NSXPrime Vendor Subscription

[Hrant]

Now putting my hat as a Prime member, and not vendor, let me ask or try to understand what is the purpose of the vendor fee?

If it is to avoid scammers who come in to unload, then make the policy to all new comers and grandfather the old ones (pick a cut off date regarding as of 20xx). Yes, this is not fair to new vendors but then again the old vendors have paid their dues and the iTrader is a good benchmark.

If the issue is Prime needs funds to continue to support the website, than let's do the "arithmetic." We transitioned from no banner ads to ads; annoying but we can live with it. But if that is not sufficient then how many tier one vendors and tier two will join such a program and at what price points. And as RP-Motorsports noted, a scammer will gladly pay upfront if he knows the risk/award is in his favor.

Lets assume 5 tier one vendors will cough up paying $250 a month; that is 5x$250x12months = $15,000 per year. Now let's assume there are 12 tier two or small vendors who are willing to pay on the average 6 mos at say $60/month. This will total to 12x$60x6months = $4320, let's round this up to $5000. Total from vendors $20,000 on an annualized basis. And remember the market for NSX accessories is dwindling but for OEM type mechanical parts may be in demand.

Now, as of this writing, Prime has 24,142 members. Grant you many are old members who sold their NSX and are no longer owners. We also know that there are about 10,000 NSX is the US. Let's just take 10% (ie 1000) of those as being visitors to Prime - whether to post, search, buy or inquire. If you charge each member an annual token $25, this will generate $25,000.

While I really don't know how much it costs to run NSXPrime, I am really hard pressed to understand the rationale for the objections from Prime members in paying a token $25 annual membership.

Now putting my vendor hat again - as I stated above, "I understand the value of becoming a paying vendor when a new product is introduced - and the risk/reward associated with pricing the product accordingly." I have no objections to being a fee paying a vendor as long as the "arithmetic" works out. But be assured, all vendors will add/incorporate the cost of paying enthustify fees in their pricing. Some will be able to add the entire fee, others may be able to pass only a percentage of the fee based on whether there are substitutes or not (hence the issue of price elasticity again).

YMMV.

 

[A.S. Motorsport]

I think the $500 for full time companies and enthustify for hobbyist is the best route.
For some reason I can't see hosting costing more than $750? a month.
Current NSX Vendors & Specalist Companies should cover than with current system.

So i'm for the idea of:

• no banners
• vendors in the forum $500 a year
• hobbyist > enthustify
• private sales > enthustify

And on the note of NSX market is true cars the number of cars is getting smaller and budget of owners is getting down albeit car will remain 30-40K for the foreseeable future.
That being said I find it a logical step that NSX Prime cater for the new generation NSX as well.

 

[NSX Prime]

And as RP-Motorsports noted, a scammer will gladly pay upfront if he knows the risk/award is in his favor.

Have you guys reviewed the new program in it's entirety? It's more than a fee.

Lets assume 5 tier one vendors will cough up paying $250 a month;

From my research, that is substantially higher than vendor fees charged by comparable, and even many larger, forums.

I am really hard pressed to understand the rationale for the objections from Prime members in paying a token $25 annual membership.

My personal values and philosophy, which I have stated repeatedly over the years, are that a site like this should be available for NSX owners at no charge. You don't have to understand or agree, but it's not a negotiable issue.

But be assured, all vendors will add/incorporate the cost of paying enthustify fees in their pricing. Some will be able to add the entire fee, others may be able to pass only a percentage of the fee based on whether there are substitutes or not (hence the issue of price elasticity again).

The vast majority of vendors have already built credit card / paypal fees into their pricing (which are comparable to Enthusify's normal fee). So if I "marked it up" a few more percent for that subset of vendors I don't think that would really be earth shattering. eBay takes 9% on auctions and for fixed price listings they take 7% of your first $50, 5% of your next $950, and 2% of everything over $1000. A useful online store isn't free either.

