The customer service team from Panjo has answered a bunch of questions already. Just to validate a few of their responses and let you know where we are headed.
There are no fees to the member, the buyer, seller or the MOA. This is a completely free service and Panjo obviously invested in our organization with infrastructure, support, etc. Is there money in this for them? Absolutely! They make money by convincing you to list other items in other categories, for example fishing poles or drum sets. Their goal is prove the value of the marketplace and list more items, more categories, etc. However, listing within our community will always be free. There is no plan to change that.
I believe they make money off a Paypal or credit card transaction as well, but checkout through their system is optional, even if it feels like you have to go that route. They also offer some additional protections and the ability to conduct a sale quickly with credit card checkout. Again, this is an optional feature that you can choose to use or leave behind.
The system is open to non members IF they were to find the Panjo.com website on their own. They cannot come through our forum and list or search without MOA usernames/passwords, which is where the majority of the traffic comes form. For listings, we are currently moderating out non member items. If you want to list, you have to be a member. The ability for non members to see your item and potentially buy as a non member has it advantages and disadvantages. The goal is to sell your item and more eyeballs can be a good thing. Should you be more cautious if selling to a non member? Possibly, and there is on going discussion about how this should be handled going forward. No decision yet on if it should be more tightly regulated, but the current state is to be member only for buying and selling.
The search functionality is a function of getting to know how Panjo drives search strings. jconway607 and I already discussed this on Friday of last week. Some of the hard work is done for you. The category listings along the left hand navigation page already separate motorcycles by riding style. Searching dual sport/adventure machines or sport touring is easy if you simply navigate to those categories. K75 is a little different since they can be in several different styles, but we have been placing standard K75's in the Standards category and last week we added a category for "Older K bikes", which i believe is a function of jconway607's complaint. We are looking at revising those categories with the new layout to make this even easier and more obvious.
Additionally, I find the search feature works better if you change the filter from the default "Newest" to "Relevant." This will key in on the search word rather than the latest postings. It is also important to note that the old system, prior to Panjo, search was a major problem. In fact it didn't search at all. The same is true for the vBulletin forum, which was one of the decision factors not to build the Marketplace strictly within the forum.
With the Panjo product, we have a much richer search functionality. It may take some refinement and education on our part to determine the best method to use it, but it will actually search and at a far better rate than what we had previously. Panjo has offered to build additional search features year, model, etc. if we can define that for them and we will explore this. I expect we can do a much better job of making searches easy for you in the coming weeks.
What about the future? Is Panjo ideal for the MOA? No - Period - not ideal given our constraints. Ideal would be our very own platform, on our site, that authenticates with our username and passwords, gives us total control and the ability to migrate to new platforms as technologies change. Now you can start talking about $$$$ and cost to the MOA. We have taken an off the shelf resource and made it work at some level without any cost to the MOA or the members. We can argue the "work at some level" statement, but we are playing the free cards we are dealt.
None of what is being discussed falls on deaf ears. I am the lucky guy that gets to try and make this work and I'll be the first to admit that it doesn't work ideally the way I would like for it to. As I told jconway607 on Friday, our goal is to take the system and try t make it function the way members want to use the system and meet our unique criteria. We can get close to that, but it takes a little time and honestly it takes people using the system and learning how you prefer to interact. For the record, I have received emails this week from members who have had good experiences and like the new format. I can also tell you that both listings and sales are twice as high with Panjo compared to the system prior to November 2013. If we are being fair, there are some very positive benefits of Panjo, such as the search strings, mobile views, cost, etc.
I'm good with the discussion and critical feedback. Issues aren't always solved as quickly as you would like, but I do think we listen and work diligently to find a solution. Most of what has been mentioned has been addressed or discussed with Panjo already and I think solutions are coming. Panjo is listening as well and I am sure our Board is lurking as this topic is very interesting to them. You are always welcome to contact me directly and calling Panjo support at 424-272-0291 or emailing support@panjo.com can get immediate help to specific issues.
