This is a good idea. I am new here but I want to provide my service. I am happy to literally pay any fee, and $36 is fine. But for 10 days.. that is the question. Some people make more than that with their services so they may be happy paying around $120 per month but to be honest, creating new threads every time is just a waste. Either please introduce a monthly subscription plan or create a script where after 10 days, it auto creates a new thread of the same one so there is no manual work done. The downsides to this is that the thread will be empty and no reviews - but then again, the iTrader will be there to support everything. Just my 2 cents.
CLOSED THREADS.. READ HERE
- Thread starter zingo
- Start date
- Status
This is a good idea. I am new here but I want to provide my service. I am happy to literally pay any fee, and $36 is fine. But for 10 days.. that is the question. Some people make more than that with their services so they may be happy paying around $120 per month but to be honest, creating new threads every time is just a waste. Either please introduce a monthly subscription plan or create a script where after 10 days, it auto creates a new thread of the same one so there is no manual work done. The downsides to this is that the thread will be empty and no reviews - but then again, the iTrader will be there to support everything. Just my 2 cents.
IMO this is going to:
a) Increase prices for many services. I'm guessing there are lots of people from Phil/India who are making like $100-$150 a month with their dirt cheap service (a part-time monthly salary in those countries btw or at least near it) and they'll shut down or increase their prices.
b) You should establish an entrance fee for the BST forum but $100+ a month is really not a good idea. For those ppl who were banned constantly probably something like $20-30max a month would have stopped most of them.
c) If admins aren't tracking the results of this change they should start asap, some good ideas are:
1) Survey around 30 regular buyers on how satisfied are they on the quality of the BST (from 1 to 10 let's say) BEFORE and AFTER the change.
2) Count the # of totally new members who open threads. Finding a good service is ultimately a numbers game so newbs should be encouraged to offer what they have imo.
3) If you want more-quality BST maybe you should work on the review system. I want to know the integrity of the person who posted that review, whether he is a regular buyer...here's an idea:
Do it similarly to amazon, say when posting a post I have a checkmark saying 'this is a review'. After i post this, there are buttons for members to check if they found my review helpful. Then there will be stats on how many reviews I posted and how many people found my reviews to be helpful. Something like that.
4) Make a survey to random sellers on how many products they are selling a month (say 1-10, 10-50, 50-100, 100-200, etc) BEFORE and AFTER the update. Analyze after...
Personally I think this update will work for higher-priced products but will kill many low-priced ones.
a) Increase prices for many services. I'm guessing there are lots of people from Phil/India who are making like $100-$150 a month with their dirt cheap service (a part-time monthly salary in those countries btw or at least near it) and they'll shut down or increase their prices.
b) You should establish an entrance fee for the BST forum but $100+ a month is really not a good idea. For those ppl who were banned constantly probably something like $20-30max a month would have stopped most of them.
c) If admins aren't tracking the results of this change they should start asap, some good ideas are:
1) Survey around 30 regular buyers on how satisfied are they on the quality of the BST (from 1 to 10 let's say) BEFORE and AFTER the change.
2) Count the # of totally new members who open threads. Finding a good service is ultimately a numbers game so newbs should be encouraged to offer what they have imo.
3) If you want more-quality BST maybe you should work on the review system. I want to know the integrity of the person who posted that review, whether he is a regular buyer...here's an idea:
Do it similarly to amazon, say when posting a post I have a checkmark saying 'this is a review'. After i post this, there are buttons for members to check if they found my review helpful. Then there will be stats on how many reviews I posted and how many people found my reviews to be helpful. Something like that.
4) Make a survey to random sellers on how many products they are selling a month (say 1-10, 10-50, 50-100, 100-200, etc) BEFORE and AFTER the update. Analyze after...
Personally I think this update will work for higher-priced products but will kill many low-priced ones.
The appeal of BST is not the cheap shit. You can buy that anywhere. Theres no reason for wickedfires BST to be a clone of all the other cut rate link selling areas.
My only concern is the affect of this on the content / designer / developer sections.
My only concern is the affect of this on the content / designer / developer sections.
Good. Fiverr exists for the cheapo market.
You don't see Beemer dealerships selling used Hondas.
Also, I am tired of listening to people complain about prices. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that $99 was really going to make or break their so-called business....
As I buyer, there are a few issue I see.
1. Goodbye to cheap but high quality services. I've had a ton of great work done over the years for $5-15/pop. Prices will surely rise.
2. The problem of sellers creating fake accounts and posting in their threads will continue and likely increase now that they only have ten days before the whole thread is wacked.
