Andy Tang

iTrader: (3)

Just a thought!

A new company has come to this board and littered our 'For Sale' section with various adverts for all the bits they offer for a Subaru.

Surely this is blatant advertising, and should be told nicely to take out a banner ad?

Any chance we can remove these posts??

Just a thought
Andy

PS - that said, I don't think Amber Performance should have their posts removed, as they haven't been so blatant in their sales pitch! The offer was brought to us by a user on the board, rather than a company coming on saying "buy my stuff"!!!

chiark

Perhaps we should create a "Dealer offers" section for those who are looking for this sort of thing?

Perhaps a subscription fee would be appropriate for posting?

It seems a tad unfair to those who differentiate on service and/or buy the banner ad...

WALKER

Guys, chill out........

i agree that posting up as many offers all at once is taking the pi$$ a bit, but nobody complained when Amber Performance did it (although not as many).

Good idea about the Secial offer dealer section though, what ya reckon Simon?

I`m all for a bargain, and don`t forget, just because they are posting on here doesnt mean they have a website, and surely it cant take up as much space as some of the postings on the `muppet forum`

If somebody can supply me with something i want, cheaper, i want to hear about it!

Just my two penneth worth

Paul

logiclee

Yes but,

Northampton Tyres, TSL Motorsport, Litchfield, Nito, Admiral etc. etc. (sorry to those I forgot) pay a monthly subscription to advertise on this site. Without this income scoobynet would not exist. If we allow some to "advertise" free in the "for sale" sections why would our supporters continue to pay?

Lee

Leigh

Lee

Totally agree with you.
I think that the 'private' and 'wanted' sections should be for scoobynet users (ie private individuals as opposed to traders) to post on.
Seems a bit cheeky for some traders to advertise for free when others pay for the privelege and support the bbs financially.
Just my two penneth...

NAF

I'm with Andy & Logiclee on this one.....
Its not fair on the people who pay for a banner ad.....as far as I'm concerned ,if a post is not a private sale then it should be removed.

Just my tuppence!

Niall

RonaldoH

I have never posted on the BBS to advertise my fleet of cars for rental. Really its against "netiquette" and somewhat crass way of selling. Someone commenting on your service however is somwehat different. Fair poin Andy, however the company may not be aware of the banner situation so lets give them the benefit of the doubt eh?

Mind you, I don't trust any of you in any of my cars so bugger off! (Kidding and not going to accept threats of baseball bats and libelous claims that my comments have left anyone in a state of deleruim)


RonnieH

[This message has been edited by RonaldoH (edited 09 January 2001).]

sunilp

I have just noticed the SCC Performance ads but would also like to refresh some issues with the Amber Performance approach ;

Whilst the original post was bought to us by an individual, it shouldnt be allowed to open the gates for Amber Performanceto start their own new thread as its not fair on the other suppliers who

1) Technically support this BBS by responding to other questions in other forums rather than just appearing when there is a quick profit to be made

and

2) Also pay their 25 notes a month for a banner and contributes towards the costs of this bbs,

The fact that no one has been approached with costings is a very lame excuse. Has the said organisation tried to contact the administrators of this BBS to enquire?.

Also very lame is the excuse that if they had to pay for a banner that it would drive their costs up and they wouldnt be able to offer these great deals (25 notes or whatever a month hardly breaks the bank does it)?. Well, surely, if it wasnt for the BBS, most of us wouldnt know about these deals in the first instance.

This is not a personal accusation against any one company but i feel its important to keep a level playing field.

Sunil

[This message has been edited by sunilp (edited 09 January 2001).]

Chris L

Well put Sunil. Amber deserve the benefit of the doubt for the moment (unless someone can tell me different). However, in future it is only right that a commercial organisation should not be allowed freebies of this type when we have a number of companies willing to dig into their pockets to support this site.