While I still like the idea of routing those small vendors through Enthusify in concept, a substantial concern with such an arrangement is that it would be very easy for people in that group of vendors to bypass the system. I'll have to think about it some more. Even if I were to go that route, it would require Enthusify to add some more features to support it, and I can ask nicely but they don't work for me ;-). So at this point I'd say don't expect such an option to be widely rolled out in the near future.

 

[A.S. Motorsport]

I'd be careful with a tier system,
Take a look at what happen to acura-legend.com a large legend forum for years then the owners got greedy and started charging for everything resulting in:

• Kick up aftermaket pricing to the point that it just collapsed.
• so many disillusioned members that they started acuralegend.org which now is the main board.

That's a extreme but still.
Maybe if Lud wants too, he could discuses the running costs at the vendor relations forum and let us fix any financial issue if there is any.

I know many boards and clubs run there act like this.
The local Lexus Club over here has even formed a official organization to sustain it self and it's goals. (btw many national clubs do that in europe)

 

[whiteNSXs]

Lud,
I have always strongly advocate the sharing of financial burdens of this site. I understand that you would want to make this site free to ACCESS but I would like to suggest that for anything else, there should be a membership. For example, one can read and post for free which you have established from day one. We all appreciate your generosity. It is like free walking into a department store. You may browse and interact. However, if one wants to take further advantages such as posting things for sale and want ads, it is totally acceptable to impose a membership requirement to enjoy a few extra privileges. I pay something like $18 annually on Rennlist as a member. It is free as a "user" but I hate to be someone that just takes and not gives anything back. I have posted before to pledge financial supports to Prime and had been responded with objections. REALLY, do people nowadays need to be ASKED to contribute to a community??? Are people so clueless that they think they are entitled to everything in life? When was the last time anyone went to Disneyland for free?
BTW, Lud, would you so kindly put a "spell check" button somewhere near the text box. I can't spell to save my life and so can't docjohn.:tongue:
Let me gather a few thoughts about the vendor thing before I comment about that.
Steve

 

[HIJACKER]

Lud,
I have always strongly advocate the sharing of financial burdens of this site. I understand that you would want to make this site free to ACCESS but I would like to suggest that for anything else, there should be a membership. For example, one can read and post for free which you have established from day one. We all appreciate your generosity. It is like free walking into a department store. You may browse and interact. However, if one wants to take further advantages such as posting things for sale and want ads, it is totally acceptable to impose a membership requirement to enjoy a few extra privileges. I pay something like $18 annually on Rennlist as a member. It is free as a "user" but I hate to be someone that just takes and not gives anything back. I have posted before to pledge financial supports to Prime and had been responded with objections. REALLY, do people nowadays need to be ASKED to contribute to a community??? Are people so clueless that they think they are entitled to everything in life? When was the last time anyone went to Disneyland for free?
BTW, Lud, would you so kindly put a "spell check" button somewhere near the text box. I can't spell to save my life and so can't docjohn.:tongue:
Let me gather a few thoughts about the vendor thing before I comment about that.
Steve

Most web browsers have spell check automatically built in as you type. I'm using FireFox.

 

[synth19]

This is one of the few forums (of this size) which have given a virtual "free for all" for vendors. I'm not sure or can't comment on what vendors should pay, but there should be some contribution given back to prime if a vendor is making money off the site. Now, I do understand the concern of "smaller" vendors, but a tiered system can be implemented similar to some other larger sites. On my local forum, I have a less sophisticated system. The small "mom and pop" shops (people who do things as a side gig out of their house/garage) a nominal quarterly fee, whereas the larger shops/dealerships/vendors are placed in a different category and pay annually. I evaluate these on an individual basis. Another idea is to have a premier membership option and people can pay for that annually. This would give an individual access to a hidden section, higher PM box, etc etc.

 

[GBL1]

I figured this day would finally come...

This is actually the only forum I know that doesn't charge commercial entities to advertise on it.

