What is going on with some of the new buyers recently? - Page 2

Thanks for all the great feedback!

As a new buyer on here, I'll chime in and offer my .02 cents.

When I set up my ad, I knew I wanted to put pricing in there for sure. Everything else, I was uncertain of. I did add an email to comply with the guidelines here. Everything is being shipped to my home address for the time being, so for me, the zip code being out there was all I'm comfortable with. If you're serious about selling me your goods, I can provide the actually mailing address when we get to that point.

Even with the pricing in the post, I still get emails asking for pricing. I try to respond to them as promptly as possible, but things may sit a day from time to time.

I can understand why some of the buyers on here are leery about posting prices. For me, I'm buying to hoard. Commodities drop 10% tomorrow, I'll adjust my pricing, but it's not the end of the world if I overpay a touch on the stuff that I have en route already. This is a long term decision on my part. I'm still not even 100% certain what I'm going to do with my hoard. Maybe I'll just sit on it until prices move my way, and then ship to Mario. Maybe I'll lose my nuts, but that's the gamble

I'm also trying to create a niche to differentiate from the other buyers on the forum. I'm willing to post a price and pay a premium for finger boards cleaned without the brackets (as a result of a thread on the forum a while back, seemed like something guys wanted?). The other thing that I'm willing to do (for now) is pay up front via paypal. This is a complete trial run, and I'm not 100% certain how long I'm gonna do it for. I have successfully completed two transactions with people from the forum, just paid for a third tonight. I do have one transaction that I'm worried about though. It's been over 2 weeks since I've paid, not product received, no tracking info, no response from the seller. I'm gonna give it another week or so, and then contact Paypal to see what my options are. It's a risk that I'm willing to take, but we will see for how long.

Any feedback that you guys have, I'd like to hear it. What are your thoughts on paying up front (for established forum members?) Also the bracketless cards thing? Am I spinning my wheels?

That's like all these car lots that post nice ads in the car books trying to sell their cars. And instead of a price below the car pic, there is this "call for price".
YEA RIGHT, If you don't have the time to post a price then I don't have time to buy from you. Same difference,,,

What do you guys think about posting feedback for the sellers on here? I just updated my listing to give props to a couple member that I've completed successful transactions with. I just want to make sure that this isn't something that would be frowned upon. I took a chance, paid up front, and these guys delivered the goods, no problems, just thought they should get a thumbs up?

I look at it this way. If your buying something and the price isnt listed then its to much. If your selling something and you the price isnt listed then the price is to little.

1. if you can,t or wont consider opposing opinions don't give one.
2. why are you singling me out, when the vast majority option is the same as mine.
3. sry didn't mean to hurt your feelings. but now you may have verified the arrogance in others minds.
4. if you don't like my posts don't read em.

Originally Posted by URBANERECYCLING

You must always comment on things dont you . Just because you are OLD DUDE doesnt mean you have some great advice to dole out to members on here..I prefer to help out people one on one instead of trying to rack up thanks on here with statements that actually say nothing

I prefer to be more direct, and for people to deal with me more directly. There is something to be said for a person who is willing to lay exactly what they think right on the line.

From what I can tell, a person knows exactly where they stand with olddude. He seems to be straightforward and honest. Regardless if I agree with him or not on any given subject, I can respect a man like that.

And so far as the thanks thing is concerned, I would like to think people thank because they find a post informative or useful in some way, or at the very least they are showing their support for another person's view. Obviously olddude has a lot of people who agree with him and have thanked him. I don't really think the thanks someone has accumulated is an issue, I'm not sure why you brought that up. It kind of seems like the same situation when a woman cheats on her husband with another man that didn't realize she was married and the husband goes after the other man, instead of divorcing the woman.

My personal opinion is that your comment about olddudes thanks was over the top.

Scott

for me personally as a buyer i do not list prices in my ad because most of what i deal with are local customers, and the percentage i can cut from my profit line varies widely depending on how much you have, how far away you are, how many people do i need to pay loading and sorting stuff.

i tried posting prices when i first placed my ad and quickly learned that everybody and there brother wants you to pay the prices the big buyers offer but they want you to come to there home to pick it up (which often includes wasted time digging it out of there garage, basement, etc.)

so for me personally i simply give all my contact info and the prices are negotiated on a case by case basis, i can almost always offer %75 - %90 of the prices the bigger sellers offer and you don't have to bother shipping or sorting, hell you don't even have to get up off your couch if you don't want to; just point to the pile and we grade, weigh, and hand you greenbacks for your trouble.


just my .02

also i just realized it has been a looong time since i last participated in a SMF thread.

