Changes to B&S discussion - SOLD BUMPS ARE BANNED - Page 7

i have a simple solution. allow 1000 threads on the first page

A large part of what seems to be driving sellers here to ebay is less visibility here.. not sure what's causing that but I do notice that FS threads are getting less and less views before dropping off the first page. In the end, factors like this will drive sellers to Ebay faster.

I concurrently list things on ebay that I have here, because there's no penalty for ending an ebay listing early (if an item sells here for example), other than losing your insertion fee.


That's a tough call. Many sellers will see something in a store that is a good deal and have limited time to pull the trigger. But I do agree that there should be some clear guidance on what is allowed for an "IC" thread.


10% forced drop would be a bad move imo. If you really want inflated starting prices, then this will surely cause that to happen. Guaranteed.

Overall I try to steer clear of using the "sold" line to bump a thread, but have been guilty of it, and normally I only do it when concurrently dropping a price.

I favor the multi-item threads. What hurts is when there's so many items, that it becomes difficult to accurately title the thread, esp. with sizes. Buyers want to know EXACTLY what's in a thread by looking at the title, including the size available, and that's really hard to do when you're listing 20+ items of various types. I wonder if there's any way to allow more characters in the title of a thread??

The benefit though, is that buyers get to see many items at once, it reduces wasted space on B&S, and it helps sellers by allowing them to bump many items at once for a price drop.

I've been reading this thread with great interest. So let me derail it, and ask you what you would like if and when Styleforum Marketplace does come into being. Would set prices for services allow the market to regulate all of these problems to the benefit of both the sellers and the buyers?

For example, there would be no listing fees, but all sales would have a final transaction fee based on the selling price. There would simply be a % fee charged on checkout. Bumps would be allowed, but would cost, say, $1 per bump, and answers to questions, or changes to your post (say, to add figures) would not bump the thread. That way, bumps would only be profitable if you think that you have a high value item that deserves a lot of attention, and would make discussions like the one in this thread moot. If you decide to post Ebay Auctions, that would be fine, (you could put up a "proxy" item), but your thread would be quickly relegated to the 10th page unless you bump (for a price) frequently, and so on.

Please discuss the merits and demerits of different systems. What is the Styleforum B&S worth to you? How do we create a system that improves on what we have already?

Fok.

I read thru about 80% of all the replies here in this thread. As a buyer, I work with what this system offers because I know it must be a pain in the ass to police effectively.

With that being said, I usually go thru at LEAST 3 pages each time I check in for new deals. And I check every day, for the most part, since I joined. Sellers hate having their stuff bumped down off the first page, but I personally think motivated buyers will find what they're looking for even if it's a few pages back.

If all this were to be fixed, you'd practically have to ban the following:

1) Bullshit "ebay sales notices" with no incentive for a forum member, it's just free advertising to the perfect market, for the seller.

2) Bump for "pics added"

3) Bump for "measurments added"

4) You can see where I'm going with this.... Bumping your pathetically inept thread that had little useful information to begin with, just so you can always send it to the top by adding details that should have been there to begin with.

5) Bump for Sold. Don't give a shit. If I want it, I'll find out if it's still available.

6) Answering questions that can be answered via PM. It's obviousl when you are answering a question that many people might ask, it's another to be answering a single question just for the free bump...

So, with all that said, I don't imagine any of the above being enforced properly, and that is no slight to the moderators here, it's just to big a task.


But most off all, I really think the ebay listings need to go.. I can go to ebay and search thank you very much..

All in all, I still return to find good deals here, and have done so, at least twice a month for the last 2+ years, so the system can't be that bad..

+11111 on what chips and some of others have said. The SF B&S is a great place, is it possible to give a few people who visit the site quite frequently the privilege to lock threads that violated the policies. i have used the "XXX have sold" to bump my sale threads, and i would no longer use it for my future sales after reading this post. my apologies to other sellers. I think that conversations should be limited on sale threads, so threads like the YOOX $89 RLs do not stay on the front page for a week. Other users' replies on a thread should only be allowed, if they provide some useful information to buyers about the goods in the sale thread.

This is one of the best maintained B&S for clothing that I've ever been to. I trust this site more than any other, and it's the only place where I'm willing to do a few "personal payments" as an effect of that trust. The "no free bump" rules make perfect sense as well and keeps the forum uncluttered (really, I do not want to see threads with 70+ replies from them all trying to pawn the same two items).

"SOLD" bumps definitely qualify as a way of cheating free bumping. I support the "price drops bumps" only rule.

Then I would be in favor of a sub-form dedicated to Ebay auctions/links. It is merely pushing the sales threads that I'd actually be interested in looking at off the page.

Admittedly should this be implemented I'd never visit the Ebay sub-forum as I visit Ebay every day anyway. No sense in the redundancy that exist now with seeing the items on Ebay and then having to wade through them here.

i think giving sellers the ability to lock and unlock their own threads after everything is sold would be nice. if they have to relist they can just unlock it. and if someone has a question after its been locked they can just pm them like "if you can find more PM me", and the annoying "is it still available????", and one that i'm guilty of, "oh man i was too late". but that probably means you would have to give them some kind of superior mod status...

I am appalled at the amount of whining. WHY ARE WE TRYING TO FIX SOMETHING THAT'S NOT BROKEN?!?!?!!?!?!?!??! This is a free EFFing service that us sellers are using for personal gain without a penny forked over. Why the need for all this mod involvement/rule whoring and completely useless banter about a system that's been working fine? YES its not fricking perfect, but ITS FREE AND IT WORKS Deal with it for god's sake. Drives me up a mo' effin' wall.

I think the fee for a bump and/or insertion would be a bad idea since it creates a disincentive for a price drop. The current price drop in a bump rule is awesome because it benefits both buyers and sellers.

The fees would also kill those who are looking to do "closet clearings" or list one item they want to sell. Paypal and Ebay have me by the balls already, and that's why I love the forum since the fees are minimized. It benefits both buyers and sellers again to have no fees associated with selling.

What I'd like to see less of, and I'm guilty of it myself, is the good 'ol boy network of bumping threads because you like the seller, i.e. "Hey great stuff, this is teh big time, you gotta buy from this seller right now!!!11oneone!1" -- We already have a B&S Feedback thread where you can search for any seller's name in that thread to find positive remarks.

We really need to limit bumps to only:

• 5% price drops
  
• new additions to your FS thread
  
• informative questions/informative answers
  

We need to eliminate comments like "pm sent" or "wow, that's a super pair of shoes" or "hey I got my suit today, thanks!" which really runs rampant at times. This might call for the seller to be the only one who can post in a thread, and force people to use pms more often - a sacrifice I can deal with to eliminate the silly bumps.

Sellers should be limited to the number of threads they can have stuff in. Seeing one seller with 5 threads, each with 5 items, all bumped to the top page at once, is ridiculous.

And finally, this is the big one in my opinion: Maximize the number of characters allowed in the Title of the Thread, so that multiple item threads are more highly encouraged. This will also benefit buyers who seek more accurate titles to include sizes they want.

please stop coming up with brilliant ideas. If you really need some encouragement to stop then read this. nothing is being eliminated because nothing will be done about all these ridic ideas and fo good reason. *edit* furo, I'm not just singling your dumb ideas out., I just quoted yours out of convenience because I dont' have the patience to quote all the dumb ass ideas in the threak.

Actually I think making the seller the only person allowed to post in a FS thread would clear a lot of this BS up, and fast. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

Price drop-bump rules would also be easier to enforce, since the OP is the only one posting in a thread.

It would make the mods work less, not more.