Thread: The new vendor / classifieds program

Hey Guys, It's time we did something about our non existing vendor program and failing classifieds system. I spent the last several weeks talking things over with Glen and going through a couple of proposals.

The vendor program is going to be revamped and hopefully be beneficial to SRP and The vendors themselves. The underlying idea is that we allow vendors to advertise in specific ways and have certain benefits. They also get incentivized to post, because their sig line and avatar give them extra visibility. Additionally, if the vendors can exist here, so will their fans. And we get extra funds to help pay for maintenance.

The classifieds is switching back to a forum based setup. Personally I would have preferred a decent classifieds program, but that is not to be. The one we have now can no longer be maintained, and replacing it with a new one would lock us in again to a specific vendor with maintenance dependencies. And seeing as we don't have active developers, we don't have much choice.

Additionally, selling things in the classifieds is going to cost 10$ per year for everyone, eventually. We're not going to start asking that from the beginning. Initially we'll have to iron out the wrinkles and fix things as we discover them. Having a decent activity is going to make that easier. When everything is working properly, we can implement the 10$ membership. That should be affordable to anyone selling more than 1 thing per year. And it will again all go towards site maintenance.

The classifieds forums will be implemented as an equivalent to the classifieds categories except the member services ads. Those are gone. Anyone wanting to advertise themselves as a vendor can do so via the vendor program.

When the classifieds forums go up, I'll put up a sticky in the main BST forum with the specific rules. Please read them first. We will likely be fine tuning the rules as we go along. We'll keep you all updated if / when that happens.

SRP rules for sales and advertising

There are 2 sets of rules governing sales and advertising on SRP: classifieds rules and vendor rules.
The classifieds system is meant for all members to buy and sell shaving gear. This includes both vendors and regular members.
The vendor program is an additional set of rules governing sales and advertising for people who are performing sales as a commercial venture.

Classifieds system

General buying, selling and trading can be done in the Buy / Sell / Trade forum, and only in that area. Everyone is allowed to post an item for trade. Everyone is allowed to purchase items for sale. Only people who have a classifieds selling membership are allowed (able) to post items for sale.
Classifieds selling membership costs 10$ per year.

General listing rules
• Limits: 10 items per month, seriously guys if you are selling that many you should be a Vendor.
• Sales: Are to be handled EXCLUSIVELY between members SRP does not mediate issues at all.
• Issues: There will be some, they should be handled using your payment method -BUT- if you have a specific compliant please PM a Moderator so we can take a look.. DO NOT post about it on the BST or the open forum. Questions: About items for sale, may be posted in the BST much like Ebay if you have a question you may ask it... What will not be allowed is Arguments, and Bashing, basically if you don't like the item then don't buy the item..
• Pics and listings: Post clear new pics, one of the pics MUST include a Handwritten Note with the date. Listing should include as much info as possible. Offers without a Date picture will be removed by a Mod.
• Mod Actions: We are NOT going to be the BST police nor judges if we see a problem post we are pulling it, we are not going to waste time arguing with you. You will get a pm from the mod that pulled it, fix the problem and re-post your ad. If you think the Mod was wrong then don't re-post and sell it on Ebay.
• Every listing that involves shipping will explicitly state the responsibility for shipping risks. If nothing is specified, the seller will accept any and all shipping risk.
• Bumping a post solely for the purpose of bringing it back to the front can only be done every 24 hours.

Trading
To trade an item, simply post the item in the appropriate forum and specify what you want in return. At no point can a trade item be sold for money.
Selling
List the item in the appropriate forum, and specify the price. The item will be sold to the first person publicly replying to the ad to state that he or she wants to buy the item for sale.
Buying
To buy an item, simply post in the sale thread. The first person to commit publicly to purchase has the item. After making the public post, the shipping and payment details are worked out between the buyer and seller.
Auction
It is allowed to post auctions under the following format
1. Post an item up for auction in the same manner as a plain sale. Specify that the item is up for auction
2. Specify a minimum price. If someone bids this price, the item has to sell.
3. Retractions are not allowed. If an auction is posted it has to run its course unless there are no bids after 7 days
4. An auction runs for 7 days minimum, with a minimum of 24 hours from the last bid to calling the close of the auction. This is to allow people to bid from different timezones without having to sit at the computer at 3 am. We are still a gentleman’s site after all. If you want sniping or last second bids, go to ebay.
5. If an auction is running into overtime, each next bid has to be higher than the previous one by 10$ if the last bid was under 200$, or 20$ if the last bid was over 200$

Vendor program
This section outlines the benefits and requirements of the SRP vendor program.
Program outline
• The vendor program is open to anyone willing to be a vendor, with a possible veto from Lynn or Don.
• There is a fixed fee for becoming a vendor. This fee is 100$. Displaying a banner and getting a vendor subforum is another 50$.
• Forum participation or contribution to the site are not alternative means into the vendor program since there is no meaningful way to define them.
• The details about the vendor’s modus operandi is irrelevant. Whether the store is brick and mortar, a website, or a simple facebook page does not matter towards eligibility.

As far as the site goes, there are the following benefits:
• Having banners / advertising displayed.
• You get to subimt an article to the site, introducing your business. This article will be posted on the main site.
• You get a vendor blog where you get to post articles about anything related to your shaving business

The forum enables the following benefits:
• The user title and signature may contain advertising or company logo.
• The signature line may contain a link to their website / storefront if any.
• Enable a messagebox containing maximum 500 messages.
• Allow public advertising and posting for sale items in the SRP vendor forum. Inside the vendor forum, a vendor may post advertising, materials for sale, etc in the thread dedicated to them (1 Thread per vendor). The rest of the forum is offlimits for sales and advertising except as allowed by the classifieds or by the fact that their sig line contains a link or such.
• Enable a personal subforum underneath the vendor forum, where the vendors can start new threads as much as they want.
• The vendor badge