Rewards??Like what, scooby snacks??
I think when one vendor posts 17 products in one subforum alone and bumps them daily, there is no need to drive up traffic for him..lol

 

What kind of incentives? I dont know about other sponsors but I already mark down my procts 5-10% from my listed website prices, just for members. I even knock an addition 5% off for Military members. There is only so much we can offer, we still have bills to pay.

 

MAP Pricing is a joke. We are direct with quite a few large companies and are regulated by their pricing. If your manufacturer tells you they will cut you off if you sell below their MAP pricing they don't care. The next large company will come in and continue to sell to smaller shops who are not obligated by their MAP pricing. Some manufacturers are very good about keeping their pricing up there but the most are not. I remember a certain shop on Hondatech that actually posted in their sig that they ***** stuff out for the racer by the racer. They have been cut off by every manufacturer but continue to buy from wholesalers that don't care as long as they make their %. We have been guilty at time, but definately not the worst and far from it.

 

I think there needs to be a rule on the vendor marketplace that only allows so many threads per shop to be open or visible at a time. The vendor should have control on deleting their own thread. The reason for this is I can start a thread and then lock it, then start 3 more and have only 3 open threads at a time. I think the only fix is for the vendor to be able to delete their own. Just my opinion.

 

I think if members are allowed to respond to vendors, then the "bumptizzle" can't be abused. Members inquireing, asking questions, gives the vendor a "bump". Maybe if vendors are only allowed to bump once a week. Otherwise the bumping by members asking questions will work. That way, the threads that people aren't interested in will die, and those that they are interested in will continue.

Just a thought.

 

Well, after a couple of days, I can clearly say I don't like the new way the Vendor forum is working. For me, it's to the detriment of the vendors.

Before the change, I could go to the Market Place and click on View All Posts and see the vendors most recent offerings in bold as new threads. If I saw something I was interested in, it was easy to spot and check out. Now, when I View All Posts, I see a huge number of "new" threads, the majority of which have member followups, not something new from the vendor.

Personally, I'm not going to sort through the crap to find out what a vendor is offering vs. member bumps on the thread.

 

I would disagree withe the above, but it's all personal opinion. What is the difference between new posts in a normal section and member induced bumps on a thread?

What annoys me is the series of vendor posts in the engine section STILL has not been consolidated/deleted, and he still has multiple active threads in the engine section. It's only been a week though....maybe he didn't get the memo. This same vendor also has 8 open threads in the suspension section. But hey, 23 open threads in 2 vendor sections? Maybe that's not over the top - I think it is.

In addition, I saw a WTB post by a personal member - there is a section for this. Maybe the person didn't catch it, but again, it's up the moderators to move this thread. That's a small thing though.

The other thing that I find very inappropriate is a single vendor being allowed to host multiple group buys at the same time. On every other site we are on, vendors are allowed one group buy at a time. They cannot post another group buy until the first one is closed and everyone receives their goods. Once that happens, the thread is deleted so they are not allowed to hold an ongoing group buy via PM's.

This site is a business, and it's up to the owners to treat it like a business. Right now I don't feel like it's being run that way.

So this begs the original question: who is moderating this section, because right now, it does not seem like anyone is.

 

I agree, the vendor section is run like crap...This site lets anyone be a vendor and does not care for its existing vendors..

 

Guys this is still being discussed and admins are taking notes about the complaints.

All the moderators/admins are trying to reach a reasonable and fair solution that makes everyone happy, if that is at all possible.

 

After reading through this whole thread again, I see a lot of complaints by vendors about lack of moderation and out-of-control posting in the vendor forums. What I don't see is anybody indicating that they ever reported a problem thread or post. Surely you guys have been on the board long enough to know about the "Report Bad Post" icon (the red triangle with the exclamation mark in it).

 

I did...read my first post. If I had held my breath for a response to the PM I sent the moderator, I'd be dead by now, because that person still has not replied. I cannot comment on everyone else, as they are not my concern in all honesty. All I know is I saw something that seemed "odd", and I took the time to PM a moderator about it. Now maybe you see why no one bothers to report them....because here it is a week later, with several moderators replying in this thread, and nothing has been done about the original poster I made the comments about.

In fact, the ONLY person who addressed any of my cocerns was Failsafe (Jason). That being said, the SAME vendor I originally commented about STILL has not edited or consolidated their posts, and now has an additional 7 active threads in the suspension section.

So maybe that is telling me to just blitz the classifieds section and start a seperate thread for every 350Z part we have in stock......

We had these exact same issues on NASIOC several years ago. What happened then was the site owners, the moderators of the classifieds section, and all the vendors, were invited to participate in an online discussion about how things should be run. That discussion last a couple of hours, and at the end of the day, firm rules were drawn. To this day, those rules remain in effect and the vendors abide by them. If a vendor chooses not to abide by them, the threads that violated the policy are locked and deleted by the admins, and the original poster is contacted and informed why it was closed and deleted. Needless to say, the message gets across quickly. The problem I see here, and its a problem that if you search, I brought up years ago in terms of the general performance forums on this site, is that the moderators are just lax. I've been a moderator on a site before, and I also happen to be a site/forum owner as well. Moderating a site is a full time job, and has to be treated as such. If not, then the site as a whole suffers. If you need proof, you need only look at 350zmotoring.com, which has done a 180 turn from being a great place to be, to the "off topic thread" capital of the online z community.

