Crowd Sourcing For Solution To For Sale Section

[PranK]

Hi All,

SAU's first attempt at crowd sourcing a solution.

This problem is two fold - we have two distinct issues but both can be addressed together with a good solution.

Problem 1;

Wanted To Buy section. It sits below all other For Sale sections and people end up posting in the For Sale section. How can we promote the use of the WTB section and make it easy to use for all?

My ideas (just ideas, not right or wrong) include;

• Allowing WTB in For Sale. This will water down the actual FS posts.
• Having WTB as a sub section of For Sale (moving it to a link above the FS section).
  • This, but with a 'latest 5 posts' displayed in For Sale.

Problem 2;

SAU have wonderful business traders who provide both SAU and SAU's members with major benefits.

Business traders are restricted to posting in their business forums (which they have moderator access on).

Business traders really need more exposure. We need to make sure the traders get as much exposure as we can give them.

Some thoughts;

• Allowing traders to post in regular For Sale sections
• Allowing traders to post in regular forums (ie, somebody asking about what turbo to buy, a trader could suggest one of their products)
• A list of 'latest trader topics' on the top of the forum.

This is open to suggestions/opinions by anybody. Even traders. Have your say!

Best suggestions (as judged by the community in a followup poll of best posts) will get a little SAU pack sent out to them (containing something like stickers and lanyards - and maybe more.)

I will close this thread in the coming weeks and move to a poll.

[MatthewT85]

i think the issue is people are lazy, they'll scroll see FS and then thats it, post WTB in there...
moving Wanted to Buy up, above businesses and below FS

OR

your idea of moving it to a sub section of FS that would work a lot better.

for problem 2 i thought traders already could post normally... but if they cant atm i think its fine for a trader to post their products as suggestions, i think they just have to be careful of product bashing to push their own, it should only be about their own product.

my 2c

edit:

possibly where latest discussion is on main page,

putting latest FS and latest WTB below if possible in the same way that latest discussion page works

Edited May 6, 2016 by MatthewT85

[Count Grantleyish]

I like the format that vwgolf.net.au uses for classifieds.

Like this

http://www.vwgolf.net.au/forum.php

Scroll down and you'll see what I mean, it's simple and elegant. I'm not that good with screenshot and paste btw!

Guessing you'll need to change forum interface to make it happen which costs monies?

[GH05T]

good idea, good layout.

I think the paying traders should be top most.

then forsale / wtb

[Ben C34]

Crowd sourcing sounds too trendy. Can you consider brain storming an idea instead?

Section needs rules!

One I want,

[state] as start of title.

Eg

[sa]sick as r31 locked diff skidzzzz

[Count Grantleyish]

That's also a good idea ^

[Sklyn]

I dont think you can stop people posting WTB in forsale. They do it to get more exposure as they beleive FS gets mre views than WTB, so they intentionally post in their knowing full well they shouldn't.

Unless you can create a template of the forsale ad which must be completed to make the post and the words WTB are blocked........

I also think the State needs to be included in the title.

[GH05T]

I don't remember which forum it was but when creating a fs post you had to select for sale or WTB aswell as the state. the forum would put it where it needed to go, it was also easy cos you could define state in your search.

[Trex]

Grants idea of having the WTB section under or above the FS section is great. It would stop 90% of the wtb in the fs section.

If it doesn't, get a new moderator who will move the wtb posts. There are members who are already in there on a daily basis searching for bargains, like Birds and Ghost. I am on most days and could help out also.

[GH05T]

happy to help

[V28VX37]

...

• Allowing WTB in For Sale. This will water down the actual FS posts.

...

• Allowing traders to post in regular For Sale sections

I'm not sure how flexible IP.Board is but how about mandatory tagging e.g. FS, WTB, Private, Trader, and a couple of filters?

Default to Show All but allow people to narrow down to see just sell/buy/private/trader posts?

[Burger]

For problem number 1, I suggest putting the Wanted To Buy section between the For Sale section and the SAU Traders on the homepage. This way people would see the Wanted To Buy as it is just underneath.

For problem number 2, I think that allowing the traders to post throughout the forum is a good idea, as long as they are not trying to excessively flog their stock. I believe that the knowledge of some of the traders could be very useful throughout the forum.

[Anfanee]

I would just allow wtb in the for sale section.

As for businesses I would move them to the fs section but make their adds look a little different. Like a different colour or font size so they stand out.

Keep it simple.

[niZmO_Man]

Make me mod, I'll clean up the sale section.

[PranK]

So, some general feedback to some great suggestions.

The VWGolf solution looks neat but I don't think it encourages visitors to browse the trader forums. We have ours the way we do so we can provide some info about the forum and also (more importantly) display the last posted-in topic which gives users on the forums at least a small look-in at what they have in there.

I do post some recent trader posts in the SAU newsletter to give some additional exposure and when they post well formatted topics I sometimes send them to Facebook. What would make you look in a trader forum?

[Trex]

Prices on traders products. Not just a phone number to call.

Even a disclaimer stating prices change.

it will give members a price guide on the products and they might be more inclined to call. Or atleast get their list together for their build.

[niZmO_Man]

What would make you look in a trader forum?

I already look whenever there's an update in there haha.

[PranK]

Any other ideas / suggestions?

[Robzilla32]

Hey PranK,

Do you know how people interact with the forums? I.e. % mobile app vs. browser and how they use them. This may dictate how / if things need to be reorganised. I use the mobile app 90+% of the time and I usually use the "Unread" view. Therefore the order of sections is less important to me as I am likely to scroll through all unread posts; pick out the items of interest (including Trader posts) to read and subscribe to those that I want to follow.

Personally, I don't mind if Traders post in non-sales sections. At the end of the day, most people know who the Traders are and chances are they will be well respected if they have good products and knowledge of the appropriate application. If a Trader gets too pushy, people will just switch off anyway and stop following the thread.

However, I would prefer that WTBs are not included in the FS section as I subscribe to the latter and don't care if someone wants to buy a pristine GT-R for $2.50 a bar of chocolate but that's just me; some might like the entertainment value.

How about using the advert functionality within the app to promote Traders? Maybe also supplying discount vouchers as part of the Supporter packs to encourage the use of Traders.

Just my $0.02

[tridentt150v]

I think that the FS and WTB sections should be mixed, but a radial button that lets you filter if you want to so that only FS or WTB are displayed if needed. ie you open the forum and they are all together and you can browse both, but if you need to be specific you can then select WTB or FS and it will filter and you only look at the one. This could be easily managed at the start by having people placing adds select a category, then their ads will have WTB or FS at the start of every thread. No category=no ad.

I also think that the WTB for a car is way different to Spare Parts. I would always keep WTB for cars in the For Sale section [for Whole Cars] - no filter button necessary.

The traders definitely deserve better levels of access and ability. I think they should be able to answer adverts [price of goods is mandatory] with a solution and/or suggestions, but no whoring [would only make the business look pushy and stupid anyway]. I also think that they should be allowed to hyperlink their latest adverts - that they place under their trader forum - in the general FS section. This way they can basically say 'hey look guys we now have these in stock'.

And example of this would be:

Title: Rays Wheels

Content:Just arrived, brand new OEM Rays Ultralite Golds, $1500 a set, 5 sets in stock, see http://XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX for details and pics.

So no pics or big ad banners, and the threads should be locked, the buyer has to click on and go to the link [trader forum] to see more detail, make an inquiry, or place an order.

I like this last idea because I know a lot of us have missed out on items because we didn't see it on the trader forum in time, not all parts are always available.