God forbid if Internet Brands ever buys NSX Prime. $500 will only pay for two months worth then.!!!

Those guys go around, buy up popular forum sites, then totally jack advertising rates out the roof!

These amounts seem reasonable enough, but maybe tweak the tier levels and amounts a bit to allow the small volume vendors a break. Maybe offer something like a "per-thread" pricing...or some sort of more limited exposure vendorship for maybe $25 per month...


.

 

[02#154]

If the purpose for the new fees and policies is to create a revenue generating device, then I say charge whatever the market will bear.

If, however, the purpose is truly to help protect members from potential scammers, then why is it a recurring fee? If the vendor jumps through the required hoops to gain that status and shows that he is reputable by achieving an overwhelming preponderance of good feedback from customers, then why would they have to continue to re-up annually?

The rating feedback system would become the method for maintaining vendor-ship so I would recommend the following enhancements:

1. Every vendor will have their own thread (created by the moderator at the time of vendor status approval) in a new or existing sub-forum. Posts there will be limited to feedback. New threads cannot be made by anyone other than a moderator. The first post in this thread will be a link to the vendor page and whatever other info is deemed appropriate.
2. Each transaction with that vendor could be posted there with some sort of rating system associated with it.
3. Vendors may, at their option, post about the transaction with a request sent to the buyer to confirm it before it's posted to the thread. In the meantime, a marker thread will be placed into the thread stating that feedback has been submitted to "username" but has not yet been confirmed. This marker will remain indefinitely until such time that the user confirms or denies (with a proper negative feedback post).
4. Vendors must maintain a minimum satisfaction rating or have the vendor status revoked (moderator may, at his discretion, place stricter requirements on a vendor with a negative status for a specified period of time in order to continue, up to and including a new fee of the same or greater amount).
5. Vendors may pay for ad / banner space that appears in this, and only this forum / sub-forum.

How about the true "vendors" pay the $500 up front. The people who are selling things on the side, with little margin, or in very little quantities can have a smaller startup fee of, say, $100. It would take a lot of words to differentiate one type of vendor from the other, but I think all of us here know which is which. A few criteria to evaluate future new sellers as being a vendor or side-business would be what they are selling, for how much, and amount of interest in the product(s).

It's not perfect, but it's a start towards a possible solution. Maybe incorporating with the Enthusify for the smaller guys as mentioned earlier.

J

 

[lithiumus]

So call me out of the loop, but today I noticed that Procar's thread was locked and thought... must be the 1,500 post limit! No, since my powdercoating thread was also locked, I figured it must be something else...

I'm a pretty small time vendor, probably one of the smallest. I'm a 1 trick pony that does some powdercoating. I offered LED installation services but haven't done a set in almost a year. My powdercoating services barely makes any money because it's so labor intensive and the amount of prep work that is involved... my wife keeps praying that I simply run out of powder. Unfortunately, my initial $1,200 investment in powder still has a lot left!

For $250 that I charge, after all the prep, labor, stripping, powder coating and powder costs, I make somewhere in the $20 - $30 a set. Yes, I could eliminate the prep, reduce the cost and make a lot more with a lousy product, but the NSX was always my dream car and any work I do, must meet that standard. I continue do this to pay off the initial investment of the powder and 3 sets of extra covers I purchased and also provide something that no one is really willing to spend the time to do unless it was thier own car or at a much higher cost.

I post on several forums but not many and my main business is the NSX crowd. While I can powdercoat any valve cover, there is very little demand in general for my services.

I am in full agreement with paying and it's the least I can do. $60 is a reasonable price but for only 1 month, it's tough to justify since I usually hear crickets for 4-6 months of the year. I remember sitting for a 5 month stretch where I had 3 sets of covers ready to go, yet now I have a bunch of people asking for them to be done and there is no way I can meet the demand anyway so I have to delay them or they can go elsewhere.

