What's going on with all the Forum Vendors, are they automatically dropped and banned from doing business on this website.

Can we get a section in the Classifieds going for them, maybe give them an incentive and keep the traffic flowing on this website. It's nice to be able to browse the vendor classifieds and check out some of the latest deals.

Seems like a lot was lost in the club transition.

JP

^^ all advertising contracts with Nick were up on Dec 31st, and Tom decided he didn't want paid advertisers with the new VM.

I can't say how he feels about just having sponsors on the site still.. Personally, I think its still a good idea because in the end the members benefit, and the sponsors get some good exposure.

Any reason not to simply offer a commercial advertisement sub forum open to any buisness?

So long as there are careful rules surrounding it, it's a great way to collect commercial content and stick it in one spot. Keeps it out of other forums (not that it's been an issue here) but gives people who are bargain hunting a spot to check now and again.

Paul

Originally Posted by blkrx7

Any reason not to simply offer a commercial advertisement sub forum open to any buisness?

So long as there are careful rules surrounding it, it's a great way to collect commercial content and stick it in one spot. Keeps it out of other forums (not that it's been an issue here) but gives people who are bargain hunting a spot to check now and again.

Paul

^^^Good idea^^^

I disagree.
Letting everyone sell/advertize on here, has some potential problems. Problems like One-Hit-Wonder shops, poor quality products not backed up, poor customer service, etc.

Having few shops, but great relationships w/ the owners will benefit the club, not only in pricing, but in quality of service or product. This was my reason behind keeping only a handful of loyal shops.

It also has advantages .... more choice on products, and some of us not including my self look on here for many other things not just automotive related things! and more deals 4 us!lol

That's a portion of the 'rules' aspect. A general indemnity of the board against trouble with shops posting in the general commercial forum should be posted, and a general buyer beware. A general requirement, as exists in the non-commercial forum for a format, with a real phone number, real address and contact information.

And, lets not forget that as a general rule around here, personal sellers have had a far poorer track record, and are totally un-controlled. And they reflect much faster on the board when something goes sour as there's no company to blame.

As-is members have been advertising willy nilly, some commercial already, with no requirement from the board for verified real names, or any real information. The boards I frequent with the bar none best for/sale forums are ones that require real (non hotmail, etc) email addresses with a provider, and real names and contact information registered. They're far less liable to dick around when the general anonymity of the internet is removed. If you want to sell, *anything* then you need real information period.

However, customer service issues crop up, even with genuine sponsor shops in the past, it happens. It's not the boards responsibility to check out every seller, commercial or not, and I don't think anyone assumes that.

However when you restricted the sellers in the past to 'official' sponsors on the other hand, people DO assume they've been checked out, and the board is standing behind them. Which wasn't the case.

If your looking to perk up a little more traffic, and provide an additional service to the board members at little to no cost, this would certainly be an option.

Or not, wasn't my thread, just throwing an idea out there.

Paul

All the above ideas are great. We should at least get something going.

Tom, what are your thoughts???

Thanks,
Jaksa

I'm not really sure on what were going to do in terms of vendor and vendor advertising. I realize that not only does the advertising give the club a revenue to purchase things from, but it also allows dedicated deals for the users.

This is a matter that I will leave unsolved for the time being, simply because I haven't thought about it yet. I didn't like all the advertising on the last board, so thats not the route I am willing to take, at worst it may be one banner in a very non destructive placement.


We will see. Give me some time.

Ding...times up. Just playing, do you still go out to the bars man? Anyways, I've always liked to idea of sponsors, definetly need to thing about the terms a bit more precisely.

Originally Posted by Guess

I'm not really sure on what were going to do in terms of vendor and vendor advertising. I realize that not only does the advertising give the club a revenue to purchase things from, but it also allows dedicated deals for the users.

This is a matter that I will leave unsolved for the time being, simply because I haven't thought about it yet. I didn't like all the advertising on the last board, so thats not the route I am willing to take, at worst it may be one banner in a very non destructive placement.


We will see. Give me some time.

I didn't like the banners at all either, but maybe if the vendor paid for the rights to post in a certain sub-forum. Just throwing ideas out there.

i really doubt someone will pay to post on a subforum. and i think limiting to a few shops is crap because those shops usually specialize in specific areas or cars... IE not everyone drives a honda if you are looking for some stuff for your rare or non mainstream car your going to pay out your ass at these sponsored shops because simply they dont care those products main stream such as honda or dodge parts....

i'm a fan of the sub forums, like on SON240SX.ca Forums - Powered by vBulletin

business pays $x/year and post all their specials in their own forum. seems to be working very well for "Bing" on SON and i know the members deal with him a lot and get good deals.

if we could get something like that on here i think it would work quite well. you wouldn't have to have the ugly banner ads either. maybe convert "local shop talk" to "local shop talk/vendor's section" then each vendor would have a section in there, then the main page isn't cluttered either.

my 2 cents.

Originally Posted by Opel_Driver

i'm a fan of the sub forums, like on SON240SX.ca Forums - Powered by vBulletin

business pays $x/year and post all their specials in their own forum. seems to be working very well for "Bing" on SON and i know the members deal with him a lot and get good deals.

if we could get something like that on here i think it would work quite well. you wouldn't have to have the ugly banner ads either. maybe convert "local shop talk" to "local shop talk/vendor's section" then each vendor would have a section in there, then the main page isn't cluttered either.

my 2 cents.

I have subforums on one of my other sites, www.blackberryforums.com, however its inconjunction to a rotating banner. Its what works.

Do we have any sponsors??? I was just looking for links to them before I made a new thread asking if we have any "detailers".. come spring I'm thinking about bringing the old beast in for a good interior cleaning. Have someone with the proper carpet/upholtery cleaning tools to take the built up salt out of my car from over the winter.

There are no sponsors at this time.

Originally Posted by PlatinumTurbo

There are no sponsors at this time.

I'm against sponsors as well... that way you don't owe anybody anything. Let's just make a sub-section dedicated to anybody who owns a legitimate business to post anything they have for sale, I think that would work well.

This will also keep the regular classifieds section clean, although this is not an issue at the moment.

I miss being a sponsor of this forum...I had a good time doing business with a lot of the users and it actually let me get to know people. Especially since I live out of town. Although I used to pay a premium to advertise on VM, I don't think I would PAY to do it again...

Originally Posted by Little_Dragon

Do we have any sponsors??? I was just looking for links to them before I made a new thread asking if we have any "detailers".. come spring I'm thinking about bringing the old beast in for a good interior cleaning. Have someone with the proper carpet/upholtery cleaning tools to take the built up salt out of my car from over the winter.

Try splash car cleaning right behind waterloo honda - had my integra done there a while back and they did a good job for not too much $$.

Why would you NOT want advertisers?