[Vote Please] Do you like the new marketplace ideas?

[PDR]

After reading the entire other thread, I honestly think we currently do not have enough information about exactly how this is going to work to start freaking out over it. A lot that has been posted leaves much to interpretation. I do think we need clarification on it and I will say I am slightly disappointed that the question of whether or not the old marketplace will remain, has not been answered yet.

 

[Rakie]

After reading the entire other thread, I honestly think we currently do not have enough information about exactly how this is going to work to start freaking out over it. A lot that has been posted leaves much to interpretation. I do think we need clarification on it and I will say I am slightly disappointed that the question of whether or not the old marketplace will remain, has not been answered yet.

Exactly. And frankly the fact that the whole thread is buzzwords lacking description other than "how much can we take from you?" is worrisome. It sounds like a million things R2R is nowhere near equipped to deal with at all, let alone do well.

 

[DSC reef]

Exactly. And frankly the fact that the whole thread is buzzwords lacking description other than "how much can we take from you?" is worrisome. It sounds like a million things R2R is nowhere near equipped to deal with at all, let alone do well.

That's also an assumption on your part and frankly quite rude. Your obviously upset but to make it like R2R is incompetent is disappointing. I think it's all speculation and getting members upset so hopefully someone will chime in.

 

[Rakie]

That's also an assumption on your part and frankly quite rude. Your obviously upset but to make it like R2R is incompetent is disappointing. I think it's all speculation and getting members upset so hopefully someone will chime in.

I have low faith that a forum of online hobbyists is adequately equipped to solve financial disputes. If you try to get a job with no experience you are unlikely to get the job. I understand where you're coming from, but I actually feel it's well grounded to be skeptical.

If they were hiring a whole new staff or outsourcing to a third party, that's better, but no information was given on that that I had seen. And superseding PayPal doesn't sound ideal to me.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Here is my thought process. Major sites such as Ebay and PayPal charge fees to post, and even craigslist now charges for certain posts. The reason they do this is to offset the costs of servers, maintenance, full time sale thread moderators, and dispute resolutions. So for r2r to ask for a small percentage with a cutoff amount in my opinion is completely fair. The new market would require paid admins, paid servers, moderators, and other costs. Plus r2r would help you with disputes and be able to weed out bad sellers. Please, let's get all the facts before a brand new market that hasn't opened yet gets a bad rap. I have tagged Revhtree and Daniel in this thread to hopefully clear some things up and answer any concerns you may have.

 

[DudeBruh]

I agree! I also think it's prudent and fair to tell them how we feel. Or warn them that there will be a mass exodus of sellers.

Poor moderation and bad ideas killed Reef Central. Nothing is bullet proof.

I can’t see a single “local pickup” going through this system . All will be detoured to fb market and CL. ALL. If they put any noticealbe tax on shipped goods people will probably migrate to the next forum. End of the day not anyone’s say but thiers, your decision will be where to sell elsewhere. Then comes that giant grey area..... will every post of hey I seen this good deal on CL it FB be deleted. Will you promoting your own fb sale get you banned if it doesn’t go though R2R ... all the other things that have followed every site that has done something Similiar... well see

 

[Rakie]

Here is my thought process. Major sites such as Ebay and PayPal charge fees to post, and even craigslist now charges for certain posts. The reason they do this is to offset the costs of servers, maintenance, full time sale thread moderators, and dispute resolutions. So for r2r to ask for a small percentage with a cutoff amount in my opinion is completely fair. The new market would require paid admins, paid servers, moderators, and other costs. Plus r2r would help you with disputes and be able to weed out bad sellers. Please, before you go negatively bashing R2R, get all the facts. I have tagged Revhtree and Daniel in this thread to hopefully clear some things up and answer any concerns you may have.

As much as I don't like the charge, I don't like the charge because the other stuff that's happening. I don't feel it's bashing anything. It's openly airing concerns.

Additionally, they are doing this to offset the cost of $250,000 making this project. If we tell them we don't want it, we offset that cost by about $250,000. So they won't need to pay admins, new servers, moderators, or other costs.

 

[MyReefRobbedMe]

As much as I don't like the charge, I don't like the charge because the other stuff that's happening. I don't feel it's bashing anything. It's openly airing concerns.

Agree 100% that R2R needs to hear people’s concerns , rather be pandering and not say anything would hurt them in the long run

 

[Crabs McJones]

As much as I don't like the charge, I don't like the charge because the other stuff that's happening. I don't feel it's bashing anything. It's openly airing concerns.