I'm not entirely familiar with Enthusify but it seems like a good alternative for the small fry like me. I'm in favor of a fee but I can't justify $500 / year price point. I'm fine with $60 / month price point but given how my little hobby ebbs and flows, I won't know when to go active or not.

I'm in full support of a fee, just hoping we can come up with something that fits for the small fry like me.

 

[Kouki Monster]

Well I am going to throw my hat in the ring. We are a start up company with the NSX
and I really enjoy this forum. I have been on here for 6 + years mostly learning about the car and giving my 2 cents on track realated issues. We recently started to sell NSX products and thought is was a little crazy there was not a fee to do so! Then I realized that the NSX is such a low volume car it is hard to justify a large fee as the volume is not there. No one is going to make a living off selling NSX parts only. That is why I started cross marketing by selling the parts we use/test on other cars i.e Brakes seats etc. It is really hard to stock a large amount of exhausts body parts etc.

All that being said I support a fee to what amount I am unsure. I read earlier that someone said SOS is making 50% profit on the items they sell. I can assure you 50% profits are a unicorn in the retail world. You would be amazed how little is made on big ticket items like exhausts helmets etc! I also understand "try it for 3 months" but it is difficult for a small vendor to invest $20k in product specific to the NSX in hopes that a 3month trial will yield returns. It will push a monopoly in the NSX community and in turn drive up prices, so if you have a strong foot hold in the NSX community I can understand wanting to have a $500 fee, hell make it $1k because with less players in the game the end user is going to end up paying the fees.

Going back to profits there is a reason why stock levels are low on high ticket items such as Taitec, KW suspension etc it is because it is hard to carry a product specific to a low volume car. If companies were making large margin on these items you would never see a 2-3 month lead time for something like a header. I'm rambling a little but I want to iterate that I think this is a great site and the NSX community is knowlegable on top of that fair to deal with. I look forward to continuing a realationship with PRIME soon!

 

[GBL1]

Well I am going to throw my hat in the ring. We are a start up company with the NSX
and I really enjoy this forum. I have been on here for 6 + years mostly learning about the car and giving my 2 cents on track realated issues. We recently started to sell NSX products and thought is was a little crazy there was not a fee to do so! Then I realized that the NSX is such a low volume car it is hard to justify a large fee as the volume is not there. No one is going to make a living off selling NSX parts only. That is why I
started cross marketing by selling the parts we use/test on other cars i.e Brakes seats etc. It is rally hard to stock a large amount of exhausts body parts etc.

All that being said I support a fee to what amount I am unsure. I read earlier that someone said SOS is making 50% profit on the items they sell. I can assure you 50% profits are a unicorn in the retail world. You would be amazed how little is made on big ticket items like exhausts helmets etc! I also understand "try it for 3 months" but it is difficult for a small vendor to invest $20k in product specific to the NSX in hopes that a 3month trial will yield returns. It will push a monoply in the NSX community and in turn drive up prices, so if you have a strong foot hold in the NSX community I can understand wanting to have a $500 fee, hell make it $1k because with less players in the game the end user is going to end up paying the fees.

Going back to profits there is a reason why stock levels are low on high ticket items such as Taitec, KW suspension etc it is because it is hard to carry a product specific to a low volume car. If companies were making large margin on these items you would never see a 2-3 month lead time for something like a header. I'm rambling a little but I want to iterate that I think this is a great site and the NSX community is knowlegable on top of that fair to deal with. I look forward to continuing a realationship with PRIME soon!

Well stated!

.

 

[heySkippy]

I'm not qualified to opine about vendor fees, but I do have a suggestion regarding member subscriptions. I suggest the model used at http://arstechnica.com/civis/index.php where I've paid $50/year for quite a few years now.

Ars is a tech site with a bunch of on-topic forums. Registration is free and all of the on-topic forums are free to registered users. They also have a few off-topic forums that everyone can read, but only paying subscribers can post in. It is my opinion that charging for the ability to post in the off-topic forums makes those forums MUCH more enjoyable. Everyone who posts in them has skin in the game, so to speak, and the signal to noise ratio is quite good IMO. I believe this method keeps the trolls out and allows for such things as a political forum that you can actually have civilized discussions in.