3. The most important one for me is; Now there is no way of telling the crap from the jewels. Before, you could read through pages and pages of reviews, transactions, bitching, etc.. to find out if you really wanted to do business with a supplier. Now with threads dying in 10 days, there's no way to really know. Some services take many days just to complete, and the results are not known for many weeks. It's impossible to leave a valid review on a ten day thread. The serps may favor you for a few days, then your site is buried for many months after that. This is vital info that can only be reported a month/months after the service was completed.
I feel for Jon and the Admins, it must be a huge mess trying to deal with all the crap and scamsters. The time for change is here. Hopefully there is some flexibility and common sense used in implementing these changes.
If it was me, my main focus would be on how to provide the best experience for the BUYERS. The sellers will adapt. If the buyers get screwed, they will look elsewhere for providers. It's been a great place to buy SEO services and to a lesser degree writers. I'm sure there are ways to make these changes and retain the high quality and low prices we've all come to love.
In the meantime, I don't recommend pre-paying anyone that you haven't worked with before, since they can easily disappear into the ether after the 10 days are up and have no incentive to build a quality business.
1. Goodbye to cheap but high quality services. I've had a ton of great work done over the years for $5-15/pop. Prices will surely rise.
2. The problem of sellers creating fake accounts and posting in their threads will continue and likely increase now that they only have ten days before the whole thread is wacked.
3. The most important one for me is; Now there is no way of telling the crap from the jewels. Before, you could read through pages and pages of reviews, transactions, bitching, etc.. to find out if you really wanted to do business with a supplier. Now with threads dying in 10 days, there's no way to really know. Some services take many days just to complete, and the results are not known for many weeks. It's impossible to leave a valid review on a ten day thread. The serps may favor you for a few days, then your site is buried for many months after that. This is vital info that can only be reported a month/months after the service was completed.
I feel for Jon and the Admins, it must be a huge mess trying to deal with all the crap and scamsters. The time for change is here. Hopefully there is some flexibility and common sense used in implementing these changes.
If it was me, my main focus would be on how to provide the best experience for the BUYERS. The sellers will adapt. If the buyers get screwed, they will look elsewhere for providers. It's been a great place to buy SEO services and to a lesser degree writers. I'm sure there are ways to make these changes and retain the high quality and low prices we've all come to love.
In the meantime, I don't recommend pre-paying anyone that you haven't worked with before, since they can easily disappear into the ether after the 10 days are up and have no incentive to build a quality business.
Thanks Brandon.
Happy to see the new changes to BST but it looks like it could use some fine tuning.
:drinkup:
As someone who has been selling out of the same thread for over 2 years, without a single negative feedback or comment, I don't like the idea of having to start a new thread every 10 days. Over two years of positive comments and feedback helps me sell because it helps my reputation.
I don't care about paying, but 10 day threads are going to create a new type of scam, as was stated already in this thread. It's easy for a scammer to create a new ID, pay the fee, collect money for 10 days and then bounce.
My service, going over 2 years in a single thread, speaks volumes about the high quality of my work AND my reliability and integrity.
That's my problem with the 10 day system.
I don't care about paying, but 10 day threads are going to create a new type of scam, as was stated already in this thread. It's easy for a scammer to create a new ID, pay the fee, collect money for 10 days and then bounce.
My service, going over 2 years in a single thread, speaks volumes about the high quality of my work AND my reliability and integrity.
That's my problem with the 10 day system.
If you're worried about losing your years of hard-earned reputation, why can't you just include a link to your previous thread if someone wants to see your positive reviews? All the buyers will be familiar with this new practice. Let them know this is your new thread and all reviews can be found on your old thread.
No real reason to complain.
No real reason to complain.
If you can't earn a nice profit with your service as well as pay off the $36 fee in 10 days, then I think it's time to rethink your business plan and stop wasting your time.
+1 for not having to create a new thread ever 10 days though as that is quite stupid really.
I'd also change the price to $100/month subscription. Creating just a little more of a barrier for dodgy hit and run scammers
+1 for not having to create a new thread ever 10 days though as that is quite stupid really.
I'd also change the price to $100/month subscription. Creating just a little more of a barrier for dodgy hit and run scammers
Do the math. 365 days in a year. Every 10 days you have to create a new thread. It's going to be a bitch to have to add 36 links to all your previous threads. And seriously, what buyer wants to look through all of them? Who knows maybe a couple of your review threads people got shit results from your service, that can now be hidden.
Hope that clears things up for you.
Hi TM,
This is the same old school thinking. The fact is that 100usd/mo makes for
nice beer money, (weed, burgerking, etc), for a lot of part-timers, and a
very nice supplemental income for most of the world. Just an
example, here in PH, the majority of people live on less that 2usd/day.
Not everyone offerring services was implementing a "business plan". Maybe
they were just picking up a few bucks to reinvest later. What's wrong with that?