I apologize, bashing was the incorrect term. I have modified the OP

 

[Rakie]

I apologize, bashing was the incorrect term. I have modified the OP

It's okay, I completely understand where you're coming from. All I want here is pure honesty, if it's just me who doesn't like this, that's fine. If others don't, that's fine too. But while something is within its inception, it would be very nice to point out the things which worry us now, rather than having to tear down and rebuild later.

 

[OMGitsManBearPig]

Here's my thought. They can do whatever they want, it's their system, their baby. If we don't like the way they do sales, we have the option to sell on other forums, FB, or CL.

This is YOUR forum as much as it is anyone else’s. The forum has no value without all of us participating. Your voice matters. Don’t sell yourself short.

Based on your OP, @Rakie - I’m not seeing how the proposed changes to the marketplace will dissuade participation. However, there is too much room for conflict of interest. That makes me skeptical of the system. I’d like to see policies on oversight, clear steps that make the vetting process open and collaborative, recourse for participants that feel they have been treated unfairly, punitive policies for staff members/other members (not saying this would happen guys) that abuse the system.

It seems like this would add a lot of burden on the staff. Is everyone really ready to gear up like this? Are the fees for this program going to be high enough to sustain this level of moderation? I don’t like that - the spirit of a bulletin board based marketplace is that you cut out ALL MIDDLEMEN to enable truly open trade. In my eyes, that’s the limits of the role of this forum. Use at your own risk.

This new venture, as described by @Rakie is completely non related business. I agree with other posters that love the idea of a regulated marketplace held elsewhere.

Let’s review our current open bulletin board marketplace. Is it really broken enough to justify this change? Or, is this a solution in search of a problem?

 

[OMGitsManBearPig]

I look forward to seeing additional comment from staff about this development. @Rakie - you definitely stirred the pot!

If this is the direction the forum is going - this will be a major divergence from the status quo. I don’t feel like Ive participated enough in the forum or the marketplace, as is, to have license to comment too much on the actual practice of transacting in that space - so I am just asking for more information.

I do, however, appreciate the merits of a truly unregulated - that is to say, SELF-regulating marketplace.

Ok I’m done.

 

[Rakie]

I look forward to seeing additional comment from staff about this development. @Rakie - you definitely stirred the pot!

Well that definitely wasn't the goal, I wanted a discussion because I felt the post I had linked didn't get nearly enough traffic.

 

[OMGitsManBearPig]

Fair enough

 

[KrisReef]

What if they make such a fantastic platform that it turns out we all want to pay to use it?

Meantime, I'm still waiting for feedback on that new AEFW product from the Vibrant folks. They charge $20/bottle and people buy it.

 

[amore169]

I think that to be able to sell on the free marketplace the seller should be a premium member, that would help with the costs of running the free marketplace forum.
Now talking about money which this entire discussion is about, I just counted the sponsorship from companies like Tunze, WWC, they are more or less than 130 paying sponsors, they are here because all the traffic that R2R has created, also i counted how many members are here 95,674 members, lets just say 5% of those members are premium, that’s 4783 members, when I was premium member I think I was paying $25 a year that’s almost $120,000.00 a year just in paying premium members and that’s not counting the revenue from sponsors who which they pay way more. Like I said having the privilege in using the marketplace it should be only for premium members, I think is more than fair, of course that’s just my opinion.

 

[revhtree]

@Rakie man your poll is so unfairly titled that I almost voted no!

I don't have the time to keep up with two threads so I responded here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/w...the-new-r2r-market.448111/page-6#post-5100064

I'll try to answer more questions you have in that thread. Thanks.

 

[revhtree]

My poll said that the majority was interested in something like this and this is where it really started picking up steam: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-reef-classified-buy-sell-trade-system.310657/

 

[André Brasil]

Here is my thought process. Major sites such as Ebay and PayPal charge fees to post, and even craigslist now charges for certain posts. The reason they do this is to offset the costs of servers, maintenance, full time sale thread moderators, and dispute resolutions. So for r2r to ask for a small percentage with a cutoff amount in my opinion is completely fair. The new market would require paid admins, paid servers, moderators, and other costs. Plus r2r would help you with disputes and be able to weed out bad sellers. Please, let's get all the facts before a brand new market that hasn't opened yet gets a bad rap. I have tagged Revhtree and Daniel in this thread to hopefully clear some things up and answer any concerns you may have.

Although there are costs involved in the services you mentioned, these sites / services do not exist to purely provide a service - they exist to make money providing a service. That's why they charge a fee. Having costs to cover is just a by product. That didn't seem to be R2R's purpuse until now...

 

[DSC reef]

Although there are costs involved in the services you mentioned, these sites / services do not exist to purely provide a service - they exist to make money providing a service. That's why they charge a fee. Having costs to cover is just a by product. That didn't seem to be R2R's purpuse until now...

I'd suggest reading the links provided above.