 

for those interested, here are the NASIOC rules

NASIOC Registered Vendor Specific Rules:

Vendors must post all commercially oriented messages in designated Vendor Classifieds forum as listed below.
Vendor Announcements (only announcements, news, events, and upcoming products, NO SELLING!!!)
Vendor ‘For Sale’ Classifieds (only items that are in-stock may be posted here)
Vendor ‘Group Buy’ Classifieds (only one group buy per vendor is allowed open at any time)
Regional/Chapter Vendor Classified Sub-Forums (located within the Regional/Chapter Forums)
Vendors are allowed up to two(2) open threads in their area's regional/chapter forum. (refer to vendor rule #5)
Any commercially oriented message posted outside the these forums listed above will be deleted (not moved) by the NASIOC moderators. Please locate your posts accordingly.
Vendors are encouraged to interact with members of this site and may post replies only to threads started by members in any forum if they feel they can provide useful content.
Vendors may start new threads in the technical forums for the purposes of research and development or product interest. You may not however include pricing in these threads. These threads will only be used to gauge interest, and WILL NOT be used to sell, if they are, the thread will be deleted immediately and the vendor warned.
Vendors are allowed to have one(1) active thread per sub-forum category under the Vendor 'For Sale' Classfieds. This means you have the potential to have as many threads as there are sub-forums open at any given time, but only one per sub-forum. In order to open a new thread you MUST close the existing thread so it is no longer open to new posts. You can do this by clicking the "Thread Tools" link in the blue bar on top of the thread and choosing "Close Thread" (or "Open Thread") from the drop down menu then clicking "Perform Action" to close (or open) the thread. If you would like help with this, please contact a vendor area moderator or email nick@nasioc.com. Vendors who are found not closing their old thread before opening a new thread will be punished depending on how many times this has happened in the recent past.
When conducting a group buy, or group discount purchase, vendors will be allowed 90 days from the start of their group buy until it must be closed and product shipped. If a vendor requires more time than the 90 days to complete the transactions, they must contact the board administration PRIOR to the 90 day expiration for an extension. If there is not sufficient proof that the items for the group buy have been purchased, or are on their way for delivery, the group buy will be halted until a majority vote, of all participating NASIOC members in the group buy, determines if the group buy continues or stops.
NASIOC Registered Vendors who cannot follow these simple rules will be warned by NASIOC administration. If after this warning the vendor continues to break the rules, then the vendor will be removed from the site as per the Vendor Membership Contract. Vendors also risk losing their NASIOC vendor status for any group buy that end without a completed sale for all participants of a group buy.
Sincerely,
Nick Catalfamo
Chief Enthusiast


the only thing they don't moderate are the vendor induced bumps, but frankly, the whole vendor classifieds there is run so smoothly otherwise, that it's never been a concern and every vendor there seems to not mind it either

 

I did see that, but who's to say that the person you PMed is a moderator of the vendor forums? It doesn't do much good to PM a mod who has no moderation privileges in a particular forum. For all you and I know, that person may no longer be a moderator on the board as there has been some changes lately.

If you use the Report Bad Post feature, an email goes to the responsible moderator(s) as well as all super-moderators and I assume to administrators too. I get them and act on them all day long.

 

I PM'd GodZila - does not get much higher up the food chain that than. I'm smart enough to not send a PM to a moderator of the General forum or some other unrelated section

Here is the PM I sent to him.

Was browing through them this morning to make a post and I found this place that has no less than 17 open threads in just the engine section alone.....a bit retarded, no?

Can't people just consolidate the posts into 1?

adam

Now, I know Kyle has a million things going on in a day, as we all do, but for the price each vendor pays to be here on an annual basis, I think we deserve a bit more attention in the moderation department across the board.

I've appreciated Jason's prompt replies to me in the past, and I am hopeful that we can reach some sort of quick solution to this, because it really has gotten out of hand IMHO.

 

Oh god let's not bring Nasioc's rules onto here!

 

X2

 

edit - now the rules are back for people to read and comment on - thanks

For all of NASIOC's flaws, the vendor forum works better than ANY other site we are on. I'm not saying they are perfect, but from a vendor standpoint, I think it's managed and moderated better than here. What is interesting is that I don't think it takes huge sweeping changeds to turn things around here, but so far, there is not much being done it seems.

 

Why would they delete the rules example you provided???

Strange stuff......

 

maybe I was still sleepy as I checked it when I first woke up, but I could have sworn they were not there...but at least its there now and hopefully its the catalyst for discussion

 

I was hoping I was not going to have to bump this thread, but that SAME vendor now has no less than 18 active threads in just the engine section of the vendor classifieds as well.

At what point do the moderators just do an automatic consolidation on the classifieds? 1 or 2 or even 3 ads I can understand - but eighteen - come on now........if that is considered "acceptable", we've got enough stuff in stock that I could make every post in the engine section, or suspension section a Z1 thread - I am sure the other vendors would not like this (and it's not something I'd ever do) - but get my point?