On line marketplace

Greetings,

Over in the gear forum there has been a bit of chat on having the 'MOA offer members the place to post items for sale.

The issue is not if but when. How about you chime in with how you think this should work? What key features would you like?

Thanks,

Like this.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=14

Easy to administer, moderate and operate. Includes inline pictures as well. Questions posed by viewers can be shared with all members.

If folks get out of line, the mods can deal with it.

I'll just copy my post from the other thread over to hear... cheesey I know but it somes up my point.

BradfordBenn said:

I would dislike to see advertisements in the forums and on the "members" section of the website. I figure I am paying for the forum and the site with my membership dues so that I do not have to see advertisements. I have no problem with a fleamarket section for members but I would not like to see commercial enterprises.

It is the same reason I started listening to XM almost exclusively, cause I don't want commercials I want enjoyment.

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I do like the idea of having some moderation and control over it to keep it from turning into a free for all. I also would hope that there would be a policy against double listing. Basically if you want to list it on BMWMOA it should be exclusive so that no one is listing stuff both on MOA and on IBMWR simultaneously. 1 item is listed in 1 place at a time.

Have an expiration date on every ad

It would be nice if every ad expired in 5 or 10 days. There would be no need to try to figure out what has been sold, and when, just let the ads expire and it is up to the seller to repost their advertisement. 90 days (in advrider) is way too long, it seems one would be sifting through lots of garbage, maybe lots of it that is already sold, to find what you are looking for.

Just a thought.

Rich said:

It would be nice if every ad expired in 5 or 10 days. There would be no need to try to figure out what has been sold, and when, just let the ads expire and it is up to the seller to repost their advertisement. 90 days (in advrider) is way too long, it seems one would be sifting through lots of garbage, maybe lots of it that is already sold, to find what you are looking for.

Just a thought.

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Good idea. I think what happens is that stuff just sinks to the bottom when nobody replies to it. The seller usually has to keep bumping the stuff up if he (or she) wants to sell it and it's drifted off to the second page.

The gang over on the BMW Sprort Touring web site seem to have a pretty good system set up that works for their 7000+ registered users.

BMW Sport Touring Clssifieds give 'em a looksee they run the site very well over there.

cruisin said:

The gang over on the BMW Sprort Touring web site seem to have a pretty good system set up that works for their 7000+ registered users.

BMW Sport Touring Clssifieds give 'em a looksee they run the site very well over there.

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I was going to post an opinion on the other thread, but at 4+ pages I didn't think it would be seen.
I think it's a great idea. I would like to see the ON Marketplace duplicated and I'll tell you why. Folks on the East coast get their mags several days to a week before we do in the West and generally the good deals are LONG gone. Having them available at the same time nationwide gives us Westies a chance.
I'm also ALL FOR it being a paid in full, card-carryin' member only, perk. There are plenty of other free, open to the public classifieds already. If I were to post, I'd definitely do so here first, to give MOA members first shot at anything I wanted to sell.
As for the workings of it, whatever's easiest for the managers to manage. Anything will be good.

I like the format for the ADVrider and Sportourers forum. Rather than the IBMWR list. However I do like the IBMWR search list feature, but not enough to override the other format.
As far as the ON fleamarket ads, would we even list them? I would say no because it isnÔÇÖt fair to non-online users that have to wait for their snail mail. But then again is it fair people are selling stuff I have no money to buy.
Mark

brad - whats the rationale behind only allowing items to be listed here, and not on other forums/in the paper?



i put this icon in just cause i wanted to use it. i like it.

username said:

brad - whats the rationale behind only allowing items to be listed here, and not on other forums/in the paper?



i put this icon in just cause i wanted to use it. i like it.

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Iactually took the idea for eBay. The idea being that if someone sees it listed here, it is for sale here. So that if I see that is for sale on this site, it has not actually been sold on another site and just sitting here. It comes to cleaning up the mess, not everyone is real good about that. I have found a few things on other sites that were not available once I e-mailed the lister, they had forgotten to take it down. What was interesting is that all three of the items were listed on seperate forums with different e-mail addresses but were the same person. I asked him how many he had to sell and the answer was one. Kind of inconsiderate IMHO.

However if someone wants to put up that they have something for sale on another site, say eBay, I would be okay with that since it is pointing to one source of information.

<- same reason...

Rich said:

It would be nice if every ad expired in 5 or 10 days. There would be no need to try to figure out what has been sold, and when, just let the ads expire and it is up to the seller to repost their advertisement. 90 days (in advrider) is way too long, it seems one would be sifting through lots of garbage, maybe lots of it that is already sold, to find what you are looking for.

Just a thought.

