Buying and Selling Guidelines

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Mike

Mike

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As the title suggests, these are just guidelines. So, don't take this thread to mean this is gospel, just some ideas to help you sell more and for buyers to not get taken.

1. Everyone - Golden Rule
Treat others as you want to be treated. If you are selling a service, then make sure you complete said service in a reasonable time frame and keep in contact with your clients so they know when to expect the finished product.

As a buyer, pay in a reasonable time frame. Nothing is more frustrating to a seller than someone committing to buy and not paying for it when payment is due. Also, as a buyer you owe it to the seller to let them know if your finances have changed and you can not complete the transaction.

2. Buyers - Caveat Emptor
Buyer beware. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So, ask clarifying questions.
  • What kind of traffic?
  • How much traffic?
  • How old is the domain?
  • Do you have samples?
  • etc...
Check their iTrader. See what other posts they have made, talk to past customers (if they have any). If you're still not satisfied, pass on it. There will always be other "can't miss" deals.

3. Sellers - Disclose other sales
If you are selling the same service on SitePoint, DigitalPoint, or whereever, let people know. You don't need to post a link to the thread, but at least disclose where you are selling. There have been problems with recent sellers putting customers from another forum over their customers from WickedFire. This is intolerable. A customer is a customer, regardless of where they purchased from you.

4. Sellers - Post the type of sale it is
Is it an auction? Buy it now (bin)? Offers? What? Please clarify your terms up front. If you are selling auction style, it would be best to post the ending date, and include a time. For example "Auction ends on June 11th at 5:30PM CDT (GMT -5)". I like to include the difference from GMT for those not in my timezone, but again, it's just a suggestion. Also, for auctions, post if you have a minimum bid and minimum increments, ie. "Starting Bid is $5.00 mimimum bid increase of $1.00". This will help you and your buyers. It helps you the seller because you won't get a bunch of stupid $0.01 increases, and it helps the buyers because they'll know exactly what to expect.

Offers should have a minimum acceptable offer (just a suggestion, not required), unless you really don't care what kind of offers you get. Often I've seen "Make offer" and then a potential buyer posts "I offer $50" and the seller gets offended at such a low offer. If you think your item is worth $500 and don't want to deal with low offers, then post your minimum acceptable offer.

5. Sellers - Payments
Specify types of payments you accept, and the time frame you expect to get paid in. For example "I accept PayPal, Moneybookers, and eGold. Payment must be made within 3 days of [offer acceptance, auction end, whatever]" Also, it is advisable to add what will happen if payment is not made in that time frame "If payment is not received within 3 days, negative iTrader feedback will be left and item will be relisted"

6. Everyone - iTrader
Use it. That's what it's there for. If you have a bad experience, let people know. This is not eBay, you are not doing anyone a favor by hiding your experience. If you are worried about retaliatory feedback, don't be. Whenever someone submits a negative feedback all the mods are notified. So, if you submit a legitimate neg feed back and the other party retaliates and negs you for no reason, we can correct it (if the situation warrants, of course).

7. Sellers - New Members
While it is not a rule (yet) that you can not sign up and start selling right away, expect to get a lot of flack for it. People here want to do business with trusted members of the community. To become a trusted member, you need to participate in threads outside of this section. Create threads with useful information, and generally prove you are someone that people want to give their hard earned money to.

If it is suspected that you are just a scammer / spammer, you will be banned without warning and will NOT be unbanned. So, be very careful if you are a n00b and want to post in this section.

8. Sellers - PM Spam
Don't do it. If you are selling a product / service and you decide to use the Private Message system as you own personal advertising service, you will be banned forever, no questions, no warnings.

9. Sellers - Bumping Threads
Bumps are annoying and rude. "Bump, bump, bump" or "bumpity bump" or even just "bump" should be avoided. If you have a service / product for sale and people are not responding, do not just bump your thread to the top. If people are interested, they will do it for you by responding to your thread.

In closing...
These are just guidelines, not rules, but if you follow them, I can assure you that your selling / buying experience will be more profitable and fun.