Chris

teknopete

Yeah, the dealer special offer thang soundz good, but as said they should be on the same playin field as all other advertisers re fees. It would also have 2 b policed that SPECIALS were that an not a full catalogue @ standard pricings. Thats what I`m sayin anyway?


[This message has been edited by teknopete (edited 09 January 2001).]

ex-webby

Hi All

Thanks for this thread...

It is great to see that people take the reality of running ScoobyNet as seriously as I have to.

My personal stand on this is that I do not want to offend the paying advertisers by allowing free advertising to happen in the pages that (someone quite rightly stated) are designed for subaru enthusiasts to use to sell their second hand gear to other enthusiasts...

Perhaps the company / companies in question could contact me to discuss this ASAP, otherwise it will be necessary to remove the posts out of courtesy to our valued supporting advertisers.

Best regards

Simon
PS. I want to point out that this is not a simple decision as the other side to it is that the posts and offers by these companies may well benefit the community.

PPS. I will have a think about the dealer offers forum. Good idea.

ptholt

Is it me or are the just some sour grapes flying around ?

A company comes along, offers something that many people want, saving them money (also letting them all argue over £5) and all we seem to do (could just be the way im reading this) is to moan about it.......... is this the same board that was haggling over a few quid ?

Any company (banner or not) could have chosen to offer a group purchase. Have any of the banner ads offered bulk discounts ? Is anything stopping them ?
Would they have been a success ?

You all know the answers to that.

Then why didnt they do it ?

Seems strange to me that a community that was arguing the toss a few weeks ago over a couple of quid saving to themselves, now wants a company that was saving them money to spend out £300 in advertising.

do as i say not do as i do mindset seems to be the norm.

In some ways a level playing fields exists, companies can buy a banner, or they could offer a bulk purchase, anyone can do either. Seems fairly level to me.

I can see how such a culture could be damaging tho and if it meant the loss of our little nest of vipers i would be disapointed. Perhaps some how this should be moderated.

Those wishing to offer bulk purchases should apply say once a month (or quarter) and the best one by cost saving or vote gets added to a seperate section.

That way those not paying for a banner dont get constant ads on the site (after the deadline old ads are removed) and those paying for banners get flashed up all the time.

Or even funnier how about the group purchases getting a quid added on that goes to scoobynet, know that would be funny following the last few weeks haggling contest.

Yours a little disapointed.

Zero Sport

I like this... this is a awsome opinion

Gary Foster

I agree wholeheartedly with Simons decision and Sunil et al's views on this one. I would get mighty peeved if this started getting out of hand and I was the one paying for a banner ad.

ptholt

then surely regulation as i said would be a good idea ?
firms invited to offer bulk discount (firm need not be mentioned on site post if a moderator was to submit it) once a quarter.

hardly an advert then, then the community benefits from cheaper goods and the banners are still happy.

besides there is some difference between a constantly changing flashing ad, and a post in a message board once a quarter......

Or perhaps we invite companies to offer a group buy once a month......

I'm trying to think of a way to keep both sides going here, whereas every other solution just seems to stick with the banner ads.

Kinda strange from a community that argues over such petty amounts of money on the group purchases offered so far !

hell if its a time/staffing issue ill volunteer myself !



[This message has been edited by ptholt (edited 10 January 2001).]

ex-webby

Hi All

ptholt
Re "Is this not worthy of comment". Why are you so angry? I apologise that I have not had time to read this thread since my post. Give me a chance.

Your comments are interesting and are ONE idea for a possible solution with good and bad points. I have to consider all of them.

But the main thing is... There is currently no system like that in place. The subject of this thread was feeling that suppliers may be abusing the current situation. So thank you for you ideas. They may be something we implement at some point.

AMBER
Thank you very much for your post. It is clear that you take this seriously. It is also clear that you have not upset people in the way that others have.

I think you are right in that this kind of activity is ultimately self moderating, in that people get fed up with advertisers who abuse the freedom of the forums by going too far (something I understand you have not).