Originally Posted by Phantoms001

It must be beat up on OldDude day. Everyone pile on..............

well I'm not much for "piling on".... but if ya'll wanna run him by over here when you're all done. I might take a swat at 'im.. might be a pretty even match... lol

Originally Posted by zito

ETA. Am I the only person who finds the new bumping/ranking system in the Buyers/Sellers section extremely annoying?

I think this causes the problem that we are having right now. By doing this the post don't get cycled though and contributing buyers get penalised by this. People get the impression that the ones in the beginning are the trusted. Some of the buyers offer great service to the forum members in the way of buying large amounts while others offer information, and some do both. If the buyers aren't contributing to the forum than charging them a fee to bump there thread so you know they are serious I can see. Or a fee to bump if you thread gets stale, but to every one seems its to make the forum more money with surcharges and hidden fees.
Also imposing a bump fee after you buy your lifetime subscription (expires in 2038) to the forum seems less than transparent. this was not nor is not discussed in the terms of service or in the disclaimer and guideline sections.

Eric

Just look for the stars. They are earned not given, an they are there for a reason. just my .02..

To Quote Admin..."Honestly, anyone who posts a thread as a buyer here should treat that opportunity like gold". canIgetanAMEN ;-)


AMEN.

There could be many reasons why a buyer does not want to show thier prices. IMHO it is thier loss if it costs them customers. I don't feel there is any one place we could have posted an add and gotten the amount of response that we have recieved as we have from here. We have enjoyed working with everone here on the forum and look forward to working with many more here.

I dont post prices because i buy over 300 different grades of scrap / items. So it would be impossible to keep a price list updated. I dont want to post prices that are not accurate and up to date. Thats why it says pm or email me.

Originally Posted by etack

I think this causes the problem that we are having right now. By doing this the post don't get cycled though and contributing buyers get penalised by this. People get the impression that the ones in the beginning are the trusted. Some of the buyers offer great service to the forum members in the way of buying large amounts while others offer information, and some do both. If the buyers aren't contributing to the forum than charging them a fee to bump there thread so you know they are serious I can see. Or a fee to bump if you thread gets stale, but to every one seems its to make the forum more money with surcharges and hidden fees.
Also imposing a bump fee after you buy your lifetime subscription (expires in 2038) to the forum seems less than transparent. this was not nor is not discussed in the terms of service or in the disclaimer and guideline sections.
Eric

Contributing buyers are not getting 'penalized' at all, because of the new system. In fact nobody is getting penalized.

Before the new system, the order of the Buyers & Sellers section was essentially a popularity contest (no pun intended).

The only thing that has changed is the ORDER of the threads when viewing the Buyers/Sellers section as a whole, it does not affect your thread's overall existence. This section is for advertising, and advertising only.

Emphasis Here: The big picture is basically, the 'advertising section' is no longer ordered by the 'most popular advertisements', but rather ordered by the advertisements themselves.

From a perspective further outside look at it this way. For example, the buyers with the most posts/activity on the main forum, maybe with the clickable buyer badge, a signature, etc are going to get more questions, inquiries, posts on their threads. Thus moving the thread to the top of the section (where everyone who's looking for a buyer goes).

If someone drops by to post a review, the thread moves to the top of the section. If the OP says 'prices updated' the thread moves to the top, it was all based on 'last post'.

Forum buyers who have been around a long time will also naturally have more active threads, thus also resulting in being at the top of the list.

So what happens when a new buyer comes on, making an offer to the forum, a day or 2 goes by and their thread is already at the bottom or off the first page because there are 5 or 10 or 20 other active threads going on at the moment. The smaller, newer guys stand no fair chance with this section for advertisements being ordered that way.

Now new buyers, AND everyone else has an equal opportunity to get the eyeballs to their advertisement. What's the sense in posting a paid advertisement here if it's not going to get any exposure. These threads don't expire, they will always be there, they can be linked to, they can be found, they can be searched for, members can do a prefix search in this section at any time, etc.