The new B&S is confusing

[CloudLi]

First, click the price will direct buyer to Paypal page, but the shipping rate cannot be added through this method. Eventually, another transaction will be needed and there might be a dispute for shipping.
2nd, how thell should a buyer PM the seller specifically for one item? The old B&S there was a PM button corresponding to that specific item, right now you start a new conversation the seller has no idea which item you are asking

 

[Ich_Dien]

It is tedious...probably operating at about 10% my previous sales rate before the switchover.

 

[dreamspace]

Also, items seem to stay after being sold? I'm being PM'd constantly regarding sold items, even though I've closed/removed them.

And things are moving much, much slower right now. Not just selling, but listing as a whole. Have people abandoned the SF platform, for something else?

 

[taxgenius]

Also, items seem to stay after being sold? I'm being PM'd constantly regarding sold items, even though I've closed/removed them.

And things are moving much, much slower right now. Not just selling, but listing as a whole. Have people abandoned the SF platform, for something else?

eBay.

 

[aph999]

Even from this optimist: I find listings are tedious, updates are awkward, no premium bump feature, sales way down. I hope there is value there for someone.

 

[Dusty Heaters]

Two thumbs down from me as well.

 

[jrd617]

I could be wrong, but there seems to be zero effort being put in to make fix the B&S by the forum staff.

I've thought about hiring a developer who knows the Xenforo system (there are a lot of highly qualified ones, and I know where to find them), get all the features everyone wants, and handing it over pro bono... end the misery

 

[greenhouse]

Yes, new B&S is terrible. I was going to list a few items there, but after perusing the latest iteration, I got the vibe that eBay would be far more effective. It's worse on mobile, where it appears that I cannot narrow down categories beyond the top-level 'Classic Menswear', 'Streetwear and Denim', and 'Other.' As a dev myself, I'm having trouble understanding the point of this upgrade in general. Spam has gone up and features users actually care about have been lost or made less user-friendly.

As a buyer, I can confirm that I look through the B&S far less often than I used to. I've bought from jrd, Ich, and dreamspace before and I bet I would have bought more from them and others if I went to that forum with the same frequency as I had using the previous version.

 

[bry2000]

Not having a robust B&S forum is a major missed opportunity for SF even with what appears to be a declining readership.

 

[jrd617]

Would you guys contribute to a crowd-funding campaign to pay a professional developer who could bang out the fixes in a few hours? My hunch is it could be done on the order of a couple thousand bucks

Of course, the mods would have to be willing to implement the fixes as a prerequisite

 

[jonathanS]

Yeah, I've just started selling on eBay.

 

[othertravel]

Want to bump this thread...

@LA Guy

Are you taking suggestions on how to improve B&S?

I have a few ideas that I hope you'd consider (and others should chime in as well).

My humble ideas:

Since the changeover, B&S isn't as attractive as it used to be. It looks more like a garage sale where people are dumping junk and less like the e-flea market we're used to a (not a shot against garage sales, but using the term for illustrative purposes).

1. For example, one new seller can flood the pages with used, low quality items, even if they're the same type of items (e.g. somebody can sell 20 pairs of cheap dress shoes as separate listings, thus watering down the viewing experience of B&S). I've noticed that my viewing habits have changed since the changeover. The result is that nobody buys the cheap shoes -> users stop browsing B&S because it looks like a saturated dumping ground for cheap shoes -> sellers with excellent items and reputation lose views for their goods -> sales go down for everybody.

So can you restrict the # of listings somebody can put up so people are encouraged to combine items into one listing?

2. Also, sellers who've established a reputation for selling great items ( @jrd617 @PocketCircle ) are getting lost in the shuffle. Can you implement a system where established, high-reputation sellers can have greater exposure on B&S? That should be bigger icons, or larger, highlighted listings. Also maybe allow the high-reputation sellers to have multiple listings, but restrict other sellers from having the same benefits until they move up in the rankings. Such a system can be based on amount of time on the forum and feedback.

I don't want to come off as unappreciative for the platform you've built here. It's still a great forum. And I think we're all motivated by the idea of improving on it based on current user experience.

 

[7_rocket]

I used to browse the hell out of the classifieds. I don't even go in there anymore.

 

[LA Guy]

We will try to do some design changes. The real issue, though, is not money. It's that the devs for the b&s are not very responsive, and freelance devs who are both responsive and good are hard to find and worth gold. We have a laundry list of requests, starting with size and brand filters. A lot of the other suggestions are good as well, but micro goals are usually the way to success, and we are even having difficulty there.

 

[LA Guy]

Would you guys contribute to a crowd-funding campaign to pay a professional developer who could bang out the fixes in a few hours? My hunch is it could be done on the order of a couple thousand bucks

Of course, the mods would have to be willing to implement the fixes as a prerequisite

All the work you want done is more on the tens of thousands of Dev hours and at least a month of dedicated work. This from experience with teams who have done this before.