New changes to B&S forum - Page 12  

I have a tldr post so can I PM you Spoo? You seem to be the head of the committee.
Edited by HomerJ - 7/20/11 at 12:22pm

I'm assuming the item would actually be paid for instantly(via google checkout, paypal, or amazon checkout)

This would probably be a big headache/cost SF money, so I doubt it will happen.

While I also enjoyed the communal atmosphere of the old B&S, I wonder if we're at a tipping point where the forum is too large to keep that format viable. As a now retired seller, I can say it was hugely frustrating to list a thread and see it driven down the page by chatter, especially when that chatter amounted to jokes and nonsense and free bumps for friends. There were times when a thread would be gone from the front page in less than 30 minutes. So I'm torn. I liked reading those jokes, sometimes, but sometimes, as both buyer and seller, I wanted the B&S to be more businesslike.

I can't imagine dealing with it from a mod perspective. The constant complaints were tiring even to me.

Beyond that, by the end, the "epic" hyping had gotten out of hand. I'd click on a "mega hyper super thread" and find it filled with a bunch of thrift shop stuff. I'm kinda glad to see the end of that.

This isn't to say that the new B&S doesn't have problems, or that it can't be improved. But I do think there are advantages to a new approach, once we can work out the kinks.

I can't sell anything. That's a problem.

Please don't fix it and my bank account will thank you for that. It feels liberating to not have looked at or bought a single item in the past few weeks. Also, because the site is brutally slow and buggy on my smart phone, I also stopped browsing it from there as well. A lot more free time and money, thank you mods! This isn't sarcastic, I really find it having a positive effect on me.

I'm listening. But I'm in the middle of getting my buzz on so give me a day or so to respond.

Even better, post it. There is no tldr here. We are trying to fix things, and it needs to be an active discussion with all viewpoints visible.

Quote:

 

LOL. everyone has joined the no buying club for july.
 

 

I just looked at B&S and couldn't find anything to buy. Prices do seem high.

I'm beginning to think the change in B&S was engineered by Mrs. Spoo to get her husband back. Browsing posts is fun sometimes but it's frustrating having to keep up with the deluge of posts just to find a pair of shoes in your size. I don't have time to refresh 40 times per day. That's why I was excited about tagging in the new classifieds but it hasn't really been implemented. You could keep the old format and just use standardized tags for brands and sizes and people could filter or not depending on preference.

I'd like to offer my perspective.

I feel the price drop bumps are essential to the spirt of the old B&S and I think whatever changes are made, it needs to bring a return to the price drop bumping system.

Without price drops, there is no sense of urgency to the listings. In the old system, as a buyer, if I saw something I wanted, I had to make a decision between paying a higher price for it or waiting to see if the price dropped but risking the item being sold out.

As a seller, I would start off the listing price a little high knowing I could bring it down later to get more exposure. I would start the listing price higher hoping that the item I was selling would be something that someone had been waiting for and therefore would jump on it even at a higher price.

As others have mentioned, right now there isn't much incentive to price drop because you don't get any additional exposure for your thread because you can't bump it.

Since the price is now its own field in the listing, and the bumps are hard coded as well, could it be made so that any bump automatically deducted 5% from the price and open up bumps to anyone at anytime? People who pay the weekly fee could still get free bumps perhaps?

+1

I PMed people on a very regular basis (under the old system) to make offers and I did so completely irrespective of price-drops/bumps/level of conversation. You are creating a distinction yourself, not identifying one.

Fundamentally, I agree about (liking) the competitiveness of the old format -- but people are making too much of it and distorting the hard facts to support their nostalgia.

Just ready everybody's new posts. Personally, I still think my idea would address almost all of these issues, unfortunately I'm not sure if it's possible in the software...

I see a lot of people concerned about the lack of discussion in new b&s. What if there was like, a 'peanut gallery' feature - where you could leave comments on items (or the index threads, if my idea came to fruition), which the owner of the thread would be able to moderate. These comments wouldn't bump the thread up, but it would still let people make their comments, have friendly discussion, etc. Maybe the 3-4 threads with the most discussion could get a spot at the top of the page.

Or, how about a Like button? So if somebody is selling really cool stuff, you could "like" their items, and maybe you could make a special tier for the Most Liked ads.

I saw some people talking about a Buy It Now button. That wouldn't work. However, one thing that would work could be a "Dibs" button. How I'm envisioning this working, is you would hit Dibs, and a box would pop up where you can make an offer at the set price, or type in your own offer. You could then hit send, and if the seller hits Accept the item shows up as sold automatically. This could remove a lot of work, and once an offer is accepted the system could tell everybody else who made an offer that the item is sold. Maybe too complicated though...

Mainy I like your original plan, but I still think we should shy away from any system that marks an item sold before payment is actually made.

1. It will take work to implement, time IMO better spent elsewhere.

2. Part of the competitive/urgency of the old system was the oblique PM function for sales - where you might have gotten it or might have missed out

3. It's a huge potential new hassle for sellers/mods with buyers who flake/change mind.

I don't see the upside.