Now, go make some fucking money! :D
 
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Meant to add, as of this writing, there is not mod or guide appointed to watch over the BST section. So, if you have a problem here, feel free to contact me via PM or AIM (if I'm on) and I'll look into it.

If it is a spammer, then report their post so that all of the mods are notified and it can be dealt with quickly.
 
Trading Rules

There's been a lot of talk about sorting out the buy/sell section, Mike suggested if we want rules/guidelines then someone write them.

If this is a collaborative effort and we produce some rules we all agree on then it's going to be better for everyone. I'll kick this off, but input from everyone is needed.

Firstly, a question for the mods.

The forum rules state, "Spamming is also considered when you signup specifically to self promote a thread and your post count is under 10 total."

A user's first 10 posts are moderated aren't they? I'm sure mine were and I noticed someone refer to this today. So, how are these guys slipping through?

Secondly, what do people want?

Do we want to just improve the current system or do we want a complete marketplace? There's been a lot of talk about the problems with SitePoint's system - do you think WF should provide an alternative?

If technically possible, we could reduce some of the problems by insisting that for every 'for sale' thread posted the poster must confirm acceptance of terms and complete a form giving details of the service offered, pricing, timescales, etc... would that work?

Ok, rules/guidelines. These are just my suggestions - please make yours. Let's sort out something that will make buying and selling on WF a better experience for everyone.

1. NO EBOOKS! The attitude towards ebooks here is very clear. Do yourself a favour and stop trying to sell that shit. If you really must con other newbies into buying your crap, fuck off to the ebook guru cocksucker forum and don't come back!

2. Post Count. You must have made at least at least 10 posts before you can offer to sell your products or services. Your first 10 posts are moderated, so please don't try and ignore this. Also, please don't just make pointless posts to increase your post count. If you want to sell to us you must know something about something, why not contribute - you never know, you might like it here!

Do we want to also insist that they have been a member for x amount of days? If so can any new threads in the buy/sell section under this limit be moderated?

3. Costs and Time Scales. You must agree to clearly state the cost or your product or service and the time scales for delivery. If you chose to sell in an auction-style format please state the starting bid and any buy it now price.

4. Communication. Good communication is essential. You must agree to provide good communication to your buyers and potential buyers. Any problems or delays, let people know. Don't fuck people about, there are people here that have the skills to dig out your personal information and make it publicly available... or worse. Don't give them the motivation to do it.

5. Payment. If your iTrader rating is below 5 you may not ask for the complete payment up front. Until you have begun to establish your reputation here as a trader the maximum upfront payment you can ask for is 50% of the total cost. (What do ya think of that? Will it be bad for genuine sellers?)

6. Other Markets. You must disclose where else you are selling your product or service - be this your website, another forum or elsewhere. Links would be appreciated. We expect the same standard of service here that you provide to your other customers.

7. Disclosure of interests. Please state your involvement in the product or service you are promoting. Did you create it? Do you own it? Are you a representative of a company? Are you an affiliate? Will the service be outsourced? (Is this bit needed? Sellers - would that put you off?)

8. Affiliates. Either: You cannot promote a product or service here that you are affiliated to. Or: If you are an affiliate of the product or service you are promoting then you must clearly state this. Affiliate links must not be hidden, cloaked or in any way disguised.

9. Discounts. We do not expect a discount, if you chose to offer one you must clearly indicate where your product or service is available for the full price. Please do not imply a special WickedFire discount then direct people to pricing that is the same as you offer to other users.

.....

Ok.. I was about to include more rules/guidelines for trading - based in part on emp's post - but have just seen Mike has just written a great post about this.

Maybe all of the above is shit? not needed? Have I just wasted a load of time? Or, what needs removing/adding/changing?

Do we need strong rules or just guidelines? My personal opinion is that most of us don't need to be told what to do, but good advice helps. For people coming here just to sell then they need to know what is acceptable and what is not.

I'm no one here, but was kinda inspired (if that's the word - cheers guys!) to try and contribute on this issue. Mike's post gives great guidelines to the WF community regarding trading, but hopefully with more input this can add to that and provide clear rules to new sellers here.
 
