Feedback: Create an auction section

The idea behind this is to add interest to the club since imo the activity in general has gone down. This could be a great idea moving forward to bring those members that haven't been very active back to the forum

 

I feel sellers should pay for their privilege to sell on here after all their main objective is monetary gain. If making money was not the main objective sellers would have no problem just getting only cost or a little more for their time out of what they offer for purchase on here. That is not and would not be the primary goal of sellers. It seems the main goal here is to open a new market place for the sellers goods. It appears they are looking for a free market place to sell their goods for their own gain. Would it bring people here to buy. Sure. Is that what GIRS should be about? Do we want more people who are here only when they want something to purchase? It will not increase the number of people that actively participate in some way. It will increase paid memberships solely for the purpose of those that want to buy coral. A pay to buy system. Will we be the SAMS CLUB pr COSTCO of the reef clubs? When people sell in most other market places they pay for the privilege to sell. Of course there are those market places that don't and if the sellers wanted they could be free to sell there and many already are. It all seems a little too much like they want to have their cake and eat it too.

 

So should we charge people to sell in the BST? Since everyone can sell there. Is that what your saying or only the auction part cause everyone should be treated equal

 

We have GIRS on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/GreaterIowaReefSociety?fref=ts

 

Also once again people that sell in auctions dont always profit.

Also Craig already said girs is on facebook with the link

 

What I am saying is we have a friendly buy, sell trade section. People set prices, they do not get into bidding wars over them and increase prices. You are in sense duplicating what we already have in place. There is nothing stopping you from setting a price and selling what you want to sell. Auctions are not needed, they would be an additional privilege that would be an option. You would still have the option to do buy, sell, trade for free.

 

Do you know how auctions work?

You start the price incredibly low like $1 then it goes up from there.

There wont be a flood of bids on everything that is posted some will get a few, some will get a lot, and some wont get any at all.

There wont be anything that goes for over market value considering there is a websites like google that people can look up how much these corals being posted go for.

It is a way to bring people to the club. The activity of this club has considerably gone down. Maybe its because of the lack of meetings or lack of leadership cause the people that volunteered for a position is just to busy idk. But something needs to be done before facebook, twitter ect ultimately shuts down this forum. Maybe the board could be more active by adding different threads on here of value since thats what is being said by them thats lacking on the forum....

I guess me a many others see things differently there are plenty of discussion topics on here along with for sale or trade threads. Not everyone has something to discuss and most of the time when you sell something you get to have a conversation with another reefer when you get the item you bought...

 

Unfortunately some people, quite a few, get carried away when they see something they want and they bid on it. They get excited by the thrill of the auction. It is kind of like gambling and can be addictive, they bid for the excitement of it and get carried away. If sellers wanted to sell for a good deal to members they already have that option with out the chance of taking a loss by selling too low. They are in charge of what they ask and what they take. It is called buy, sell, trade. Why would you want to risk taking a loss at an auction? Because it might be made up for when the person that gets too excited and carried away over bids on the next coral down the line. Get enough of those and sellers come out way ahead and that is why auctions are wanted by sellers. It is not to give a good deal to customers because they can already do that any day of the week in buy, sell, trade.

 

Auctions are fun and bring life to the site if it does go through then you dont have to participate thats the beauty of facebook, twitter, club forums ect you dont have to participate if you dont agree or want to. This is something that may not be for you but many others would love something like this. Its time for something new. The good ole boy click/way of thinking is in the past everywhere else is moving forward with new things.

This club used to have great activity which died when the lack of activities went to the way side ie meetings, gatherings ect which falls on the lack of leadership taking charge and putting something together on a monthly basis this started 3 years ago in my region.... so i took charge in leading the way of trying to bring back the area by putting meetings or gatherings together. Which i will continue to do in order to bring something back to this club

 

Well if you are saying there will be a mandatory cap on auctions so people wont over bid that is a different story but that is not what I am hearing from you. I am hearing buyer beware, use common sense, look up prices, do your homework. That does not take into effect the excitement of getting that bid in before you lose what you want and someone else is also bidding and you end up paying way too much because you could not help yourself at that moment. That is what people that sell at auctions hope for. Why do we need that on GIRS? When we have Buy, Sell, Trade?

 

Why would there be a cap on auctions it wouldn't be an auction then if there was a cap

 

Do Casinos tell you not to lose all your money when you gambling? Do restaurants tell you not to eat to much? Do we tell people at the frag fests not to spend to much? The answers are NO.
People need to use good judgment.
I don't want to see people over spend either but I expect an adult to use good judgment and maybe some common sense if a auction ever does become available.
I said before I don't choose to participate in auctions. But I think it would be a good way to increase site traffic.
Are all those people involved in auctions gonna participate in club functions or discussions? Probably not. But does everyone that goes to our frag fests or in buy sell trad participate?
I think if properly managed it could bring in some very new and helpful members.

 

Turbo, what percentage of active/semi-active forum goers are like myself and not current GIRS members? It would seem to me that the benefit of this is clear---more memberships. This provides increased income to the society and would increase forumgoer investment in the society. As a board member of a major scientific society, this is the kind of paydirt we'd jump on if there was significant enough interest. Perhaps it's worth tallying interest?
I'm not privy to GIRS politics, but as a thus far neutral party it seems reasonable to propose a vote.

 

Exactly!!! @jeremy @AndrewAcropora

The possibilities of adding new and exciting things to this club are endless we just have to move forward and adjust to the times!

 

I did a quick google search and there is an open source plugin for XenForo Called XenAuction so it shouldn't take too much effort to implement in the forum software If the group decides to give it a try. I personally use e-bay a-lot but in recent years I have been only using buy it now because if I see something I want at a decent price I buy it.

https://github.com/Naatan/XenAuction

 

I was just thinking of another idea. What if the auctions had to be live? Via webcam or something though some group video networking program. That would pretty much eliminate all shenanigans. Each person posts to the thread if they want to participate in the auction and then they receive the video chat info to attend. The seller can act as auctioneer and must maintain a 5000 wpm speech rate otherwise the sale is forfeited to the club.

 

I agree it would not be. It would be more like a buy it now option. What is sold could be put up for sale at 2 prices. A members price and a non members price. This would draw people to the club. Encourage those that want to buy and get a better price, to join the club. It would eliminate the chance of a seller not getting a fair price for what they are selling, they would get asking price. It would eliminate the buyer from over paying because they got carried away. It would encourage people to be on GIRS to see what is available to buy. It would be done WYSIWYG. One thing to remember is that more memberships do not equal more active members that participate. That is only achieved through friendships built on here through helping other reefers and through interesting activities that will draw GIRS members together. I still think buy, sell, trade is good enough but if you must try something I feel this is the best option for all involved. Plus I already suggested a biannual auction to benefit the club that could be an added bonus.