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Marketplace's Future

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MacNut said:
Why not just have everyone use eBay. Wont that just save everyone time and be safer? I think the marketplace has outgrown its usefulness. When there weren't as many members it was easier to maintain. As the site has grown isn't it just better to have people go elsewhere.
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Nooooooo... i have sold rolexes/powerbooks/etc on Greedbay and it's been nothing but a hassle. The MR marketplace is a necessity for people like me who are looking for a smaller community of traders where I can take some time to get to know the seller/buyer and not pay astronomical listing fees.
 
I'll just restate what I think would be a good compromise. Allow users under say, 250 posts, to only post one listing in the marketplace until they meet the required # of posts.
 
ltldrummerboy said:
I'll just restate what I think would be a good compromise. Allow users under say, 250 posts, to only post one listing in the marketplace until they meet the required # of posts.
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One posting is all it takes to rip someone off...
 
I have been here for a few months and have only around 40 post but I wish i could post in the marketplace as I have things to sell that others would benefit from, but I don't meet the post requirements. I think that the buyer should be able to decide wether or not to deal with the seller their should only be like a 3 month rule that you cant be fresh to the forums and post a thread their to reduce spam.
 
One big question you have to ask is are people signing up for the good of the site or do they just want to sell stuff. If the majority are using the marketplace as a side note then it is fine. But if a lot of people just have stuff to sell then maybe the rules should be stricter. The idea of this site is not for a swap meet.
 
Sorry to be a Johnny-Come-Lately :)

Anyway, has there always been a 100 post minimum? If memory serves (and to be honest, it doesn't always), Marketplace is how I started with MR. I can't imagine posting 100 times before being able to sell stuff in the Marketplace.

The requirements are harder on shy people. But shy people tend to be more trustworthy.

Having done dozens of deals on MR, the one problem case I had in the Marketplace was with a person who had a good amount of MR history, and seemed pretty normal. But, without going into detail, it turned out bad (for me) and he dropped off the forum. So, these requirements (either current or proposed) wouldn't have helped me.

Maybe start a credit card verification with MR Marketplace? jk :p
 
^^
These are reasons why I don't think the marketplace should continue, MR should not have to worry about being liable for someone getting ripped off. When this was a small site and not many people were selling stuff it was easier to trust people. I think it has outgrown it's usefulness.
 
w8ing4intelmacs said:
Shortened post
Sorry to be a Johnny-Come-Lately :)

Anyway, has there always been a 100 post minimum? If memory serves (and to be honest, it doesn't always), Marketplace is how I started with MR. I can't imagine posting 100 times before being able to sell stuff in the Marketplace.

Having done dozens of deals on MR, the one problem case I had in the Marketplace was with a person who had a good amount of MR history, and seemed pretty normal.

Maybe start a credit card verification with MR Marketplace? jk :p
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This is what I'm getting, ideally the solution would:

-Reduce the amount of policing required on the forum
-Increase the security of members who wish to trade
-Not transfer any liability onto MR

Unfortunately, this would not allow us to keep the requirements as-is.
 
w8ing4intelmacs said:
I think a lot of people go to the Marketplace precisely because they hate eBay (myself included). Plus it's easy to market Mac stuff to a Mac community.
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But this site was never meant to be a trading post. I think back in the day it worked because the numbers of people were low. I don't think MR is built right to be able to handle the amount of selling traffic now.
 
I do think it is a good idea to up the limits. I myself have not had any problems, although I accidently swapped mailing addresses myself. I do think 100 post can be collected way to quickly. Heh, I could have never thought that in a little over a year I could get 2000+ posts.
 
MacNut said:
But this site was never meant to be a trading post. I think back in the day it worked because the numbers of people were low. I don't think MR is built right to be able to handle the amount of selling traffic now.
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But my guess (since I wasn't around) is that people would talk about trading/selling on normal forums, so MR started Marketplace to categorize that talk separate from other Mac-related banter.

If you get rid of Marketplace, then people will start to talk trade/sell in a "normal" forum (i.e., try to sell their mini-DVI to DVI adapter in the Hardware/MacBook forum).

If you start policing those posts, people will come up with secret codes.
(EXAMPLE POST:
"... and my mini-DVI to DVI adapter is just sitting here gathering dust (wink, wink) ...")

And MR can't police the pm's ... or i don't think MR can ... or i really hope MR doesn't :)
 
MacNut said:
When this was a small site and not many people were selling stuff it was easier to trust people.
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That's why we're considering restrictions that would further limit the number of members. Even though some sellers would like the widest possible audience, we know from experience that transactions with "unknown" members are more likely to have problems.

There's no perfect solution, so we are trying to keep the odds in our favor, and buyers and sellers are playing the odds too.
 
I do have to agree with the thought about this being a solution in search of a problem.

Have there been any complaints about someone with 103 posts in a month selling something, and screwing the buyer?
 
As someone who has used the marketplace extensively, here's my opinion.

