Buy & Sell Forum : Your help needed

[Keith Lawrence(BSAC)]

Further to Steve?s original question about whether you wanted such a forum, you said that you did, we went ahead and did some development and we have a prototype running that has been tested by the IT Team and a few others. What it does is -

+ A seller can post a new ?for sale? topic
+ They can add a picture
+ People can?t respond (post replies) on the forum
+ The seller can go and remove their post when the item sells

So what you end up with is a read-only list of items for sale, with pictures. You contact the seller by email if you?re interested, if it sells then the seller removes their item from the list.

There?s only one bit missing before we can launch it and that is the terms and conditions, the posting rules, acceptable use policy, picture size guidelines? things like that. It is with these T & C that we need your help, you?re going to be the users so we want you to write them!

So discuss here what we need in the T & C :

+ The BSAC cannot be held liable?
+ Private/club adverts only? (No commercial?)
+ Adverts from non BSAC members?
+ It?s not an auction, do we allow references to EBay etc.?
+ What can be advertised?
+ How big do we allow the pictures to be?
+ ? anything else you can think of!

We can?t launch until we?ve got the T & C sorted, everyone on the IT Team is up to their eyeballs with the new IT infrastructure we?ve put in at HQ, we need some help to finish off this little Buy & Sell project.

Which is where YOU come in. You asked for the forum, give us a hand sorting out the detail. If somebody on here can ?take ownership? of the T & C for us, collate things, come up with a T & C/AUP that you?re all happy with, then we?ll bounce it off the IT Team and our legal people, put it on the new forum site and launch it.

Over to you good folk?

Regards

Keith Lawrence
BSAC IT Team Leader

[Ben Field]

> Private/club adverts only? (No commercial?)

Yes please. Commercial sellers can sell elsewhere.

> Adverts from non BSAC members?

Why not?

> It?s not an auction, do we allow references to EBay etc.?

I don't see why this would be a problem. (So long as they abide by the other rules)

> What can be advertised?

Dive gear, boats, diving related bits (eg- books)
No trip spaces, holidays.

> How big do we allow the pictures to be?

No need for anything larger than 100K/file, probably 50 would do? But multiple pictures might be needed to show an object properly, or allow people to supply a URL.

> ? anything else you can think of!

Would probably need moderation?

BEN

[Adrian Kelland]

No trip spaces, holidays.

Why not?

Then perhaps there will be only one place to have such spaces, rather than be placed in the various existing forums, with no consistency.

Have a fixed set of fields, i.e.

Date
Place
Boat Name
No of spaces
Cost
Proposed sites
Depth limit
Sort own accomodation y/n
Comments

I expect a fixed set of fields for the sell/wanted so why not spaces.

No commercial, unless they pay ;-) Probably not worth the paperwork for BSAC HQ or advertiser, though. Worth a try?

Allow non members to advertise - a member could benefit from a cheaper purchase.

Allow ebay refs; again this could benefit a member.

Pictures. Allow one file 50k, max ratio 200x200? (keeps things neat). Also allow url to site for other pics.

Definitely moderated.

Have an expiry system. Put old adverts into an archive of somekind. Allow seller to edit/remove advert, or mark it sold. It may be better to have SOLD rather than remove, as it shows that the object was sold, and shows the potential usefulness of the service.

Have a way of identifying repeat sellers, could be commercial? When I see the same names repeatedly selling dive gear on other sites, I sometimes wonder 'Commercial or stolen?'

Have a lost/stolen section? Similar fields to sell, so may not be too much more work.

enough for now.

Adrian

[Nigel Hewitt]

I'm not sure I'd use it but I said that about ebay...

+ Private/club adverts only? (No commercial?)
I think so. A comercial organisation can set its own pitch somewhere else. The real problem is that they would have a constant stream of stuff and my one little item gets lost.

+ Adverts from non BSAC members?
Seems reasonable. Being inclusive doesn't cost and it might be a BSAC member getting a good deal buying it.

+ It?s not an auction, do we allow references to EBay etc.?
Again yes. I don't believe the prices sometimes - either strangly high or low but auctions are a fact of internet sales these days. Since the proposed list is not on commission there isn't a competative problem.

+ What can be advertised?
I think this needs to be strongly scuba oriented. I have a PDP on ebay at the moment but it would have no business here no matter what gloss I put on it. Mud anchor?

+ How big do we allow the pictures to be?
Can you auto thumbnail to 60x60 with a click through to the original? Size isn't really a problem these days although a caption stating 720K might be kind for the dial-up users. Unless you have thousands of adverts disk space will not be a problem.

+ ? anything else you can think of!

Time limited so it drops out after say 10 days or a fortnight. If nobody has taken it in that time it's either old tat and everybody knows it or it's overpriced. Don't bung up the list with lost causes.

Random order within the selected category. Then my advert has an equal chance of being top of page one to everybody else's. If it is time driven a good position is down to luck and luck is rarely fair.

Since this is not an auction a price and postage cost must be mandatory. If you don't know what it's worth auction it.

That's my list.
nigelH

[Keith Lawrence(BSAC)]

Thanks for the thoughts guys - but we still need somebody to collate this little lot and write the words!

K

[bugsonfilm.com]

Cheers for time to construct forsale feature
Just some thoughts about your points, to put with other views:

*The BSAC cannot be held liable? ........ Fair deal

*Private/club adverts only? (No commercial?) ...... private and club ok (wonder if you would know who was who). No Commercial as will flood (unless you add search where the user can call ONLY private)

*Adverts from non BSAC members? ......? would you know?

*It?s not an auction, do we allow references to EBay etc.?....... Should be set price so no ebay otherwise may turn out to be a link site serving ebay

*What can be advertised?....... diving and related catagories

*How big do we allow the pictures to be?...... 160x120 jpeg should show most detail (depends on your site capability) buyer can always ask for more pics to their own email if interested

*anything else you can think of!...... might consider AREA to be a major mention as we are from all over?

just some thoughts to put in the pot
Regards

[Martin Church]

Not sure if this helps but the British model flying association have such a forum it works well if a little frustrating at how quickly your advert disapears down its listings, so be prepared for lots of people relisting because this one will take off.
Here is a link go take a peak
<a href="http://www.bmfa.co.uk/ads/" >http://www.bmfa.co.uk/ads/</a>
I doubt if your going to stop someone making money out of this forum (traders), the big boys probably wont need to get in on it tho will moan about the odd garage based business using it selling grey imports.
I dont see how your going to stop this without heavy moderation which is time consuming.

References to ebay

Yes this helps everyone allow someone to place links in adverts to ebay sales who knows a bsac member might get the deal of a lifetime.

Non BSAC members using it

goes without saying the more people who use it the more bargains there will be for all of us.

T&C

Not sure on this one bsac obviously not to be held liable seller assumes all responsibility for advert.(again check bmfa see what they do to get round it)
Martin Church