Just my 2c.

 

[NSX Prime]

All that being said I support a fee to what amount I am unsure.

I appreciate the feedback. It is difficult to understand what you are after if you don't even have an idea of what fee you feel would be appropriate. I'm willing to work with new small vendors who bring unique value to the NSX community, but I'm not reverting it back to a free-for-all.

I also understand "try it for 3 months" but it is difficult for a small vendor to invest $20k in product specific to the NSX in hopes that a 3month trial will yield returns.

I'm not sure I follow. $150 for a 3-month vendor membership seems almost negligible if you're investing $20k in product before you even know if/when it will sell.. It increases the investment by just 0.75%. Am I misunderstanding?

I'm rambling a little but I want to iterate that I think this is a great site and the NSX community is knowlegable on top of that fair to deal with. I look forward to continuing a realationship with PRIME soon!

Well stated!

And I look forward to continuing a relationship with the vendor community in a way that benefits everybody. I'm open to constructive suggestions. You can also contact me privately if you prefer.

 

[HIJACKER]

If you're a small "vendor" that can't justify the expense, why not just sell your item as a typical "seller" through enthusify and list the total quantity of the product you produced?

 

[NSX Prime]

I'm not qualified to opine about vendor fees, but I do have a suggestion regarding member subscriptions. I suggest the model used at http://arstechnica.com/civis/index.php where I've paid $50/year for quite a few years now.

Ars is a tech site with a bunch of on-topic forums. Registration is free and all of the on-topic forums are free to registered users. They also have a few off-topic forums that everyone can read, but only paying subscribers can post in. It is my opinion that charging for the ability to post in the off-topic forums makes those forums MUCH more enjoyable. Everyone who posts in them has skin in the game, so to speak, and the signal to noise ratio is quite good IMO. I believe this method keeps the trolls out and allows for such things as a political forum that you can actually have civilized discussions in.

Just my 2c.

Someone (maybe even you?) made this suggestion quite a while ago. I wasn't a fan of it at the time, but these days I'm warming up to it after seeing it implemented with a lot of success on other high quality sites like your example of Arstechnica.

 

[Briank]

I have no problem paying a vendor fee. NSXPrime is pivotal to the sales of my services. $500 is a big number but more then half of my sales come from NSXPrime members, referral from NSXPrime members or people reading about my services on NSXPrime. Its just good business.

 

[scorp965]

I'm willing to work with new small vendors who bring unique value to the NSX community, but I'm not reverting it back to a free-for-all.

I'm for a subscription, but I can't agree with staggered vendor fees for access to the same market.

Relative to other forums the vendor fee scale is quite low, so if $50 is acting as a barrier, you're probably ill-equipped to handle customer orders.

Perhaps add the ability to create dutch style listings in enthusify, for vendors unable, or unwilling, to become vendors.

 

[NSX1145]

Lud,

the flat $500 seems unfair across the Prime Vendors spectrum.

$500 is a dime for a Vendor like SOS, that sells tens of thousands $$ here..

$500 is a fortune to a Vendor that sells like $20 items...

I think that everyone should contribute.

I think members/vendors should HAVE to contribute since they profit from the audience this forum provides...

... but i think it has to be well planned or:

- we will end up with 3 or 4 vendors selling about the same old things

- members like Hugabuga will stop to come up with inventive solutions and new parts, simply because they don't know if they will ever receive in profit what they paid as Prime Vendor Fee.


Although i understand your concearns, and being here only since 2005, and as the NSX will become more rare as time passes, i see all this new policies killing Prime and it will be one more dead Car forum in a not so long future.

Kills me to think of this :frown:

Nuno

Agreed.