The amount of posts you have doesn't make you a good or bad person. A person could be the biggest scammer in the world and have over 2,000 posts. Trying to up the amount of posts will just create MORE insecurity. Scammers/spammers can easily get 200-500 posts and they will appear as trustworthy because of their post count.

The current system is better. When a low posting member creates a thread here, people see his post count, become suspicious, and probably look at all that member's posts/threads. This is more safe than automatically trusting someone with 500 posts.

I believe I only have 154 posts but I've sold over 2,000 dollars worth of items in this marketplace. And I've been a good seller, and I believe the people I sold to were generally happy with the way I acted as a seller. Me having an extra 400 posts will not make me a more trustworthy person.

What would be better is a system where we can see who has sold what, to who, and if the transaction was successful. Maybe create a directory of sellers/buyers with feedback on them in a thread or something.

I think that would be the better solution.
 
I don' think that there is a need for a good trader thread, just a one for bad traders.

existing people can do something like i've done at the bottom of my big FS thread where a make a list of successful transactions with links.
 

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Security and trustworthy issues aside, one must also consider the underlying objective, or aim, of the Marketplace here. Do we want to promote an active and busy marketplace, or encourage a relatively small and intimate experience for buyer and seller.

For example, should the marketplace be targeted for users selling their beloved mac, knowing it'll end up in the loving hands of another active member of the mac community, or should it be aimed at the veteran buyer/seller looking to make a few bucks?

Basically, do we want to cater to buyers/sellers who maybe very reliable and trustworthy, but are here purely for the purpose of buying and selling?

Anybody can buy/sell on ebay through reputable persons, but the MacRumors Marketplace should be more special than that.
 
CRAZYBUBBA said:
Nooooooo... i have sold rolexes/powerbooks/etc on Greedbay and it's been nothing but a hassle. The MR marketplace is a necessity for people like me who are looking for a smaller community of traders where I can take some time to get to know the seller/buyer and not pay astronomical listing fees.
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And Paypal, god they are wonderful.

I like AmbitiousLemon's idea, except I think it should be 200 rather than 500 posts to start a thread, as many posters are far less prolific than me and take ages to get that many posts.
 
You guys are just thinking about making protection for the buyers. There also needs to be a way to protect sellers from buyers who use stolen/illegal funds. Anyone with 0 posts can go buy an item in the market place. There are people who've bought a plethora of items from the marketplace but only have 0 posts. This is why we need some type of feedback system for buyers and sellers.
 
The feedback system could be corrupted as well. Someone who wants to badmouth a good sale won't help anything either.
 
MacNut said:
The feedback system could be corrupted as well. Someone who wants to badmouth a good sale won't help anything either.
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This is very common. The buyer threatens negative feedback unless the seller acquiesces and pays X amount.

Unfortunately there is no way of preventing this. Not even asking for proof. In the case of a seller, asking for photos is not a good idea because you don't want the buyer damaging your merchandise, taking pictures and then demanding a refund.
 
I think we should dig this back up maybe, as there seem to have been some issues appear recently.

I think a time limit/post count limit would be great, then for someone to be allowed to SELL in the MP, you should have to prove feedback from an external source- be it another board, ebay, heatware, etc. I would dare say most people that come here have sold elsewhere and this is not their first rodeo. In today's day and age with the way it appears people are, I would rather it be extra safe, and have less activity than too free, and people being screwed. I also think that the transactions SHOULD take place via some sort of payment system be it paypal or google checkout or something else, simply to give an official aspect to it. This of course could be looked around by a local pickup/CASH transaction.

As far as new feedback goes, Create a subforum in the MP. In that forum all would be allowed would be threads dedicated to feedback from MP transactions. There would be a thread title for each member who has bought or sold in the MP, so it could contain buying and selling feedback. In the case of a dispute about feedback, a moderator could be involved as a mediator and give a third party statement of facts only. Snafu's happen, and mistakes take place, problems arise when someone goes off half cocked about them when the communication was poor to begin with.. just sort of ideas to help reduce issues and keep the market place a fun place for people to practice commerce.



Does that make sense?? Just an idea...
 
OscarTheGrouch said:
...then for someone to be allowed to SELL in the MP, you should have to prove feedback from an external source- be it another board, ebay, heatware, etc...
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I think this is great advice in the general sense that you should expect this kind of information to be provided from your seller. I generally don't buy anything of significant value (I'm softer on stuff that costs <$100) from someone who either I don't already know personality-wise from their posts or has feedback. I think people should get in the habit of asking for this and expecting this, and sellers should be prepared for such requests and able to comply with them, as well as pre-empt them by putting this right in their FS posts.

OTOH, I think asking us to police it as a rule would not be realistic without a large increase in the number of moderators, since unless we used some kind of vB plugin that allowed it to be a profile field that we could then require to be non-empty for marketplace posting rights (defer to Ant as to whether that's even technically possible), it would involve us manually checking every new for sale post, and we don't have the resources to do that.
 
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