Add-on New Classifieds Add-on - (Draft)

[Thom Tyler]

I'm already satisfied that there is plenty of interest in a classifieds addon and it's worth doing.
Certainly worth doing for us primarily because ads on AVForums are 100% in threads and aren't archived until the deal is complete. Which is when the goods are exchanged and both parties are happy. Which means there are lots of adverts which you have to read the end of before you can see that a deal has already been made. So we need some kind of 'complete' status on adverts so that people can filter these out.
Also we need to make some money from classifieds, so we could have a menu of chargeable items like Highlighting (sticking to the top of the ad list), Spotlighting (showing in a side-scroll of ads in a sidebar widget), charging more for more concurrent ads, charging dealers, charging a % of the sale price (which we wouldn't do), charging for auto bumping etc.

All good features. The one thing I know if you're involved, is that a lot of the bases will be covered what I am looking for too.

The one feature I haven't seen mentioned - I'd like to have a Fix priced Classified and a Bid / Auction? The niche that I am into - we get hammered for eBay fees for relatively inexpensive items. The idea would be that we don't need to use that system and can use ours. Our facebook groups have the sale feature, but keeping track of sales and having a visual representation of feedback is difficult.

As a fairly regular user and trader on AVF, the sooner it gets this the better, not just for my site but the health of AVF too.

@All you naysayers

I'd rather not derail this discussion if you please.

Purpose is:
1. Gauge interest i.e. number of sponsors (please like the OP or drop in a reply) - this will give us a very rough number
2. High level spec for add-on - this I will undertake and update the OP based on feedback and my own concepts
3. Ultimately high level estimate from developer(s) willing to do this - this I will attempt to coordinate with any Dev that shows an interest. This will be an rfp process.
4. Figure out plan, timeline, milestones etc. - TBD/we're not there yet
5. Figure out voting process (if more than one vendor/dev/company throws an estimate together) and logistics to crowd fund this - TBD

I'll continue to update this tomorrow and over the next few days. Unfortunately I'm en route (at airports) today.

Appreciate the positive responses.

If you're not interested in contributing or don't like the idea. That's fine, but please reserve your comments for another thread. I'm not here demanding money from anyone.

Again this is a 3rd party ADDON proposal funded by the community not a proposal for changes to XF core so I'm not sure what relevance the version of XF has on the matter.

P.S. If someone else wants to take the reigns and organize this and/or project manage the initiative feel free to chime in.

Personally, I think @Stuart Wright should be a PM for this. Simply because I think AVF is quite broad spectrum in it's requirements brief. I also know Stuart will put his money where his mouth is.

I'd be happy to put high end £XXX into a development pot for this or if someone such as stuart is going at it himself, funding wise, to then see him put it up on xF afterwards for £50-120 and recover his costs that way (Like he did with Competitions) - whichever is easier.

 

[Stuart Wright]

Auctions is something we specifically avoid on AVForums because we don't like gazzumping (someone losing out to someone who posts a penny more after all the hard work negotiating is done).
And classifieds are a different entity to auctions. eBay and gumtree are separate websites, for example.
I'll put some thought into it but it adds a bunch of functionality that we wouldn't use.

 

[Joeychgo]

I also know Stuart will put his money where his mouth is.

So will I.

I'm interested in this project and would likely buy a number of licenses, or perhaps invest in development.

 

[Freelancer]

Just for the record: I hereby indicate my sincere interest in a classifieds add-on. If it can incorporate auctions / classifieds in one add-on I would appreciate that.

 

[popr]

I'm interested (possibly 3 licenses) but I have to admit I'm super frustrated the community has been delayed with promises and partially coded projects, promises broken, etc (not by those here in this thread).

 

[Nelson T.]

Just a few thoughts...

We're currently just using a forum and subforums for classifieds.
Active members make posts to advertise machines, parts, tooling they want to sell or buy.
Very simplistic, but very tough to monetize.
People sell items for thousands of dollars, and we don't see a penny from it.
We need classifieds with a fixed price option (eg, I want to sell my lathe for $1000), or an auction option (starting price, reserve, length of auction, etc).
They would need to have the ability to set a fee ($20 flat fee), percentage of the sale (eg 2%). The same for an auction.
It would be nice to have reputation ratings for the sellers.

