On line marketplace

BradfordBenn said:

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...

Click to expand...

then why not have a radio button that the seller could check indicating this is not the only listing for the item, if that is possible with vbulletin?

RM

KBasa said:

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.

Click to expand...

The template would make the listings consistent, so that they could be effectively browsed via database, a la IBMWR Marketplace.

A form similar to that used to submit this post (Reply to thread), written in php, would be the ticket. That would make it fairly straightforward to integrate it with the Forum as a whole, since it is also written in php.

I bet the people at Jelsoft would charge very little to develop something like that.

Also, important.... administering the advertisements is a very significant task. (right, Ritalin Poster Boy? ).

Ian

This is a wicked sticky wicket for sure.

I am active in other non-bike related forums, and I run a forum for my primary interest in old trucks. In the one that I operate, I have a swap meet section broken into three areas; Parts for sale, Trucks for sale, and Wanted.

I try to keep it simple. It is a forum based posting exactly like these boards where you post up by title and then can put one or two photos and a description in and it seems to work very well. It's searchable and I have a 3 month automatic deletion policy so anything 3 months old is deleted and must be relisted.

Here's the rub: farming. The one common problem that I see with a swap meet is that one or two people may begin to farm the swap meet for their own devices. This has been an issue in other forums I read and in fact, I think that most forums prohibit advertising for this reason. Generally "farming" would be someone whose primary business is selling parts; either used or new or both. While we always want to be fair to everyone, I for one think that professional sellers should be excluded from listing in the swap meet since they are professional sellers and should frankly take out a commercial ad in the ON.

I think directly linking the ON classifieds into an online area is a good idea and I certainly support that. Additionally, I think that we should have a links page linking every paid advertiser who has a website. Easy enough to maintain.

But as far as a swap meet area, we have to remember that the principle reason behind this is to help each other (members!) find things we either need or need to unload. I don't think the spirit is to establish the BMWOA version of eBay and allow every Tom Dick and Harry to start selling stuff there.

So, all the posts here have merit and there are some great ideas. The ones I think make the most sense are:
Selling ONLY by members (must have verification system)
Buying by anyone who has internet access and finds the swap meet
No professional (dealers - junkyards) selling
Duplicate all ON for sale ads in the swap meet as conditions permit

Just some brain droppings for the Kook.

oldcarkook said:

This is a wicked sticky wicket for sure.

. ..........Snip................
So, all the posts here have merit and there are some great ideas. The ones I think make the most sense are:
Selling ONLY by members (must have verification system)
Buying by anyone who has internet access and finds the swap meet
No professional (dealers - junkyards) selling
Duplicate all ON for sale ads in the swap meet as conditions permit

Just some brain droppings for the Kook.

Click to expand...

I agree with this basic format. I would not agree to being limited to posting an item I want to sell ONLY on this forum, that's way too elitist, IMHO. Salvage dealers could be identified, and at the very least required to become MOA members, they frequently have many reasonably priced items.
Placing excessive limits on this will kill it.
Just my 2 cents.....

Minority opinion?

If we were to have a marketplace here, I would expect to mirror the rules and requirements for the magazine; give subscribers the right to post. Purchases should be open to all. No matter the forum, we are all suseptable to scamming. Don't be naive in thinking fellow members can not potentially scam you.

Personally, I would continue to use IBMWR market place; it's the place to list and find BMW items much like Ebay is the place for general merchandise. This is not to ignore the fact there is competition for both.

In consideration of opening a market place here, let's consider our goals. Is it to gain more exposure for the club, by directing new people here? Is it to benefit members by offering them first refusal for merchandise? This seems like a quaint idea, but many of us will post were we can get the best price and largest audience. Is the BMW specific market place a need not being fulfilled? Hardly. For my membreship dollars, I would vote not to build and maintain an online market place.

I've sold one item on the BMWSportTouring site and even though it's
"public", feel that doesn't detract from the value of classifieds or change
the risk of selling to someone you don't know.

Over time, you get to "know" people (as well as meet them) and, accordingly,
take reasonable precautions. Be the same here too.

