Navigating the basschat market place

[Twincam]

I know there was the thread last year but want to bring this up again.
Im wondering if it would be possible to make the bc market place easier to use. Or should I say easier to find what your looking for.
Say different price sections or basses only in the uk, basses just for trade, sale or both. Have a separate trade only section. And another for our foreign members.
This would make it so much easier all round.

[Big_Stu]

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1456500043' post='2989703']
I know there was the thread last year but want to bring this up again.
Im wondering if it would be possible to make the bc market place easier to use. Or should I say easier to find what your looking for.
Say different price sections or basses only in the uk, basses just for trade, sale or both. Have a separate trade only section. And another for our foreign members.
This would make it so much easier all round.
[/quote]

What was the verdict last year, that I presume you want to overturn on appeal?

Not that I use it, so my opinion is largely irrelevant, but I'd have thought lots of multiple sections that basically all say "Bass for sale Mk1, 2, 3, ad nauseum", would be more of a slog, not easier.

[CamdenRob]

Yeah we do this every six months or so... although I can't remember the outcome so perhaps we're due another run at it

[gary mac]

Not again

[Twincam]

[quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1456500900' post='2989718']


What was the verdict last year, that I presume you want to overturn on appeal?

Not that I use it, so my opinion is largely irrelevant, but I'd have thought lots of multiple sections that basically all say "Bass for sale Mk1, 2, 3, ad nauseum", would be more of a slog, not easier.
[/quote]

I don't think I mentioned this before.

What I mean is maybe have a sub £500 section and so on, and I think we need separate sections for basses in the uk or Europe or some way of filtering all this. I'm pretty sure maybe just having a cheapo section would generate interest? One for high end basses too.
I don't know haha I don't hate the market place it's just a thought.

Anyone else with me or is it just me lol

[Twincam]

Surely if it keeps coming up there is a good reason. I'm not being funny or anything there btw.

[Truckstop]

I like it because I can perv at basses I wouldn't normally look at.

I say we leave it as it is. If people can't be bothered to filter through a few ads then that's their problem.

[Paul S]

[quote name='Truckstop' timestamp='1456501631' post='2989730']
I say we leave it as it is. If people can't be bothered to filter through a few ads then that's their problem.
[/quote]

This, really. I can see it getting very complicated otherwise. For the sake of discussion, say you advertise your bass for £550, then drop it to £450, it would have to moved to a different forum if the cutoff point was £500. Figures are arbitrary.

[Bassassin]

I for one wholeheartedly agree with Twincam. I hardly ever look at the Basses For Sale section any more because it seems to be predominantly high-end instruments - most of which are for sale from mainland EU countries. There's seldom anything within either my budget or scope of interest any more.

For the same reason, I haven't sold anything on here in several years. The fee isn't an issue; simply the fact that it feels like my modestly priced, niche-interest MIJ stuff would inevitably disappear under a mountain of ten grand Foderas!

A sub-£500 section would be incredibly helpful & would do nothing to interfere with the marketing of higher-value instruments. It would only help make the Marketplace more accessible - and probably busier.

Jon.

[Twincam]

[quote name='Truckstop' timestamp='1456501631' post='2989730']
I like it because I can perv at basses I wouldn't normally look at.

I say we leave it as it is. If people can't be bothered to filter through a few ads then that's their problem.
[/quote]

With exeption that if people can't be bothered to look through a load of ads then also the sellers will lose out as people won't look.

I'm not asking for the world here just a few easier shortcuts to finding things.

Paul S I see your point there. Can we just have a section for uk basses and ones abroad then? As many don't want to buy from abroad but there's no way of telling unless you've already clicked.

[Bassassin]

[quote name='Truckstop' timestamp='1456501631' post='2989730']
If people can't be bothered to filter through a few ads then that's their problem.
[/quote]

That's also a problem for the people trying to sell cheaper basses. So it sort of becomes [i]everyone[/i]'s problem.

J.

[Stylon Pilson]

The issue here is that any decent e-commerce site contains powerful controls for filtering and sorting results, and so we've all come to expect that. Unfortunately basschat is run using community forum software, which isn't specialised for that task.

The closest that we could get would be to agree a tagging convention that allows us to do more effective filtering - for instance, you could filter to all postings with the "under £500" and "UK" tags to see just the items that would be of interest to you. The downside here is that it only works if everyone sticks to the agreed conventions.