It is also true however that paying advertisers make scoobynet possible. I can see that you would like to be one of them, so please contact me on webmaster@scoobynet.co.uk and I will be happy to discuss it.

---------

In terms of the other ideas. I promise I will look into them, but we are working flat out on other areas of scoobynet at present so it may be a couple of weeks.

All the best

Simon

RVeiga

As someone who pays for advertising on this BBS (more for supporting the BBS, rather than getting any revernue from it). I am not happy with other companies doing this sort of thing.

Suggest these post's are removed and a notice put up stating that the selling section is for Private selling only - All Company Adds should be deleted.

I would agree with the above suggestion of a section for companies selling Scooby gear, for which a fee should be charged. (The BBS has 4000 members - lets see it is can make use that captive market to try and generate some money for the BBS itself).

..Rob

RichS

Interesting thread this! - Some good ideas here.

Rather than having a special offers or bulk deals section though, as per ChrisL’s post, surely this would fit better in the Scoobyshop..

The supplier would purchase ‘window space’ in the shop and send details etc to the webmaster for inclusion. This would eliminate unsolicited supplier advertising by allowing control over content by the Scoobynet administrators at the same time as generating revenue for the site.
The cost of window space could be at a percentage of the value of products offered to be fair to all concerned.
This system should, of course, apply to all suppliers – parts, tyres, insurance, number plates, stickers, body bits etc etc


As a potential supplier of car replacement parts (generally non-performance ones) I have been guilty in the past of posting the occasional ‘cheeky’ post offering my wares.
Mostly these posts have not been of the blatant advertising type, but have been in response to other people’s questions. - If someone put up a thread asking for the part no. and price of spark plugs for example, it’s all too easy as a supplier, to reply with “I can supply you them for X”.

Given that this may be considered poor ‘netiquette’ and that it may threaten current Scoobynet sponsorship, I will try to keep my input to an enthusiast only level, until a suitable alternative solution is available.

Rich

ptholt

hmmm perhaps you should read my posts again as you obviously missed the line -

'Dealers are encouraged too offer a suggestion for group purchase once a quarter'

or from the post previous to that -

'firms invited to offer bulk discount (firm need not be mentioned on site post if a moderator was to submit it) once a quarter'

or from the very first one -

'should apply say once a month (or quarter)'

All a user will have to do is post a vote saying headlights please.
then once its decided which group purchase to have, they post that they want the item, thats a total of two posts from a user, you've done more than that on this subject alone - as have i ??!!

hardly complex from a users pov.

The moderator would have a harder time, but i volunteered for that myself !

Failed suggestions for that **QUARTER** can be re-raised by the moderator after negotiation with the dealer re updated price(so users wouldnt need to do anything, not complex).

So looking at it from a dealers pov with the current rules as stated above. they pay for a banner ad allowing them any number of posts. so do some of there competitors so scoobynet is happy from a revenue pov.

We then get price war time with arguments as previoiusly seen for stupid amounts of money, dealers getting annoyed at the cut throat culture, users not knowing who they are buying from as the price is forever changing sounds great to me - NOT.

As for generating money for the bbs i suggested that to, with a quid added to each item sold given to scoobynet. And do we really want 3 times more group purchases going on?

I certainly couldnt afford that, hence the suggestion to go for higher number of buyers on items voted for by us to get a larger discount.

As someone that runs there own business, im trying to get something beneficial for all parties here, the bbs, the banners and the group purchase side. The majority against my suggestions are seemingly just looking after the bbs.

Remember folks without the cars or products to buy for it, there would be no community anyway.

rant mode off, i give up on this subject.

RichS

ptholt

Not sure, given the timing of these posts, if you were actually replying to my post or not.

Your idea is one suggestion, my 'window space' one is another.

No need to rant.


Rich

Gary Foster

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by AMBER-PERFORMANCE:
<B>p.s.

