Paying for Classifieds

[Faust]

This will kill the classifieds any way you cut it...

free market please! if you want my money charge me a membership fee

andrew, i am curious to know why you think that is.

[JoniF]

I don't like the idea of humble traders being taxed because of a perceived influx of monopolizers and newbies. I'd like to suggest the idea of entitling all members five tax-free trades at the beginning of every month, and the tax-free trades would not be stackable; one would only be allowed to have a maximum of five tax-free trades.

[lowrey]

^ oh come on, who is going to keep track of the couple of hundred users using the classifieds and their 5 sales per month, and how?

just to make it clear, I'm certainly not against SZ getting its cut, I just don't see any reasonable way for Faust to keep up with the transactions and payments. how do you know when someone sells something when its done through private messages and/or e-mail? there is no function on this forum to track trades. we'd basically rely on people being honest about it, and of course someone would abuse the system at some point.

looking at it from a sellers perspective, listing stuff in classifieds can be quite time consuming, so I'd rather just donate $100 right now than be concerned with 1% payments everytime I make a transaction

[endersgame]

How about a one-time membership fee to participate in any forum on SZ.

I like this idea the best.

Also, i'd like to recommend that all the members have to pay $10-$50 fee in every single year, to make SZ more popular and as the privacy place for those who like to enjoy SZ and want to be a SZ member. Just my opinion.

free market please! if you want my money charge me a membership fee

Personally I would appreciate a membership fee.

edit: thus I vote no for the 1% fee. I would very much prefer the membership fee.

p.s i also vote for the membership fee.

I'd rather just donate $100 right now than be concerned with 1% payments everytime I make a transaction

we need a membership fee option in the poll please.


if you are going by percentage, do it with balls and make it 5%. sz deserves more than 1 measly percent. anyway, the percentage thing is too complicated...

[Who?]

I don't think this whole idea is bunk but how many sellers will simply start to use the free classifieds at SuFu and StyleForum? Most people here are multi-forum members so unless everyone starts charging a fee what's to stop sellers from selling on other forum? As a buyer I hate having to sift through their classified to find one or two threads of gold so I hope that doesn't happen.

Personally I like selling here because I have had outside internet contact with many of the members and like the idea of being able to know that someone I know will be getting an item they love.

Just some ideas. Moderate the classifieds better and eliminate bumping altogether since that seems to be one of the most annoying and abused privileges. Add subforums for types of items so searching is easier with less crowding. Eliminate the IC, either you want to sell it or you don't. Lock/prevent posting in all the threads so bullshit posts like "NICEEEEE ITEMZZZZ" don't bump threads. Allow only one thread per member in the classified, lock it, 5 items max and do not allow the original post to be edited until all fees have been paid on the thread and all items have been sold (but this is a total strain on a small forum/staff). Membership fee would eliminate the jackasses who sign up to spam the forum/fill the classifieds with crap but it will also eliminate the casual users who sometimes provide valued info.

[dji]

a membership fee for the ability to create threads in the classifieds perhaps? this would be a lot easier to implement and would also eliminate the issue of speed posters.

[Chinorlz]

a membership fee for the ability to create threads in the classifieds perhaps? this would be a lot easier to implement and would also eliminate the issue of speed posters.

Thats not a bad idea either...

Perhaps all of these ideas may coalesce into something the majority can agree to. Lots of valid points and certainly in the end, no one method will be perfect.

[Who?]

a membership fee for the ability to create threads in the classifieds perhaps? this would be a lot easier to implement and would also eliminate the issue of speed posters.

BINGO

[nakata]

who pays for membership fee every single year (or every 2 years). Then they can create the sales thread in classifieds. Who doesn't wanna pay for it, then they're not allowed to post their own thread in classifieds (or even post their stuff which they wanna sell on another member's sales thread).

[Faust]

With membership fees I feel like it would alienate even more people than charging a fee per listing, which has a much more direct effect.

And maybe some cleansing is due? Maybe that will give pause to people who want to sell crap on multiple forums. Maybe it will be the elite classifieds? I don't know, these are all questions at this point. It's hard to believe that a 1 percent fee would alienate many sellers.

[JoniF]

^ oh come on, who is going to keep track of the couple of hundred users using the classifieds and their 5 sales per month, and how?

just to make it clear, I'm certainly not against SZ getting its cut, I just don't see any reasonable way for Faust to keep up with the transactions and payments. how do you know when someone sells something when its done through private messages and/or e-mail? there is no function on this forum to track trades. we'd basically rely on people being honest about it, and of course someone would abuse the system at some point.

looking at it from a sellers perspective, listing stuff in classifieds can be quite time consuming, so I'd rather just donate $100 right now than be concerned with 1% payments everytime I make a transaction

It seems that your qualm with my idea is based on your notion of it's impracticality, so let me assure you that I could code a program to keep track of such things. If simplicity and efficiency are what we're striving toward, then a one time fee would be sufficient.

[mononon]

i'm kinda against the fees, although i do see the arguments for such.

i feel that although selling via classifieds is a sort-of privilege, at the same time, buyers and sellers mutually benefit from transactions. most sellers are not selling to profit, but to pass on a great item to a fellow forum member for a fair price. i've sold a few things on SZ and my main agenda was not to rip someone off, but to pass on the item to someone who wants it more, since for some reason or another the article did not fit or i got bored of it, etc...

also in regards to a membership fee to the forum / classifieds, I feel that it wouldn't make too much sense to make SZ a for profit forum, and charge members a fee to discuss designers...etc.

[xeraphim]

It seems that your qualm with my idea is based on your notion of it's impracticality, so let me assure you that I could code a program to keep track of such things. If simplicity and efficiency are what we're striving toward, then a one time fee would be sufficient.

nevermind the tracking issues; just how effective is allowing for five tax-free trades a month, really? when you give exemptions, people abuse them. can one not easily use up all five trades for the month, then bring the remainder of his sales over to the other forums to peddle?

[JoniF]

One could also not use the Classifieds and simply trade on an alternate forum. Anyway, I didn't think SZ harbored such dishonest people, but now you've got me thinking otherwise. Hmm...

[endersgame]

the amount of work involved in manually taking in the fee before or after the sale is really not worth it i think. you need to recode the classifieds portion of sz so that each ad is self-serve in terms of fee collecting.

maybe jonif can submit a proposal to sz to redo the classifieds portion so that each seller who creates an ad goes through a check-out process for fee collecting. it would be easier to charge a flat rate since the seller may lower the selling price, there would be no need to recalculate the prepaid fees.

this processes should not require any mod to babysit a fee transaction every single time a member decides to sell an item.