Let's talk about a price for the addon that most of us would not be upset to pay.
I would pay up to $100 for a copy of something like this. That's about what most mods sell for these days.

 

[Thom Tyler]

Auctions is something we specifically avoid on AVForums because we don't like gazzumping (someone losing out to someone who posts a penny more after all the hard work negotiating is done).
And classifieds are a different entity to auctions. eBay and gumtree are separate websites, for example.
I'll put some thought into it but it adds a bunch of functionality that we wouldn't use.

Stuart - Using AVF a lot I agree that classifieds will be the core. But I do see some advantage to Auctions. Maybe if it was to some AVF Demo kit and proceeds to charity or specific items. The good thing with Auctions is, you'd probably see longer on-page times and more frequent hits, especially if you had some well placed ads I could see if being beneficial. You'll potentially attract buyers who were not going on AVF with the intention of buying a £2000 Speaker system, but because its an auction, get involved.

Fundamentally the core would be classifieds - I guess my point is if you can over-engineer an add-on to begin with, with as little expenditure, it saves the additional cost of re-doing it or expanding on it at a later stage. Over engineering when done right is certainly a good thing. Additionally, depending on your forecast on how much you'd like to return, covering as many bases as well as you can is good, but never to the point that it becomes an add-on which does a lot of things not very well.

I'll keep an eye on this with interest.

 

[Wildcat Media]

One large forum I'm involved with uses only buy/sell/trade listings and not auctions. But, I could see a use for auctions in just such an add-on. More specifically, I could also see an issue if there were separate add-ons for classifieds and auctions, simply due to conflicts between the two. (And especially if they would need separate forum areas.) I could see a classifieds option working like Buy It Now (with a "Make Offer" option), and an auction option working as we're used to with eBay (including a reserve price and a Buy It Now option for someone willing to pay full price).

I am not a fan of how they run their site or their business (long story), but the trading system at Audiogon is exactly what I would be looking for. http://www.audiogon.com You can browse some of their listings to see how they work. Some are auctions, but most are set price listings, many with a "make offer" option. Layout is clean and simple. The backend might be a little more complex (since they offer different types of paying for the listings), but the basic auction/set price/make offer options work nicely together.

 

[empire]

I like the layout of Audiogon and the way it has some set information at the top with a longer description below.

In our niche though, there has to be some negotiation before a deal is arranged. A 'buy it now' button wouldn't work for us, we'd just need a 'contact seller' button.

We allow auctions but almost nobody uses them and I doubt they'd be missed much if they were gone. But if you want to avoid sniping, you could have the auction auto-extend five minutes after the last bid (as is done on Yahoo Japan auctions) and/or set bid increments. For example, $1 increments for items under $100, $5 increments to $500, $10 increments after. As the bidding goes higher, the increments raise.

Still, it seems to me that it might be better to focus on regular buy/sell/trade ads for now. Just about anything would be an improvement over threads. Our classifieds section has thousands of items and is one of the most popular parts of our site, but the shopping experience is dismal.

 

[Stuart Wright]

What are the cost packages available in the other addon?
What cost packages do people want?

Also I'm not qualified to spec up the auction functionality since I don't use any auction site.
Can someone write a spec? Cherry picking the best fucntionality from ebay seems sensible.

 

[Freelancer]

Just trying to contribute a few thoughts.

Auction functionality (as loosely adapted from eBay):

• Categorize a new item as "auction" or "classified" item in the creation
• Set a starting date/time where the auction begins
• Set an end time (interval - 3 days, 5 days, 7 days, 14 days for example)
• Set up a starting bid price value (free to choose)
• Set up a purchase price value in addition (automatically ends auction)
• Price proposal and counter proposal system
• Timer (setup time starting with the auction start and have it real-time to the second in the last minute)
• Option to "watch" auction item (included in a classifieds system already)
• Automatic bids (set highest amount you will bid and the system raises the bids automatically until max amount is reached)
• Offer to second best bidder (if the best bidder fails transaction)
• Ability to "withdraw" a bid (with good reason – moderated)

Everything else will be supplemented by the Classifieds system itself (user ratings) and the forum core... (conversations, threads, etc...)