What I like about the SportTouring site is that ads are moderated. Meaning
there's nothing other than the ad and the "sold" entry. Everything else is
behind the scenes via PM. While this is a lot of effort, it's sure nice.

Regarding exclusivity, remember, someone's trying to sell something. If they
post in a few places, it helps them sell the item. Artificially limit it and
people will likely not place ads on the site.

I haven't bought or sold anything on advrider's classified section but it's
similar except un-moderated.

Cheers,
Ian

Visian said:

I bet the people at Jelsoft would charge very little to develop something like that.

Click to expand...

I'm going to play devil's advocate and suggest that MOA not spend money
on software that doesn't earn some sort of a return on that investment.
Others have proven that maintaining an active "classified" section does not
require this expense or effort. After all, it's a transaction between two
private parties that MOA facilitates--no more and no less.

Ian

ian408 said:

"...some sort of a return on that investment."

Click to expand...

Would the satisfaction having an efficient search and browse experience, which would lead to an enhanced perception of value in a BMW MOA membership, count as ROI?

The point was to create a simple data entry form, very similar to what the IBMWR Marketplace has, that is intergrated with the vBulletin software running this Forum, for the purpose of providing a consistent and therefore superior on-screen appearance to the on-line classifieds. Simple things such as a consistent method for placing contact information, the name, description, pictures and price of the item for sale make the reading experience more effortless, and therefore more useable enjoyable.

The form that was suggested, which would probably be almost identical to the "Reply to Thread" form used to write replies to posts, or to start new threads, would make the classified advertisements just that more useable to more people.

In talking with a number of people about the BMW MOA Forums, trying to get them to use it, I get a lot of "it's so hard to read or find something" comments from many. While most of the people who are *frequent* users here are computer proficient (which is far less than 5% of the club's total membership), many are not, and anything we can do to make this Forum more useable to more people justifies the investment, even if it can't be quantified purely in financial terms. When more people use what we invested in making, the cost/member figures drop precipitously.

BTW, this same form could be easily adapted to enter data such as Touring Tips, Camping Tips, Favorite Roads, Gear Reviews, etc... leading to a Forum browsing experience that is somewhat more consistent than it is right now.

Ian

ian408 said:

Others have proven that maintaining an active "classified" section does not require this expense or effort. After all, it's a transaction between two private parties that MOA facilitates--no more and no less.

Click to expand...

On your other point, I can tell you from my experience as an IBMWR administrator, and the IBMWR Marketplace is the most active classified section out there, that administering an advertising section takes a LOT of effort if the desire is to have a successful user experience.

I'll not bother ya'll with the war stories, but suffice it to say (and I think that our BMW ON Fleamarket friends would attest) you have to keep a constant eye on what's being advertised and by whom if you want to provide your users with a satisfactory experience.

Ian

Visian said:

Would the satisfaction having an efficient search and browse experience, which would lead to an enhanced perception of value in a BMW MOA membership, count as ROI?

Click to expand...

In principal, I agree with you. But there are 2,930 registered users of the
MOA site. Which suggests (to me at least) that the value gained by
enhancing the search experience is little to none. By comparison,
bmwsporttouring.com has 7,381 registered users and seems to be good
with moderated/approved posts. Advrider has 10,885 registered users and
is doing well with a less moderated forum.

You've indicated IBMWR maintains a more active classified section yet when I
look at the classifieds, it's no better than any of the examples I've cited except
the ads are sorted by category.

With regard to searching, the advanced search feature is pretty good.

To the effort required to administer anything, I agree. It's a pain. But don't
make it more complicated than it needs to be. That's my point.

And I would add to my argument that you must walk before you run.
Start with basics and improve on them as the useage goes up.


Ian

I'm with ian408 (as opposed to ian404 ) and think we should just open a barebones forum and let folks post their own ads for a bit. This would allow us to gauge interest before we go build an entire set of code for it.

I'm not certain which way would be the best way to moderate it, though. The ST forum doesn't allow for posts on the threads, which I think prevents questions from being asked in a place where all folks can benefit from the answers. On the other hand, it keeps the amount of noise in teh forum to a minimum.

