Changes to B&S discussion - SOLD BUMPS ARE BANNED - Page 6

I agree with this to an extent. As more of a buyer here, I hate these kind of threads WITHOUT any pictures of the item. Members will of course bump this thread by asking for pictures of the item then will be bumped again when the pictures have been added by the seller. Pictures, even if they are low res, should be included.

+1 for ban. I've never used this even when I have 20+ item threads. never saw a point to it, and to echo some of the other posters here, think its kinda shady when i see it used for every darn item. I'm glad not every seller does this.

yay, your shirt sold.

woo hoo your jacket is pending.

WOW #4 is gone!


Just edit your posts please, and bump when you drop the price.

I believe more importantly we need to have a standard for thread titles.

+ a million.

This should be accompanied by a seperate question: Should there be a minimum requirement to start a new sale thread? I personally think that unless each of all your active sale threads has at least 10 items, you should not start a new sale thread. Too often someone has multiple threads with only one or two items in each. Why not pick on those who take more real estate than others when they are selling less stuff? I think there are existing rules regarding the "bump" practics. Most common violation I have seen is the kind of "sold" bump on the last item. What is the point? You've got nothing more to sell and you bump your thread to the front page?

Thanks for the reply. I had to think about this for a while but I must say that having spent about a year and a half here and doing about 50 or 60 purchases, I am realizing that for me, NWT stuff is going to be more my focus going forward than the used stuff, just because I have had only about a 50/50 retention rate on the used stuff I buy here.

So I understand you to say that the way 'sold' bumps increases the raw amount of NWT higher-end items on SF is by encouraging sellers of these items to post here as opposed to going to eBay. Fair enough, if this is the case you would know more about it than I.

By the way, Doc H's comments here are redemptive for me in the sense that I recently took some heat for suggesting that my standard offer to guys here is 15-20% below the posted ask (usually in hopes of meeting in the middle). Now I realize why guys start their threads $200 higher than they're willing to take on a $500 item. It allows them repeated 'price drop' bumps. I agree 100% that this is a waste of everyone's time.

This new way forward hinted at by our esteemed mod should be interesting.

...

I voted "yes" on the ban (although it looks like "sold" bumps are already sort-of-banned). But then a good point was made (by Holdfast?) about the fact that the number of "sold" bumps is limited by the number of items in a thread -- creating a kind of parity for sellers with different number of items for sale in a single thread. Not sure how I feel now, but I don't use "sold" bumps myself. Yes, this drives me nuts, when people post their thread gradually in a dozen stages to keep it bumped to the top for a couple of days straight. Transparent abuse of the system, like this, should get a poster banned from B&S, in my opinion. Occasionally I've been guilty of bumping a thread when I replaced crappy pics that I thought were preventing a sale, but I'll stop doing even that.

I'll be curious to see what changes to the system LA Guy is referring to. I've often wanted to post a "stop breaking the damn B&S rules" complaint in offending threads, but I know the main effect will be to bump that thread to the top and benefit the seller.

Here is my rambling 2 cents on the multiple issues at hand here: 1, I think everybody agrees that threads with multiple items are good for the forum. However, when you outlaw "sold" bumps, you discourage these types of threads. Personally, I have 3-4 selling threads running right now, each with (originally) multiple items. Why? Because if I made one huge thread, and dumped 30+ unrelated items in them, people quite simply aren't going to waste their time looking through the entire thing, and I will have no way of getting it back to the main page. At that point, I might as well take it to Ebay first, or not even bother. When you break your sales threads down into categories, or by brands, and stagger the time you post them, you are going to get more interest - somebody is looking for shoes, they'll look at a thread that says "Tons of shoes", if they're looking for ties, they'll look at a thread that says "Tons of ties", etc. I have tried the 'million items in one thread' strategy, and it did not work. Therefore, I am for "sold" bumps in multiple item threads, and think a seller should be allowed to have more than one thread at once, provided he staggers them and is not taking up a disproportionate amount of front page realty. RE: sellers making Ebay threads, I am 'guilty' of this - but I only make them the night of my auctions closing, usually 2-3 hours before. I do this to minimize the time my thread is active (courteous to other sellers), and with the understanding that most people don't care about auctions until they are almost finished. This is just common sense - and I have to say, I get a lot of bids from SF members doing this, so how bad can I feel about it if people find it useful? Ultimately, I think requiring a price cut for a bump is a bad policy. It encourages people to set high selling prices (This is IMPOSSIBLE TO POLICE!), with the understanding that price cuts will come, and that in practice the listed price is just a starting point for an offer. Do I have the solution? No. But I do think the B&S forum has become a big enough beast that some change should probably be enacted.In a fast moving forum environment, the honor system is what is in place. Rules and regulations aren't the answer to this problem - there will never be an effective enough means of enforcement without extremely vigilant moderation. I would argue that the solution lies in some flavor of format change. Can we get SF Auctions already? Speaking from experience, I make more money selling things on Ebay (and I'm sure most other sellers do as well), but I appreciate the implicit trust, simplicity and convenience of buying and selling things here on SF. If J & Co want to make it harder to sell items here, you will most likely see: A. more sellers take everything to Ebay and not even bother coming here first or B. guys not even bothering to pick up items to sell here, both of which would be a loss for all parties involved.

Holdfast has made many good points in his posts. I would suggest Mod consider imposing following rules 1) No more than one active sale thread per seller at any time 2) No more than one pure "... is sold" update within 24 hours interval. What I also like to see is a function is "pin to the top" any thread you personally like. This way, I will always be able to track the sellers I frequent. As both a seller and a buyer, I can see why both sides have interest in this. Some of the pure buyers may have an unrealistic expectation: ban all the bumps then sellers would have to cut prices fast and often and stuff will be priced at next to free. It is not gonna happen and it is not good for the forum.

Having served as a Buy/Sell mod in another fairly active forum I am familiar with the issues here.

We ended up instituting several rules for selling threads.

A couple that would apply in this forum:

1. Threads without pictures are deleted on sight.

2. Absolutely no Ebay link threads. If you are selling on Ebay, sell on Ebay. If you are selling on the forum, sell on the forum. This simply clutters up the forum and pushes the threads of sellers who are servicing the community out of visibility. Priority should be given to those catering to the community's needs.

3. Bumps were limited to once per day. Needless posts by the OP for whatever, unless requested by a potential buyer, were counted as a bump. Violation of this results in a deleted thread.

4. Price drop bumps are certainly acceptable.

Bump for some great items in my sig

But seriously, as a buyer and seller I can think the system works pretty well as-is. As with any good set of rules, the main problem seems to be enforcing the ones that are already there. Personally, I think we should be self-policing and outing violators in the hopes that Mods will take appropriate actions. Just having a thread called "B&S violators" pinned at the top of each forum would probably eliminate any infractions. Mods could just check that particular thread instead of trying to police a whole forum. Just my .02.

Sort of unrelated question: If i have multiple items - say 5 - for a sale in one thread, in order for me to bump the thread do I need to cut price on ALL of them? I buy far more than I sell on this forum. While banning "SOLD" bumps is clearly better for the buyers, think longer term: sellers will leave here for eBay (as I might) if this forum does not provide a PROFITABLE selling venue. I do not want to have to cut price by 5% every day just so that a potential buyer doesn't have to click "next page" 10 times to see my sales posting. I already feel like good deals have dried up fast on this forum over the past few weeks.