Other things that would help board owners with both a classified and auction system:

• Logging system of every bid, sale, payment, refund, shipping to minimize conflicts (as soon as money gets involved there is drama)
• Conflict solution system (Refund etc based on the point above)
• Transaction FEES... let it be possible for the board owner to deduct a variable fee for any successful auction, sale if needed

 

[Kintaro]

What are the cost packages available in the other addon?
What cost packages do people want?

Also I'm not qualified to spec up the auction functionality since I don't use any auction site.
Can someone write a spec? Cherry picking the best fucntionality from ebay seems sensible.

I see "auctions" as a feature to think of but to not add at v1.0... once said:

For auctions:
- sets a minimum amount by which the next bid must exceed the current highest bid
- open descending price auction
- blind auction

some info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction#Types

For classifieds:
- feedback integrated (with import from xentrader)
- contact the author by convos, telegram, fb messenger.
- embed code similar to airbnb - example: http://g.recordit.co/h6tLz0m9Pq.gif

 

[HWS]

I see auctions completely unnecessary. Even eBay is almost dead.

 

[Kintaro]

What are the cost packages available in the other addon?
What cost packages do people want?

in the other add-on you could set packages as you want.

random examples:
14 days listing renewable cost x,xx
7 days listing renewable cost FREE
7 days listing not renewable cost x,xx
Unlimited listing?

and AFAIK some packages was bind to specific categories.

i would like also:
xx days listing cost % of the price

 

[Thom Tyler]

I see auctions completely unnecessary. Even eBay is almost dead.

That's your viewpoint. Just as others differ. Don't think your post contributes anything to the discussion.

This is a pool of ideas / input to ensure it is as suitable to as many people as possible without getting too niche.

With regards to the reference of eBay being dead - That would be the 30% of fees, not the concept. Greed unfortunately made eBay what it is today.

 

[Thom Tyler]

Also - I've just purchased this to test - https://xenforo.com/community/resources/reckons-team-marketplace.4783/ - It seems to have come a long way in a relatively short space of time. I don't think it will be the ultimate Classified add-on that we are after without a code re-write, but for now it will serve my purposes.

 

[iTuN3r]

That's your viewpoint. Just as others differ. Don't think your post contributes anything to the discussion.

This is a pool of ideas / input to ensure it is as suitable to as many people as possible without getting too niche.

With regards to the other posters reference of eBay being dead - That would be the 30% of fees, not the concept. Greed unfortunately made eBay what it is today.

I second that !! Lot of my members are always on ebay bidding on auctions day and night . Having auction utilizing Points system from xenforo would be cool neat feature as well . Members can earn points in various ways and use that point to bid on auctions posted which i think would benefit many different community forums .

 

[Cyb3r]

It is fact that you already have knowledge of XF2 and it's code.
If you code anything now, you have that in your mind. Which is a clear advantage over any other coder here. This is also an advantage for the people who let you create add-ons for them, because such add-ons may be able to be converted more easily to XF2 than add-ons from other coders.

Chris has been always a step ahead from all other XF developers IMO (No offense), his solid addons base should be enough to prove this. The other proof would be choosing him as XenForo official developer.

Just saying.

 

[Stuart Wright]

- open descending price auction

Descending price? Why?

 

[Daniel Hood]

While off topic from the original post, I feel the need to comment on the topic of Chris taking custom jobs.

I have no problem with XenForo staff doing custom jobs or offering services. I say this as someone that is "competing". While I can see the argument that Chris has an unfair advantage with new people because of the staff banner, that's completely irrelevant in a situation such as this. If Chris were to do this project, it has more to do with the fact that he has already done a ton of work for Stuart/avforums.

In terms of it being unfair, us developers and service providers are already competing with XenForo staff in other regards. XenForo Ltd directly provides installation services, @Slavik offers importing services, @Chris D offers add ons, there's even add ons out there competing with first party add ons. People still use the competition and everything is fine.

Tl;dr I might not speak for everyone but I honestly don't care if Chris does custom work.