If we had an operating flea market forum and it proved to be busy, perhaps we could build a form that would standardize the ads to some degree. I can see a place to insert picture links, price, name, that sort of thing.

But first, we need to finish the site split so we can put this up for registered members only.

When we get the site split done, we're going to run validation against the user tables on the forum. If you get tagged as not having a valid MOA member number, you'll get bounced. Just a word of warning there.....

KBasa said:

I'm with ian408 (as opposed to ian404 ) and think we should just open a barebones forum and let folks post their own ads for a bit. This would allow us to gauge interest before we go build an entire set of code for it.

Click to expand...

Oh... I buy into that. Testing is good. Usability testing is even better. The IBMWR Marketplace is on its second set of code, and the rules of the road have been learned via hundreds of thousands of posts.

It's not a good practive to put something into production on anything that hasn't been designed and tested first. That's a methodlogy for web dev that's guaranteed to spoil your day, your month, your year...

Ian

Here's another example.

The buy/sell forum at fredmiranda.com.

At the upper left of the page are the rules. There's a disclosure section as
well as guidelines for creating posts.

Ian

Rob Nye said:

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,

Click to expand...

The Swedish BMW MC Club have exactly the same Forum as you do

For the Market Plaza did we buy (cheap) a nice application;

http://suppl.bmw-mc-klubben.se/annonser/

Should be easy to get a English version also for a fair price..

Personally, I'm fine with whatever format a marketplace takes. No matter how it looks, it will have the basic information: Item description, price, location, contact information, etc.

However, I do want to comment on an idea mentioned way back at the beginning:

1 item is listed in 1 place at a time.

Click to expand...

Basically, it boils down to this: When (or if) the MOA elected leadership, or the Forum moderators, come out with a rule that says to the (dues paying, voluntarily loyal) members, "You can advertise with us, and only with us," I predict a rapid and unavoidable exodus of people, loyalty, and money.

My goal as a seller is to move the item, and I'll advertise the item where I think it is most likely to get the needed exposure, and in as many places as I determine it needs.

If a potential venue for advertising the item starts dictating to me the places I can advertise, that venue has just been dropped from my list.

Just food for thought.

My intent on the 1 item in 1 place is too keep items from being listed on seven different sites, and being sold on one of them but then still listed on the other six sites. I have been burned a few times by that and it gets a little disappointing after a while

If the advertising was something like,


and it was posted on an MOA marketplace that would be fine with me, cause then I can go there and see whether or not it is still available.

So the item could be posted in as many places as you wanted, but all the places would be updated when it sold. By placing links to one central respository that would allow you the user to advertise where ever you want but for the purchaser to be able to go to one central location for the information and status.

Make sense?

The 'problem' with links is that you have to follow them.

I see 'farkle for sale', I want info and not a link elsewhere.
If there's anything I hate it's having to click over god's
creation to find what I'm looking for.

Having a 14 day (or less) limit on an advert is one way to
deal with that.

Ian

Brad, the simplicity of the idea is appealing, and I see the issue you are getting at. Personally, on the occasions when I've sold something via a web posting, I've gone back after it sold and either edited the post to note it was sold, or deleted the post altogether. (If nothing else, to keep me from having to answer useless inquiries).

However, I still want to post my items on various places, and an advertising policy that says to me, "You can only advertise here, and no where else," guarantees I go somewhere else.

In fairness, looking at it from the web hosting perspective, I can imagine a server quickly becoming cluttered with out of date ads. The several other boards I frequent deal with the issue by some type of automatic expiration. GWRRA ads clear in about a week. The IBMWR site is on a 30 day cycle.

As a general rule, consumers like choices, and respond negatively to the vendor who tries to seize complete ownership of their patronage. So I really think the guidelines need to let the seller have the opportunity to post his or her stuff, but with the understanding it will be their responsibility to re-post it after it drops off the board within a reasonable, specified period of time.

As always, this is JMHO.

Any progress?

Fred

Yep. They're working on the last bits and doing some testing.