Ted
There are no fees to the member, the buyer, seller or the MOA. This is a completely free service and Panjo obviously invested in our organization with infrastructure, support, etc. Is there money in this for them? Absolutely! They make money by convincing you to list other items in other categories, for example fishing poles or drum sets. Their goal is prove the value of the marketplace and list more items, more categories, etc. However, listing within our community will always be free. There is no plan to change that.
I believe they make money off a Paypal or credit card transaction as well, but checkout through their system is optional, even if it feels like you have to go that route. They also offer some additional protections and the ability to conduct a sale quickly with credit card checkout. Again, this is an optional feature that you can choose to use or leave behind.
The system is open to non members IF they were to find the Panjo.com website on their own. They cannot come through our forum and list or search without MOA usernames/passwords, which is where the majority of the traffic comes form. For listings, we are currently moderating out non member items. If you want to list, you have to be a member. The ability for non members to see your item and potentially buy as a non member has it advantages and disadvantages. The goal is to sell your item and more eyeballs can be a good thing. Should you be more cautious if selling to a non member? Possibly, and there is on going discussion about how this should be handled going forward. No decision yet on if it should be more tightly regulated, but the current state is to be member only for buying and selling.
The search functionality is a function of getting to know how Panjo drives search strings. jconway607 and I already discussed this on Friday of last week. Some of the hard work is done for you. The category listings along the left hand navigation page already separate motorcycles by riding style. Searching dual sport/adventure machines or sport touring is easy if you simply navigate to those categories. K75 is a little different since they can be in several different styles, but we have been placing standard K75's in the Standards category and last week we added a category for "Older K bikes", which i believe is a function of jconway607's complaint. We are looking at revising those categories with the new layout to make this even easier and more obvious.
Additionally, I find the search feature works better if you change the filter from the default "Newest" to "Relevant." This will key in on the search word rather than the latest postings. It is also important to note that the old system, prior to Panjo, search was a major problem. In fact it didn't search at all. The same is true for the vBulletin forum, which was one of the decision factors not to build the Marketplace strictly within the forum.
With the Panjo product, we have a much richer search functionality. It may take some refinement and education on our part to determine the best method to use it, but it will actually search and at a far better rate than what we had previously. Panjo has offered to build additional search features year, model, etc. if we can define that for them and we will explore this. I expect we can do a much better job of making searches easy for you in the coming weeks.
What about the future? Is Panjo ideal for the MOA? No - Period - not ideal given our constraints. Ideal would be our very own platform, on our site, that authenticates with our username and passwords, gives us total control and the ability to migrate to new platforms as technologies change. Now you can start talking about $$$$ and cost to the MOA. We have taken an off the shelf resource and made it work at some level without any cost to the MOA or the members. We can argue the "work at some level" statement, but we are playing the free cards we are dealt.
None of what is being discussed falls on deaf ears. I am the lucky guy that gets to try and make this work and I'll be the first to admit that it doesn't work ideally the way I would like for it to. As I told jconway607 on Friday, our goal is to take the system and try t make it function the way members want to use the system and meet our unique criteria. We can get close to that, but it takes a little time and honestly it takes people using the system and learning how you prefer to interact. For the record, I have received emails this week from members who have had good experiences and like the new format. I can also tell you that both listings and sales are twice as high with Panjo compared to the system prior to November 2013. If we are being fair, there are some very positive benefits of Panjo, such as the search strings, mobile views, cost, etc.
I'm good with the discussion and critical feedback. Issues aren't always solved as quickly as you would like, but I do think we listen and work diligently to find a solution. Most of what has been mentioned has been addressed or discussed with Panjo already and I think solutions are coming. Panjo is listening as well and I am sure our Board is lurking as this topic is very interesting to them. You are always welcome to contact me directly and calling Panjo support at 424-272-0291 or emailing support@panjo.com can get immediate help to specific issues.
Ted
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