We are a small company that is in progress of making some new NSX Specific parts and the cost of sponsorship of this forum is substantially high considering I have only sold 2 items on here in the few months we've been on and at this point it's a pretty high loss. The pricing should be tiered or perhaps performance-based etc. so that smaller vendors can have an equal opportunity without getting killed by vendor fees that may not be attainable by return.

I would like the opportunity to renew our vendor status for this forum, however, not at $500 / year. That's a bit much for me to risk without knowing what can come of it.

 

[GBL1]

Agreed.

We are a small company that is in progress of making some new NSX Specific parts and the cost of sponsorship of this forum is substantially high considering I have only sold 2 items on here in the few months we've been on and at this point it's a pretty high loss. The pricing should be tiered or perhaps performance-based etc. so that smaller vendors can have an equal opportunity without getting killed by vendor fees that may not be attainable by return.

I would like the opportunity to renew our vendor status for this forum, however, not at $500 / year. That's a bit much for me to risk without knowing what can come of it.

+1

While Top Speed does offer some fine products for the NSX, this segment is not our core line of products (really, no specific car is, but we do seem to do much more Nissan and BMW stuff...)

While Jeremy makes a good suggestion about a tiered level approach, I can see this becoming a nightmare to keep track if who-sold-how-much...and it opens up for abuse of someone hding how much business they gain from this site...off-site deals etc... after initial contact was made through here.

Just tier the pricing to different levels of number of product threads a vendor can post, how many & size of banners, frequency of banner rotation, etc...that should solve the matter.

Basically, it boils down to some bigger vendors having deeper pockets than others. If they can afford to shell out for more and bigger ad placement, fine, but still leave an option for smaller volume vendors to advertise their wares without breaking their pocketbooks.

 

[A.S. Motorsport]

No one is going to make a living off selling NSX parts only. That is why I started cross marketing by selling the parts we use/test on other cars i.e Brakes seats etc. It is really hard to stock a large amount of exhausts body parts etc.

I don't for see it being possible ether to live off NSX part sales.
And keeping a comprehensive stock is impossible every one want's or needs something different, then factor in the different variations it's impractical it isn't a Porsche or BMW the sales volume isn't there.

I read earlier that someone said SOS is making 50% profit on the items they sell. I can assure you 50% profits are a unicorn in the retail world. You would be amazed how little is made on big ticket items like exhausts helmets etc! I also understand "try it for 3 months" but it is difficult for a small vendor to invest $20k in product specific to the NSX in hopes that a 3month trial will yield returns. It will push a monopoly in the NSX community and in turn drive up prices, so if you have a strong foot hold in the NSX community I can understand wanting to have a $500 fee, hell make it $1k because with less players in the game the end user is going to end up paying the fees.

Nobody is making 50% on general parts other than Honda.
It's impossible not only in component pricing but factor transport and low sales volume to that price.

Investing in to a NSX stock is very hard these are rare and specialist cars although buildt logically and reliable it still takes a specialist to full understand and completely help a customer.
Like you pointed out the margin is small, seriously.

We especially have a lot of variables we work with i guess 12 versions of the NSX everyday. (RHD, LHD, Acura, Honda, OBD-I vs OBD-II, NA1 vs NA2)
This complicates it greatly, and take expertise just to not mix things up.

Going back to profits there is a reason why stock levels are low on high ticket items such as Taitec, KW suspension etc it is because it is hard to carry a product specific to a low volume car. If companies were making large margin on these items you would never see a 2-3 month lead time for something like a header.

Correct it's very hard most MFG's have tiny stock levels for the NSX, when i order with KW it's always made to order, same for the Japanese brands.

+1
While Top Speed does offer some fine products for the NSX, this segment is not our core line of products (really, no specific car is, but we do seem to do much more Nissan and BMW stuff...)

That's the only way to make a sustainable stable business in this niche sector.
But it quickly turns in to alienates the NSX from you range since stock sells so slowly and margins are so low.
I make sure i can help my customers with there problems, service items, repairs so to keep cars running and driving.
Modifications are generally so specific and custom it takes time.