Great post Mike. After all the discussion about this I started another thread. I think maybe in addition to guidelines we need some firm rules for new sellers.

Really hope you don't see this as me treading on your toes or anything, after the ego trip the guys gave me by putting me forward for a non-existent position I thought I might as well try and contribute a bit on the subject!
 
SEO_Mike said:
Moved to this thread. Thanks for the contribution LazyHippy!! :D
Click to expand...

Cheers mate, it was meant as a basis for discussion about what, if any, rules we need. (Seems no-one is that bothered about it now though...) Hope no one reads this and thinks they are actually rules.
 
One more possible guideline:

NEVER PM Spam somebody with your offer or PM spam them abusing them just because they asked you questions which you could not answer. The (!) Report button is your friend - Use it to the maximum extent possible!
 
LazyHippy said:
5. Payment. If your iTrader rating is below 5 you may not ask for the complete payment up front. Until you have begun to establish your reputation here as a trader the maximum upfront payment you can ask for is 50% of the total cost. (What do ya think of that? Will it be bad for genuine sellers?)

6. Other Markets. You must disclose where else you are selling your product or service - be this your website, another forum or elsewhere. Links would be appreciated. We expect the same standard of service here that you provide to your other customers.

9. Discounts. We do not expect a discount, if you chose to offer one you must clearly indicate where your product or service is available for the full price. Please do not imply a special WickedFire discount then direct people to pricing that is the same as you offer to other users.
Click to expand...

I think these are all good ideas. I just want to know what is acceptable before advertising my writing services, as my iTrader account is at 1 at the moment and I don't want to break any new rules. :bigear:
 
One more possible guideline:

When you are selling a service dont multiple bump your threads and also dont start threads in sections other than Sell,Buy and Trade for the sole purpose of advertising your services..
 
Hey can we sell private label articles that are 100% legit, written by myself?

What's the scoop here on WickedFire and PLR article sales. Anything to gripe about that?

Thanks - T
 
Tiger said:
Hey can we sell private label articles that are 100% legit, written by myself?

What's the scoop here on WickedFire and PLR article sales. Anything to gripe about that?

Thanks - T
Click to expand...

I'm not a mod, but I think it's fine as long as you do own the rights to sell them. You'll face some tough competition though - some shit-hot writers here already!
 
i haven't posted a lot, but i've been here for some time to learn from other people's post, but i do have something to sell, pls don't ban me for starting selling with little posts. thanks :)
 
Hi, Mike

I want to sell soem services, wan to start with some spl offer for celebration of 4th july
(USA independent day). i m new & dont have nay itrade point I m ready to work with 40% to 50% up frunt money, & if the quality of work is not good I m ready to pay back all the money, but as u said above no discount

Discounts. We do not expect a discount, if you chose to offer one you must clearly indicate where your product or service is available for the full price. Please do not imply a special WickedFire discount then direct people to pricing that is the same as you offer to other users.
Click to expand...

I m not selling this services any wheare ales on full rate , I m new so i wan to establish my self with some good & quality work that's it. i have lot of things to offear , so i dont want to be banned & dont wan Break any new rules so pls guide me.
 
Those are Good Guidelines Mike!

Hi Mike,
I must say that is a good one.I strongly believe that both sellers and buyers should have guidelines that will guide them in the conduct of any transaction in both online and offline scenarios.Especially online where physical contact could not be easily effected.Really you have done a good work by providing these guidelines and I do hope it will go a long way in guiding members.
However,I must say am a NEWBIE and have some services to render but I don't want to go against the rules of WF.Am burning with a desire to render the service in order for me to have satisfied clients as soon as possible.Since you said it is good for someone to make a minimum of 10 posts before he could be trusted,do you think I can go ahead and source for clients?
I want you to guide me as I don't want to go against the rules because I want to stay long here!I want to thank all members of WF for their great posts.I have been learning from you.
Thanks
Bye.
 
This thread is very helpful, thanks for keeping topics like this on the forums where new jacks like me can get the lay of the land.
 
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