Buy and sell sub forum?

Grolschevik

What with the Adverts 'success fee'
being introduced, should we consider introducing a buy-and-sell subforum for instruments?

Both Cycling and Airsoft have such subforums, so there is precedent.

Might also increase traffic onto this forum. A lot of users are now on various Facebook pages like Guitarist Ireland. Which, incidentally, has its own classifieds page.

What do people reckon?

Ravelleman

I wasn't even aware of the success fees' introduction.

The thing that I don't understand is why anyone would mark their ads as 'sold' instead of 'withdrawn.' Also, being able to prove that a deal fell through from PMs alone so that you won't be charged the fee seems highly impractical.

I guess it would be something to consider, though I somehow doubt that they would undercut their own market on their sister website. I'm sure instrument ads are worth quite a lot in the grand scheme of things.

I'd certainly be for it anyway, as I don't fancy the idea of wasting an extra €3 every time I sell an instrument. If they want to charge more for ads, they should find a way of moderating the endless stream of lowballers and time wasters on the site.

noby

I was considering asking the same question after I just read the (long) thread about the success fees.

I have no problem with a fee, but I think the implementation is poorly thought through, and only encourages exploitation of ads to avoid the fee, making adverts more unusable.

I can see a lot of ads going up for €29, and off-thread negotiating going on.

There appears to be a good hardcore of adverts regulars in the guitar and bass section, and it would be great to get them on to a buy/sell/trade sub forum here.

Grolschevik

I thought Adverts was now completely separate from Boards? And as I say, it doesn't seem to be an issue for the cycling and Airsoft forums.

From what I gather, you won't be able to place an ad without either registering your phone number so they can take it from the bill, a credit card, or by buying Adverts credit.

If a sale falls through, you have to prove in some way that it has legitimately fallen through rather than you trying to pull a fast one.

If you can do that, you can apply for a refund. Which will only be given in Adverts credit.

Now, there's a lot still unclear, and I may be mistaken about some of those details, but that's what I took from the incredibly long Adverts feedback thread...

Dord

I can understand the need to pay bills etc.. but thats just a massive mess of a "plan" they've put together. It's difficult enough as-is selling on there. The ridiculous accept/make offer system is a pain. A forum here would be nice... actually I remember when we had that before adverts! :P

Ravelleman

Dord wrote: »

A forum here would be nice... actually I remember when we had that before adverts! :P

The problem was that it required a vast amount of moderation by regular moderators, not paid staff.

Grolschevik

Ravelleman wrote: »

The problem was that it required a vast amount of moderation by regular moderators, not paid staff.

Maybe check with the Cycling and Airsoft mods how they handle it? Their sale subforums are pretty busy...

feylya

Ravelleman wrote: »

The problem was that it required a vast amount of moderation by regular moderators, not paid staff.

This. A hundred times this. I was a mod back in those days, and we had to split it off into it's own Adverts subforum (back when Adverts was part of Boards), and then onto Adverts.ie proper.

The amount of time a FS forum takes of a moderators time is obscene, and the benefits are questionable.

slavetothegrind

i don't like the fees either, who does, but at the end of the day i do like the feedback system
placing an add with a 3 euro fee at the start does away with the success fee

it would be unfair on the mods to try and do a standalone here as i could see it getting silly if even half of the thousands of musical instrument adds migrated.

Adverts is going the wrong way about revenue raising and is in danger of loosing a fair amount of regulars with their less than ideal marketing ploy " it's all for the customer" , not to mention the current ill thought out strategy.

can't we still put a link to adds we have in our sig here in boards?

feylya

slavetothegrind wrote: »

can't we still put a link to adds we have in our sig here in boards?

Links in sigs are absolutely fine. Posting threads, or replies with links though are less fine. (Just wanted to make sure people were aware of that)

noby

Now that the dust has settled a bit, I think it's more a not-completely-thought-through plan, and a pr disaster in how to implement it.
Most of the buying/selling I do on adverts is in the circa €50 guitar pedal region. A lot of the times these are either hammered down to below 30 euro or traded. I guess from now on I'll just have to be wary of not getting stung for the charge when you're only making twenty bucks or so.

I would love if they re-jigged it so the swap ads didn't linger in some tumble-weed infested off-shoot of the main section. I have put up ads specifically to swap before, and only when I changed them to a sale ad with 'trades welcome' in the description did I get any traffic.
I'm aware it's a commercial business, and don't object to charges, but I think they started too high, at too low an ad price.

Gaspode

I think it's the manner in which adverts made their change that has people peed off more than the actual charges.
Cant see the for sale subforum ever making a return tbh.

seachto7

I doubt boards would approve a forum on here to buy and sell, seeing as it's all the same company as adverts?

I wouldn't mind some kind of a forum to just sell odd stuff I'm trying to get rid of.

68 lost souls

It is in place in other forums though such as Cycling and is allowed in TDAR forums too.