in terms of the dealers (and possibly) private sellers, make sure that an accurate price is inserted and not any kind of POA or €0 crap that is frequently used on carzone purely to benefit searching by price.

Yes, that is the case and although we do get a few ads with no price, we are rather fortunate in that a lot of our members are very adverts-savvy and soon point these out to us.

voxpop

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Can I make a suggestion, and start giving warnings/bans for people offering silly amounts for cars/items. Its the reason why I dont put a lot of items up on adverts. You put something up for 120 euro and you get some plank "offering" 20 euro and being deadly serious about it.

Agree with this - was just selling a car and ppl were coming on just to say its overpriced or offering 2-3k below my asking price and then getting pissed when I told them it was way to low. I even reported one early poster that just came on to say the car was way overpriced - heard nothing - I always though thread spoiling was against the charter or it was on the old site anyway.

I also had the car listed as vw golf - which then didnt show up under volkswagen - there really needs to be a more involved process for uploading car ads that make sure ppl pick make/model at least.

Black_Knight

B00MSTICK wrote: »

They're just quick search links as opposed to true categories, its why people sometimes throw loads of car makes into their ads at the end.

Just noticed that. Ugh, poor implementation tbh.

Flesh Gorden wrote: »

the search function in the past put me off too, 1 page of relevant results
and page two onwards randomness that had nothing to do with the original search

Little tip for using adverts, NEVER use the "next" button. If your on page 1, and want to get to page 2, click on the "2" link. Your search criteria should follow through to the next page.

EDIT: Seat's search link could be changed to search on the title. As it it only 1 Seat is return on the 1st page, change the search to include
&what=title and you get more Seat's returned. TBH, this could be done for every Make of car, 99% of time time users include the make of car in the title.

Mr Benevolent

It'd be nice to be able to search for auto/manual as well.

Eoin

Thread temporarily stickied to keep the feedback coming.

Atomic Pineapple

I think adding dealers is a great idea.

Are you going to be encouraging them to take part in the threads or allowing them to just advertise and ignore any questions from posters?

And are you going to be allowing parts sellers like motor factors sell there wares for car parts?

Adverts.ie: Eddie

draffodx wrote: »

I think adding dealers is a great idea.

Are you going to be encouraging them to take part in the threads or allowing them to just advertise and ignore any questions from posters?

And are you going to be allowing parts sellers like motor factors sell there wares for car parts?

Thanks for that.

Yes, they should answer any questions about whatever it is they have for sale. Also, if we can get a few parts sellers/motor factors, we will certainly look at getting them set up. If anybody here knows anybody who you feel might be interested, feel free to let me have their details either by PM or support@adverts.ie

Atomic Pineapple

What about parts dealers? Like motor factors?

Adverts.ie: Eddie

Hey all, again thanks for the feedback and if anybody has any more, feel free. We are trying to take as much on board as we can.

Motorcheck

Hi Eddie, I've sent a number of mails to Adverts.ie about getting involved but no answer

smashey

Motorcheck wrote: »

Hi Eddie, I've sent a number of mails to Adverts.ie about getting involved but no answer

Hi Motorcheck,

I think one of my colleagues is looking at those. I'll get back to you on it.

(I'm Eddie's alter-ego)

Motorcheck

smashey wrote: »

Hi Motorcheck,

I think one of my colleagues is looking at those. I'll get back to you on it.

(I'm Eddie's alter-ego)

Thanks Smashey. I have some exciting ideas that could work well