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Great idea. I like that one...

i like the expiring ad idea. my point being, if i sold my bike, i'd want to feel free to list it on ibmwr, my local paper, on the forum, and in the ON. (although by the time it appeared in the ON, hopefully it'd be sold, so all of this might short circuit that, but that's another discussion...) if my ad expires in this forum, then members are not inconvenienced in the way brad is describing, but i also get to cast a wider net for potential buyers.

i may be a unique person, but were i to sell the bike, i'd have a 'for sale' page on my website, and then i'd post around that it was for sale with a link. if i sell it, i update my website, i tell folks it's sold, end of story.

which gives me an idea that i think visian had - ways to drive traffic to the site. i think im about to have a good idea, that might lead me to agree with brad too... (which is good, because sucking up to the true ruler is essential...) what if i listed my bike here at MOA, and there was a "standard" template for selling a bike. one big photo. four small photos. some text-y description below it. contact info. then i went out to advrider, ibmwr, my local paper, and i say, 'bike for sale, goto moa.org/bikes/1234 and boom it drives traffic to the site. people see my bike for sale, and they say, 'hey, what's this bmw club? this looks cool. wow, they have swag here!' and then perhaps they join.

maybe i sound like a dot com nut from 1998...i dunno.

potential problem - the idea was to have the for sale section in the members only area? i think it should be stuff for sale BY members, but FOR anyone. so my non-bmw club next door neighbor could see the bike/whatever for sale.

this one is good too. i guess tina is doing this? good job with the smilies.

username said:

which gives me an idea that i think visian had - ways to drive traffic to the site. i think im about to have a good idea, that might lead me to agree with brad too... (which is good, because sucking up to the true ruler is essential...) what if i listed my bike here at MOA, and there was a "standard" template for selling a bike. one big photo. four small photos. some text-y description below it. contact info. then i went out to advrider, ibmwr, my local paper, and i say, 'bike for sale, goto moa.org/bikes/1234 and boom it drives traffic to the site. people see my bike for sale, and they say, 'hey, what's this bmw club? this looks cool. wow, they have swag here!' and then perhaps they join.

maybe i sound like a dot com nut from 1998...i dunno.

potential problem - the idea was to have the for sale section in the members only area? i think it should be stuff for sale BY members, but FOR anyone. so my non-bmw club next door neighbor could see the bike/whatever for sale.

this one is good too. i guess tina is doing this? good job with the smilies.

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I like that solution, all roads point to one place. That would make me happyish. I do like your point about having it available for non members to view but not post advertisements.

BradfordBenn said:

I like that solution, all roads point to one place. That would make me happyish. I do like your point about having it available for non members to view but not post advertisements.

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One of the benefits of the ON Flea Market is that when I place an ad I'm pretty sure the calls I get will be from other members--and we're a pretty trustworthy bunch. I've often sent goods to other members before I received the money and haven't had a problem.

I would never do that with ebay. And I would have to be much more careful and screen callers if the online marketplace were open for public view.

Michael

M. Cohen said:

One of the benefits of the ON Flea Market is that when I place an ad I'm pretty sure the calls I get will be from other members--and we're a pretty trustworthy bunch. I've often sent goods to other members before I received the money and haven't had a problem.

I would never do that with ebay. And I would have to be much more careful and screen callers if the online marketplace were open for public view.

Michael

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Perhaps it could be an option as to whether or not a listing is viewable by non members? It's just software

BradfordBenn said:

Perhaps it could be an option as to whether or not a listing is viewable by non members? It's just software

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It's an easy thing to set at a forum level, but not at the post level.

If we used our current forum software to manage this, we could use the same permissions we have here: registered members can post, non members can look, but not post.

I think the points made earlier about a standard template are well taken, though I'm not sure how we'd integrate that into this software package. We've got something coming with photo hosting, so we should be able to get folks some help with that as well, which will make the ads that much more useful.

KBasa said:

It's an easy thing to set at a forum level, but not at the post level.

If we used our current forum software to manage this, we could use the same permissions we have here: registered members can post, non members can look, but not post.

I think the points made earlier about a standard template are well taken, though I'm not sure how we'd integrate that into this software package. We've got something coming with photo hosting, so we should be able to get folks some help with that as well, which will make the ads that much more useful.

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Understand what you mean. However it is possible in a couple of ways, since we are probably going to have cookies for stuff like the forum that same cookie could be checked to decide whether or not a post would be shown. In terms of the template I wonder if a content management system could be made simple enough to do that.

>potential problem - the idea was to have the for sale section in the >members only area? i think it should be stuff for sale BY members, but >FOR anyone. so my non-bmw club next door neighbor could see the bike/>whatever for sale.

I disagree. I'd like THIS board to be member's only. There are plenty of other options to reach the general public. I would personally like to give members the first shot, just like the ON Marketplace. For instance, I wouldn't want to post my Vintage Ducati stuff here, and if I had a perfect pair of Buco hardbags for a /5 I woulnd't want to sell them on Ebay until they didn't sell here.
Amoung other things, that would cut down on the number of scam/rip-off artists clutterin up our email.

I would love to see an online marketplace here in the forum. Making it available to members only to me is a plus. I trust other BMW riders as to what they are selling and that their checks will be good. If not, it is easy to out them here in the forum and let everyone know who can and cannot be trusted to give their word. There are too many scammers in cyberland, and if we limit who gets to participate, it keeps the odds of being scammed way down.