Gary Foster,
we are suprised at your position in this- you were the first one in the queue for front & side lights!!!

nice one mate

jason[/quote]

I fail to see why you have taken offence to my post ? I considered when writing it whether to put more information in - but thought (obviously in error) the issues were obvious ?

1) I have no beef with Amber / SCC or the rest of you over what you have posted in the past, there were no rules at the time and anyway Ambers post's were instigated by a Scoobynet member. I was not slagging off anyones actions thus far.

2) It has come to light that traders posting on the site may affect our advertisers, which then directly affects whether Scoobynet keeps running or gets shut down. This is obviously a problem and there needs to be a solution

3) The solution provided seems entirely fair to me, you buy a banner ad - you post on the board, what's the problem ? they aren't expensive and if your prices go up a couple of quid to cover, then frankly I don't care.

I will buy from 1) Firstly the Scoobyshop 2) An advertiser who is financially assisting with the running of Scoobynet. Besides which you'll only be 'competing' with other banner purchasers who have also made the outlay.

Gary

richbay

i am very keen to hear about the special offers as i am sure most scooby net users are, after all we are all enthusiasts and want a cars to go faster/ handle better/ or just improve looks.
it seemed to me the original asking price of clear indicators was far to high and a complete rip off (as a plastic moulded part should only cost pence to produce)
so in this respect i welcome any discounts for the consumer.
so my solution- how about if a company buys a banner they can advertise genuine group offers to the users, in a special offer section, then all companies have the chance to do this, and a level playing field is maintained and users get the best/fair deal
companies who dont have a banner get deleted
seems fair to me !!!!!!!

ptholt

Webmaster, are my suggestions so far wide of the mark they are not even worthy of comment ?

Or am i the only one that is attempting a reasonable half way house solution with no restrictive practises for either party????

Mark Kaye

Hang on! The solution is obvious isn't it? Clearly, allowing advertising by any commercial organisation in the Private For Sale forum can not continue. It is putting at risk the necessary revenue generated by banner ads that, presumably goes some way towards supporting this BBS. A new forum should be set up, no doubt, where those that pay for banner ads can post as many 'dealer deals' as they wish - password protected as is allowed with UBB.

For those that don't want to go to the expense of a banner ad then they should pay a one off fee for, say 5 posts to the forum. I picked 5 out of the air - modify as is deemed adequate and fair. The charge for this would be less than a banner ad.

That way the banner ad people get the unique advantage of a banner ad, even to the point of being able to bring attention (by a targeted banner) to one of their 'dealer deals', whilst also having the opportunity to post those deals. Organisations that wish to advertise on a smaller scale also get an opportunity.

It's basically a two tier advertising system. Sounds the fairest and simplest method suggested so far to me (I would say that). No offense ptholt but your method is far too complex!

M

[This message has been edited by Mark Kaye (edited 10 January 2001).]

Chris L

Pete - well argued mate! Your suggestions are very reasonable. We all like to see special offers / discounts etc. Seeing it from Simon's point of view though, he is trying to cover the (not inconsiderable) costs of running this site. One stream of revenue is banner ads and Simon has to offer those companies some form of return on their investment - otherwise why would they advertise here?

I'm sure there is a place to accomodate both parties (perhaps within the new Scoobynet Shop? Special Offers section maybe?) and keep everyone happy.

Cheers

Chris

ptholt

How would a seperate section for group discount be too complex ?

Dealers are encouraged too offer a suggestion for group purchase once a quarter.

the various offers will be posted and scoobynet users asked to vote for that quarters group purchase scheme.

Once the vote has been decided the ad is posted quoting the item and the cost still no mention of the company selling (still no argument for advertising as no one has been mentioned).

People reply to the post to register there interest, then after the cut off the company contacts direct for card details etc.

the offer ad is then deleted (no ad argument still as the co has not been mentioned).

Whats complex about that?
this gives a clear distinction between banner ad and group purchase as the company is not advertised hence they are still getting value for money.

