Please Vote - Considering Major Changes for Classifeds

[kahrshooter]

Well, whatever is done, I hope it works.

Truth is, without this Site it would cost me FAR more in money and time to Buy or Sell stuff.

Far more.

 

[Bobby Helms]

i will remain a supporter Steve and pay what you need every month to keep you and the site going.its more than just guns and knives to me.thanks for all yu do.

 

[kahrshooter]

On ODT I do not .....

Pay 7 percent tax on my purchases.

Pay dictated shipping rates.

Pay a percentage of the price to this Site (either buying or selling)

Pay FFL fees.

Just those things alone, with over 200 transactions, I have likely saved hundreds.

 

[WyldeDime]

I was wondering when you would be around to yell at me, took longer than expected. Have you ever considered that, maybe, I really don't know what I'm going to do and this post is genuine? Should I never ask anyone's opinion on anything?

A couple of things I have noticed about you.

1. Your feelings are easily hurt.
2. You love to play the victim.

I’m proud of you and this site. I think $1 per ad is perfectly resonable and I hope you find the validation you’re looking for in this thread.

 

[gyppo]

In an effort to get away from outside advertising (and to stay afloat ) I'm having to consider some very major changes to how the site raises money. In the past I've relied very heavily on outside ad networks to supply our ads to us, but in the last year the landscape has changed and a lot of gun forums are having a very rough go of it, including us.

One idea I am seriously considering is charging $1 a month to post ads in the classifieds for non-supporters and leave it free for supporters.

So for $1 a month you could post 5 listings per category per day (Just like it is now). Would also offer it for $10 a year if you didn't want to become a supporter and just wanted the classifieds, which would make it an even cheaper $0.83 per month.

Do you think this would kill the site? My opinion has always been that charging money would kill the site, but I feel like $1 a month for non-supporters is cheap enough that people wouldn't leave over it. If this change was enacted and we didn't lose any traffic I would be able to shut off outside ads. (which would be amazing and make the site run faster, we would never have malware or popups again and could remove all outside ad tracking)

I'd love to hear everyone's opinions, especially non-supporters. Any posts that "supporter shame" anyone will be removed to keep this on topic.

Thanks!

I think charging $10 a year to post ads would make the site better. It would create a threshold to sell something. I would pay it. Nothing is free in this world. I& you do not want to pay the $10. Where else are they going to go? It costs over 10 to go to a single gun show. This is better than a gun show every day.

 

[flyingfrog509]

My suggestions would be
1) leave posting adds free (or at least posting 1 add per month free) to keep as much traffic as possible
2) instead of a listing fee, go with a buying fee of $1 per listing or paid membership that includes all buying fees (I think the buyer is more likely to pay a dollar than a seller) this would have to apply to trades some how to avoid abusers (savageshooters.com is like this) might need to only charge if the item is over $100 or something to keep the cheap stuff flowing like brass trades, cheap holsters, etc...no one is going to pay extra for that stuff but it brings traffic and hopefully add revenues.
3) add an auction style listing like ebay where the site gets a listing & selling fee (no paid membership needed)
4) actively promote the no-adds upgrade
5) implement some more creative ways to get more lifetime members (and invest that money to get a return of interest instead of capitol if you can) I wonder how many lifetime memberships you could get with a gun give-a-way per month or quarter?
6) actively pursue a gun friendly "pay pal" alternative that could maybe be incorporated that might give you a small cut of each transaction
7) Pursue more "site sponsors" instead of served adds (again like savageshooters.com)
8) LOVE the idea of supporting members getting the first crack at new adds for 12-24 hours (or make that an upgrade fee?)

I'd love to know if the site gets more money when a user clicks on an add vs. just sees one or five on a page? If there is more money for the site in clicking adds...we all need to start clicking a bit more.

Charging a listing fee will most likely reduce the amount of new adds of people who are new to the site AND then if the buyer is paying a fee we all have a great reason to say "I know your glock is at a great price at $375 dollars, will you take $374?"

I've meet a lot of good people face to face here. Hope ODT stays around.

 

[palmettomoon]

What the Hell is savageshooters.com? Never heard of it.

 

[Whitey]

I would rather have outside ads than pay for anything. Not that I dont recognize the intrinsic value of this site, I just don't want to hear my wife tell me what a dumbass I am about one more thing. This site is awesome, give us an easy way to give you money.

 

[Deleted member 80540]

Steve, this was good for ODT business. Supporters everywhere after this post.

 

[jclem02]

Advertise the hell out of Giveaway Day. Then, on Giveaway Day, anyone who logs into their account is prompted to pay $1 that day to participate or they cannot access the site for 24 hours. You'd have to figure out how to deal with the masses that can't or won't pay electronically I guess but maybe something like that, with all the incentive that particular day, would generate enough that you wouldn't have to do anything else.