Change to the Marketplace

ben

ben

Administrator
Ukraine
Hi,

We've been making some improvements to the Marketplace:
  1. You are now prompted for some mandatory details when creating a new advert (Offer price, quantity, Advertised elsewhere, Sold). Please fill in these extra fields when creating an advert.
  2. Once an item has sold, please update the original post and set the Sold field to Yes.
  3. We've moved the discussions on an advert to a separate thread You'll can access this under the Discussions tab at the top of each advert. As a result, it's no longer possible to reply to the original advert within the main thread. You have to use the Discussions tab.
Let me know if you have any issues.

I'm currently investigating how we can migrate existing adverts to the new discussions configuration.
 
sciroccorrado said:
Hmmm, does this mean that people like myself, A2Steve, Sarge and Boxy will need to list each item individually?
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No. It's still acceptable to have an advert with multiple items within it. There's an option when posting to indicate this. In these cases, you can put details of the primary item in the Price/Quantity field (if applicable), or just enter 0 for these fields. The goal is to have a consistent summary for the bulk of the one-off adverts that are posted here.
 
Hi Ben. Can I ask whether the original poster is able to add more items to the thread as time goes on?
 
A2Steve said:
Hi Ben. Can I ask whether the original poster is able to add more items to the thread as time goes on?
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Yes, the original poster can still edit the original thread to suit their needs. This helps potential buyers know what is being offered, as the first post is kept up to date.
 
ben said:
No. It's still acceptable to have an advert with multiple items within it. There's an option when posting to indicate this. In these cases, you can put details of the primary item in the Price/Quantity field (if applicable), or just enter 0 for these fields. The goal is to have a consistent summary for the bulk of the one-off adverts that are posted here.
Click to expand...

Great, I'll have a go at starting one off this evening probably then :)
 
Ok just created an advert but in the quantity section it only allows a numeric value so in the case of my coil pack advert

I have 12 SETS available but could only enter 12 thus being somewhat confusing as 12 = 3 sets so should I of entered 48 but again this could imply I have 48 sets available ?
 
BoxyA2 said:
Ok just created an advert but in the quantity section it only allows a numeric value so in the case of my coil pack advert

I have 12 SETS available but could only enter 12 thus being somewhat confusing as 12 = 3 sets so should I of entered 48 but again this could imply I have 48 sets available ?
Click to expand...

I could make it a string field instead? Then you could write "12 sets"?
 
Anything to elivate the confusion would be great Ben ??. As I’ve got 12 sets but not 48 lol !
 
Thank you Ben for the incredible hard work you must be putting in but please, please think of the following as supportive.

Just some initial thoughts.

Not quite sure where all this is going and why but assume there is a consensus for change of something that worked reasonably well and it has been thought through.

Some specific observations.

In an advert the mandatory fields text is grey to a point it makes them look insignificant.

Offer Price.

Why the word 'Offer'? Makes it sound tacky, connotations of 'buy two get one free', or worse still that offers are somehow invited. Simply drop 'offer'. The £ sign looks disconnected from the price and the the price looks like some decimal measurement. £Price should be in bold text and may benefit from being larger.

Quantity

Fair enough, but is this really needed? It is very rare a seller has more than one item to sell and if they do they can simply highlight the fact in the text of the advert.

Other Items

I simply don't get the point or purpose. Full stop.

Advertised Elsewhere

Pointless and who's to say they are truthful (can't police). If a seller wishes they can always flag this in the advert text and a link.

Sold

Fair enough, but include 'no longer available' with automatic closure of the thread, likewise when they select 'Yes'.

Postage+

This has to be a mandatory field or endless requests from prospective buyers. Needs a lot of thought on options available e.g. Collection available, collection only etc.

Other more general thoughts:

I think I see the point of the 'Discussions' tab but it seems compromised at the moment if replies to the thread are possible; it will be ignored.

At the top 'Agree to the Marketplace rules' banner implies some box somewhere needs ticking to proceed, how do you agree?

Enough for now. - Andy
 
Hi. I’ve inplemented some of these and will discuss postage options with team.

I will sort the discussion part, but need to move a number of old posts to the discussions forum first. Unfortunately haven’t had time last night (travelling back from Kiev)
 
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As you will have seen I’ve started moving old adverts over to the new format. However I see this has already created some confusion.

The reason the team asked for this change was to make adverts more concise and not long sprawling posts upon posts with responses such as “Nice car and good value” and “That is cheap”, etc.

The new format now extracts all the chatter to a separate thread and encourages advertisers to split up their lots, with just the ad details appearing in the What’s New section.

If the members don’t like this, then it’ll need addressing with the team. However it does address one of the ongoing criticisms of the What’s New section.

Thanks
 
Hi Ben, this would explain my post disappearing... Do I need to update with a single post or multiple posts for different items. Personally, with the way that myself and A2Steve sell it is a distinct advantage to keep the posts "fresh" and appearing in the "What's New" search. But I understand the general consensus and recognise that one size doesn't fit all...
 
I have to admit I’m not entirely sure the new format suit us mass sellers it’s perfect fit for people that sell 1or 2 items but the likes of us that break @A2Steve @sciroccorrado @Sarge would find our posts falling down the pecking order as other posts above us.. I found my original advert but way way down the order behind items that have sold thus us “mass” sellers not being new and frequent and adding work to the people that search as when I would add new items it would appear in the new section..

Also listing mass parts was very helpful as people often browsing didn’t know they wanted it until they saw it listed and for the price.. I think the old format was more clean and helps all us mass sellers to help each other by aligning our prices together and fair, the old format was also helpful for member to point others at bits they’ve seen advertised that is needed to do a job as part of a question on another thread.. whilst I’m all for change and making the A2oc community and forum a better place... I think the new format is causing more confusion that’s currently unnecessary for a simple adding and selling of parts

However I do agree if I have 1 item to sell the new format works however we’ve all got cars worth of bits knocking around.
 
And perhaps therein lies the problem. The marketplace had got to a point where it was jam packed with people all fighting to get their posts to the top to get most impact. There were points where the 'latest activity'was completely filled with adverts, many of which were pointless replies to messages just to bump up an advert.

How do the mods feel about each 'mass seller's' thread getting a sticky so that it eliminates the issues described?
 
I’ve actually pulled my advert as have no intention on breaking another vehicle anyhow.. the parts I do have I will either keep as spares or keep an eye on the wanted section..

I will step out of this discussion but remain positive the club will come up with the solution for all involved.
 
A2Steve said:
And perhaps therein lies the problem. The marketplace had got to a point where it was jam packed with people all fighting to get their posts to the top to get most impact. There were points where the 'latest activity'was completely filled with adverts, many of which were pointless replies to messages just to bump up an advert.

How do the mods feel about each 'mass seller's' thread getting a sticky so that it eliminates the issues described?
Click to expand...

Totally hear what you're saying there Steve and makes sense. However I'd feel guilty though if us "mass sellers"* go special "sticky" posts. Maybe if we paid a small fee for that honour it would fit better with my principles. Also I do feel that this is one of the beauties of the forum that there are lots of items around to be had and these posts are a bit self regulating anyway, as whenever a new post appears from us there will be an initial burst of enthusiasm (a day or so) then it dies down again.

*I don't like the term breakers, as speaking for myself, and probably A2Steve, Sarge, Boxy and Steve Birchall amongst others tend to only break when a car is totally unviable as a going concern - over the last year or so I have "rescued" about 7 A2s and only actually broken 3.
 
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