Crumbs i've even offered to moderate this myself !
so the only complex part involved would be to create a seperate area, appoint a moderator, let them talk to some of the suppliers inviting them to offer group purchase and write a few posts.

If thats too complex i give up.

If we drop this and i hear someone moaning about the lack of group purchases or how expensive something is (or arguing for a £3 discount) prepare for a torrent of abuse.

Interesting how many people are trying to induce price war, and also want them to pay for a banner ad. So Scoobynet carries on, but loads of suppliers all go bust trying to undercut each other and we end up having to buy only from a handful of sources, is that such a clever idea?

[This message has been edited by ptholt (edited 10 January 2001).]

[This message has been edited by ptholt (edited 10 January 2001).]

AMBER-PERFORMANCE

As we are somewhat involved here may i make a couple of points. I have stated these elsewhere recently but only Sunilp seems to have noticed. We have never objected to the consideration of a banner ad but had no idea how to arrange it and what costs were involved. Sunilp slanders our comments about this affecting the price of goods but that comment (bearing in mind i did not know the costs involved) was not unreasonable. In light of the fact that it is £25.00 it is fair to say that this would have little bearing on pricing of products. We naturally assumed that a site representative would discuss this with us if it was felt necessary. To date we have had no contact from the site at all. Please contact us so we can be involved in any improvement to the system.
Further , i might add that those of you who know the RSOC site will be aware that they went through the same scenario a while back and all the same posts came up there as well. Over time the furore died down and the traders learned to respect the site and offers were / are only posted on the 'for sale' section and in general nce a thread is started all other traders stay off the subject thus causing no in-fighting within the trade. I am convinced the same will happen here and in the end everyone gains - the businessman and the customer. The only difference here is that you have greater support through your banner ads and clearly we do not want to upset these investors. Any format you can think of that will allow us (and others alike i'm sure ) to gain business from pro-active use of the site at reasonable cost will gain our full interest.
Hope this clarifies our position as a company with genuine intent to work for all of you out there not against you. Can the same be said for others!!!!!!!


cheers

jason

AMBER-PERFORMANCE

p.s.

Gary Foster,
we are suprised at your position in this- you were the first one in the queue for front & side lights!!!

jason

[This message has been edited by AMBER-PERFORMANCE (edited 10 January 2001).]

Mark Kaye

ptholt,

The whole idea of voting and managing a voting process is what is complex. Also, why restrict it to something that is monthly. That means 12 deals a year. A two tier advertising scheme would allow any vendor any number of deals - thus benefitting BBS readers even more! It's also completely fair.

I don't think any BBS user in their right mind would rather be presented with 12 group purchase offers a year when they could potentially get two or three times that. All this extra benefit without the need to manage a voting procedure. It also generates additional revenue for the BBS - can't be a bad thing can it?

It should also be noted that there is an admin overhead for any vendor who decides he wants to put forward a deal for the BBS. They go through the hassle of calculating discounts, making arrangements with the supplier only to find their deal wasn't voted for by the BBS for that month. Next month they won't bother!! It's self defeating really.

Why over-complicate the solution to a very simple issue?

M

[This message has been edited by Mark Kaye (edited 10 January 2001).]

RonaldoH

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by RonaldoH:
<B>Fair poin Andy, however the company may not be aware of the banner situation so lets give them the benefit of the doubt eh?


Jason@amber performance, I was right then! I am sure Simon (webmaster) will contact you with regards to the banner ad, and should you have a group discount offer advertise it! Its easy to change your banner to "Group discounts on XXXX, contact for details.." Im not sure how easy this is to do bu you will get 110% attention from our man De Banke

With regards to the comment aimed at Gary Foster, thats an opinion and perhaps not aimed at you chaps...possibly a broadside towards some other new firm posting offers...I may be wrong but as the old saying goes "Don't s**t on your own doorstep". I am sure Gary never meant it like that.

This thread demonstrates that people were unawares....