Anyways, those sellers are gone now, and it's time to move forward. Jon
twice mentioned teaming up with an advanced marketplace. Imagine if
instead of a few hundred potential buyers, we have a few thousand? Then,
a ten day classified ad for $3.60/day would be nice. Meanwhile, only the
bigger ticket services will be here.
peace out,
Bompa
You guys are 100% right. I was being a dumb ass, whiney bitch. I apologize, I thought I was helping (and in the process got extremely carried away) but, as I now see, I wasn't. But as one of the Mods said about me, I am entitled to my opinions, and they won't ban me for them. However, I will watch what I say next time.
Again, I apologize. I am here for the same reason (I think its the same reason) that some/most of you are, to make a supplemental income for myself, my son and my wife.
Take care all.
I am a buyer, and I think that the charm of wickedfire's BST section was the free element. I know that a lot of people took advantage of this and scammed others but this measures seems pretty harsh to me.
I think that paying every ten days then opening an other thread is an hellish, unjustified measure.
Why not make a monthly payment for a thread, yearly or even lifetime(of course each of this solutions costing more)?
After all this is not my forum so maybe it's just me but I think it will seriously dwindle the business done here
You can hate on me but it's just what I think.
I think that paying every ten days then opening an other thread is an hellish, unjustified measure.
Why not make a monthly payment for a thread, yearly or even lifetime(of course each of this solutions costing more)?
After all this is not my forum so maybe it's just me but I think it will seriously dwindle the business done here
You can hate on me but it's just what I think.
For people that don't believe the threads closing is a problem...
Someone already stole my identity and used my closed thread to see who was interested in my service, sent them PM's and people actually bought (even though the username wasn't the same!!!!!!)
WARNING - I am sure this will be happening to other people.
Someone already stole my identity and used my closed thread to see who was interested in my service, sent them PM's and people actually bought (even though the username wasn't the same!!!!!!)
WARNING - I am sure this will be happening to other people.
I'll put this out there...
I have been scammed by two people who I had tons of iTraders and positive reviews on their many threads since the Pay to Play method came in. I guess they decided they couldn't pay to play and fuck everyone else who we owed work to. They probably would have eventually done this anyways, but its not a coincidence it happened at this time.
I am in support of the Pay to Play system. I will be paying to play. I think the rates are a little stiff. I'd like to see a one-time fee for a life-time thread personally. I know the threads staying open is being worked on.
Just tossing that out there.
I have been scammed by two people who I had tons of iTraders and positive reviews on their many threads since the Pay to Play method came in. I guess they decided they couldn't pay to play and fuck everyone else who we owed work to. They probably would have eventually done this anyways, but its not a coincidence it happened at this time.
I am in support of the Pay to Play system. I will be paying to play. I think the rates are a little stiff. I'd like to see a one-time fee for a life-time thread personally. I know the threads staying open is being worked on.
Just tossing that out there.
Why not keep it simple?
There have been a lot of dick rolling jokes on here about the Premium member section but why not?
And not just for sellers, for everyone! I am a buyer and have no problem paying. Make it a yearly fee for everyone to gain access to this section. If scammers get in then ban their paypal email. No pay per thread or anything complicated needed.
Send everyone that pays a $10 tee shirt with a Gold Membership logo...
People that don't want to pay can still whine and send boob pictures to each other so business as usual for them in the free section.
There have been a lot of dick rolling jokes on here about the Premium member section but why not?
And not just for sellers, for everyone! I am a buyer and have no problem paying. Make it a yearly fee for everyone to gain access to this section. If scammers get in then ban their paypal email. No pay per thread or anything complicated needed.
Send everyone that pays a $10 tee shirt with a Gold Membership logo...
People that don't want to pay can still whine and send boob pictures to each other so business as usual for them in the free section.
I think you guys should just do it like BHW charge a premium fee for the year and then a minimal fee of like $30-$40 for a sales thread. In order to become a premium member you need to have at least 100+ posts and been a member here more than three months.
My honest opinion
My honest opinion
I know it's a hard time going on with admins and mods in taking a decision that suits everyone, however, it would help members if a mod or an admin keep the thread updated regarding the progress and ask for some opinions from reputed members who were preferred for reviewing the services.
It's just my opinion, since I'm waiting for a good news to start offering a new service which I was testing from a long time.
Maybe a monthly, annual or premier membership would help everyone. Cos, it'll also help service providers in setting a correct price for their service.
Thanks.
It's just my opinion, since I'm waiting for a good news to start offering a new service which I was testing from a long time.
Maybe a monthly, annual or premier membership would help everyone. Cos, it'll also help service providers in setting a correct price for their service.
Thanks.
- Status