S.P.

[Twincam]

[quote name='Stylon Pilson' timestamp='1456502939' post='2989758']
The issue here is that any decent e-commerce site contains powerful controls for filtering and sorting results, and so we've all come to expect that. Unfortunately basschat is run using community forum software, which isn't specialised for that task.

The closest that we could get would be to agree a tagging convention that allows us to do more effective filtering - for instance, you could filter to all postings with the "under £500" and "UK" tags to see just the items that would be of interest to you. The downside here is that it only works if everyone sticks to the agreed conventions.

S.P.
[/quote]

Surely it would be simpler just to add a sub section and post in there if your bass is under the amount. If you have a bass more expensive then you lower the price well just leave it where it is or ask a friendly mod to move it (not that I want to burden the mods)

[JapanAxe]

I don't really see a problem with BC market place as it is. You can easily set the scope of your search using the drop-down options.

[Billy Apple]

I use the search facility. Simple.

[Twincam]

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1456503444' post='2989777']
I use the search facility. Simple.
[/quote]

What if I don't know what I'm looking for but I have a certain amount of cash, or I don't want to look through ads that are outside the uk which there are many.

[graham1945]

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but when a bass is sold/withdrawn could it be then transferred to another thread? How about also showing the asking price and number of strings in the heading as a condition of posting?

[Sausages]

We should have a section for bass cabs that folk will post/courier. I have seen so many that I would want, but don't have the means to go get them. They should do the same on fleaBay etc, it would save me a lot of trouble.

[Billy Apple]

I think it's fine the way it is. So it (sometimes) may take a bit of effort to look through it, but so what? I enjoy browsing through stuff. Can't believe how helpless some people must feel.

[icastle]

With the best will in the world, this is just never going to work because it requires people to get things right when they post their ad or sell an item.

On a daily basis we still end up moving numerous adverts to the correct forums and if people can't get that basic step right then any further layers of granularity are just going to result in dozens of extra subforums full of stuff that doesn't belong there.

Whilst I can see the logic in what is being proposed, the reality is that forum (which is what we are of course!) software simply isn't geared up to do heavy duty e-commerce stuff.

[ambient]

So you're selling it for £550.then reduce it to £475, so it has to be moved.

You're not willing to post it, then decide to post it, again it has to me moved.

It would get very messy.

I just like browsing.

If you don't know what you want, then it makes sense to just browse, ignoring the ones that are out of your price range. Maybe ask that people display the price with the thread title, so there's no need to actually go into the thread ?

Edited February 26, 2016 by ambient

[JapanAxe]

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1456509215' post='2989878']
With the best will in the world, this is just never going to work because it requires people to get things right when they post their ad or sell an item.

On a daily basis we still end up moving numerous adverts to the correct forums and if people can't get that basic step right then any further layers of granularity are just going to result in dozens of extra subforums full of stuff that doesn't belong there.

Whilst I can see the logic in what is being proposed, the reality is that forum (which is what we are of course!) software simply isn't geared up to do heavy duty e-commerce stuff.
[/quote]

Quite right. Commercial selling websites have honking great databases in the background, that users can search on multiple parameters (whether or not they realise it!)

[icastle]

[quote name='graham1945' timestamp='1456505687' post='2989828']
Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but when a bass is sold/withdrawn could it be then transferred to another thread? How about also showing the asking price and number of strings in the heading as a condition of posting?
[/quote]

We close threads when the item has been sold which means they can easily be filtered out for those people who only want to see stuff currently available.
Problem is that the only clue we have that an item is sold is if people stick the word 'SOLD' in the title and that often doesn't happen.

Insisting on showing asking price and number of strings in the header just adds another degree of complexity that people can (and in my experience, will) get wrong and then we end up with people accusing us of being too picky.

[icastle]

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1456509693' post='2989887']
Quite right. Commercial selling websites have honking great databases in the background, that users can search on multiple parameters (whether or not they realise it!)
[/quote]

Absolutely.

If you go down the Oracle route with load balanced servers you're talking about licensing fees that'd make most mortgages look insignificant.

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1456509603' post='2989886']

I just like browsing.

If you don't know what you want, then it makes sense to just browse, ignoring the ones that are out of your price range.
[/quote]

Me too. I always laugh when I see those adverts - "If you are reading this you'll know all about..." Err, no, I like gear, I like looking at all sorts, please tell me about it