My main work is exotic/rare sports cars NSX is my core business i frequent prime help out member, organize events.
Honda Legend's are a other part of that even more niche than NSX, so much so it practically doesn't make any money.

Next to NSX i work with Maserati, Ferrari, Corvette as core and other luxury, sport & exotic cars.

 

[Ponyboy]

My .02 cents:

In the interest of relieving some of the pressure on Lud's pocketbook and validating the time he spends maintaining the site, I think we can all agree that vendors should pay something to sell their products/services on the site. As I see them, the issues are that:

1. the prospective base fee may be too high which could constrain an already small group of vendors to a drastically even smaller group of vendors and minimize innovation.
2. the growth of scam sales posts that take advantage of nsxprime membership and the potential to irreparably harm the user experience.

The two points are not mutually exclusive as a large pool of vendors fosters product innovation and can be a driver of membership and is certainly a driver of the user experience. Erecting an obstacle for vendors limits the potential amount of vendors. However, people generally do not like being taken advantage of and will curtail activity in the places where they feel slighted.

The trick is to enhance the user experience and provide value to the vendors to justify the marketing expense. If you follow the typical digital media ad model, more $$ should = more share of voice. More share of voice = more share of mind = more buyer influence = increased intent to buy = increased top line revenue. However, for small vendors and smaller vendors, more $$ just isn't in the budget and fiscally impossible. So a tiered system (one tier with a higher rate and more features and another tier with lower rates and less features) could weed out undesirable vendors and scam artists while still enhancing the user experience and providing value to advertisers.

As far as rates are concerned, $500 seems to be an arbritrary threshold (please correct me if I'm wrong or if I missed that number). Has there been any research into what number provides a high enough obstacle to discourage scammers? If not, there should be so that it validates the minimum advertiser rates to prospective advertisers. My intuition is that the number is fairly low. If it's indeed low, that will benefit smaller advertisers and the community by maintaining a good amount of innovation from those smaller vendors (not saying that bigger vendors can't innovate). So make the $500 (or another $$) rate with banners, click thru URLs, and the opportunity to sell to this community. Make the lower rate (which is tied to the validated number, maybe even with a small % increase) available to smaller vendors which would include just the opportunity to sell to the community.

Sorry, that's a lot of .02.

 

[Kouki Monster]

I really like that idea Ponyboy, the two tier system would be a great way to promote your brand i.e banners or you have the option to simply sell on the site at a reduced admin fee.

 

[02#154]

I still don't understand the need for a yearly subscription

Is it truly to weed out scammers? If so, then after a year of a vendor's proven performance, why add another year's subscription? (Actually, Dali seems to be an example of why.) If it's just to weed out scammers, why not offer a refund to vendors (even if just a partial refund?) after they've proven themselves?

The more I follow this thread, the more I've seen it turn into a discussion about just paying to be a vendor; and that's fine, and I support that idea, but why sell it as a preventive step to avoid scams?

...or am I the only one who thinks this?

J

 

[NSX Prime]

I still don't understand the need for a yearly subscription

Is it truly to weed out scammers? If so, then after a year of a vendor's proven performance, why add another year's subscription? (Actually, Dali seems to be an example of why.) If it's just to weed out scammers, why not offer a refund to vendors (even if just a partial refund?) after they've proven themselves?

The more I follow this thread, the more I've seen it turn into a discussion about just paying to be a vendor; and that's fine, and I support that idea, but why sell it as a preventive step to avoid scams?

...or am I the only one who thinks this?

J

I wasn't really trying to sell it as anything... I simply announced it as a requirement.

The issue with fly-by-night vendors is what prompted me to redesign the vendor system, and addressing that issue was definitely one of the primary goals of the changes I made. But it was certainly not the only goal. If it was the only goal I would have redesigned it more like you described.