"Marketplace usage" Topic

Should the TMP marketplace be used by a business to sell items or is the purpose to be for members to get rid of gaming stuff they will never finish or don't want anymore?

If I were a business paying for ad space on TMP and saw some guys using the Marketplace as a store, I think I'd get a little POed. Just my 2 cents.

I agree. Advertisers can post right into forums. Flooding the marketplace is pretty lame unless it's for their limited run personal stuff.

Some flood the Marketplace with 10 or more "ads" at active. Given the format of the TMP marketplace that shoves things off the bottom of the front page.

Since we just got a "promotions" board, maybe we can get some better clarification on what each board is.

There could some benefit to having one board be exclusively for non-business deals (private sellers) though it brings up the question of people who regularly buy, paint and then sell figures.

Been wondering this myself. Besides the casual seller's listings getting buried and/or forced off the page, it seems…not cricket.

Winston and the OFM may remember years and years ago at the HMGS-E cons, there were folks who would set up full time in the flea market rather than the vendors' area because they "weren't businesses". The two I distinctly remember were a figure painter and a guy who always had crates of MIB 1/72 plastic model kits. They were there every H'con and CW for years before that got sorted out.

EDIT:
Also, I'm unclear as to who can SEE the Marketplace. I know only Supporting Members can post, but can Basic Members at least see the ads?

but can Basic Members at least see the ads?

Yes.

I agree -- the marketplace should be for G2G (gamer-to-gamer) transactions.

I've always considered the marketplace to be similar to Bartertown.
Gamer to Gamer.

I was thinking about this today as I see the usual suspects filling up the limited marketplace space.

The number of posts there is also an issue and needs to be limited. Do I really need to know about each item you are selling? Can't you put one "ad" out there talking about all your items and just crosspost? One post per day should be sufficient to get your message across.

If you don't agree with that please speak up. I can continually "ad bomb" the Marketplace with one each postings for my 100+ auctions I run each month and you can get a visual of how broken this is.

I think the Marketplace could eventually be an important reason to come to TMP but not if its full of the equivalent of junk mail and spam. That just makes it another thing to turn off and then go to other websites to sell your items.

Marketplace = broken.

Please fix.

I would think that the "last hours for my auction" posts could be dismissed as well. Chances are that if they didn't jump on it first time around…

Not to beat a dead horse, but between T***o and one or two vendors, I feel overwhelmed with dross when I come to this site…. And yes I know I can block them as a paying member.

And yes I know I can block them as a paying member.

You can block them even if you are only a Basic Member.

I would think that the "last hours for my auction" posts could be dismissed as well. Chances are that if they didn't jump on it first time around…

I think I've done this two or three times, precisely because the deluge pushes things off the front page so quickly. As a consumer, the "last hours" posts are sometimes my first view of an item for the same reason.

Of course, I rarely trawl through the marketplace pages properly; I'm more of a "glance at the latest front page posts to see what's of interest."

+1 the OP.

I'm pretty lassaiz-faire about the way TMP is run, but the way The Marketplace is being flooded lately irritates me. If you're going to run a business in The Marketplace, at least show some courtesy, don't do things that egregiously aggravate your potential customers. Limit the number of ads by consolidating many into few. Don't post the same stuff over and over – if it didn't sell the last two weeks, give it a month's rest before you repost it. Wouldn't this kind of abuse tick *you* off?

I also agree with the OP. I worry that it doesn't seem fair to the Advertisers.

I Agree with the OP too, except, if the business is a TMP advertiser, doing something as a one off to clear stuff (in one ad.) on a 'special offer', or something like that, I don't mind.

I don't like it being used like an ebay style shop front – ebay, where a business pays for the service, is where such businesses should be operating.

This JP Kelly guy is ridiculous. He is acting like this is EBay. TMP should charge a volume guy like him. It would be one thing if he had a lot of ads because he was selling a collection over time.

JP Kelly seems to do 3 a day, hardy "volume."

Though it is so regular and consistent it is worth questioning by the powers-that-be.

Kinda sad when a person thinks 3 a day is "volume".

don't do things that egregiously aggravate your potential customers

I dunno … I've bought my fair share of other's crap (my treasures!) on the Marketplace. The routine repostings of the same minis over and over make me feel better about my decision not to buy them the first time (since nobody else wants them), about my decision not to buy them now (since the price didn't drop after multiple repostings), and my decision to skip their posts most of the time anyway. That type of behaviour is kinda handy for consumers …

Kinda sad when a person thinks 3 a day is "volume".

Go check again.
16 of the 50 current posts are by the same person.
So 1/3 of the marketplace is taken up by an "individual".
That doesn't seem right.

Go check again.
16 of the 50 current posts are by the same person.
So 1/3 of the marketplace is taken up by an "individual".
That doesn't seem right.

So what's the solution? Restrict commerce? Act on a jealously of a successful small businessman? Perhaps you could sell something so only 15 of the 50 current posts would be his?

If Bill has no issue with any of this, then the need for a solution is moot.

What we're trying to establish is, what is the purpose of the Marketplace? What are it's constraints? It seems pretty clear that there are several different viewpoints amongst the membership. I am one of those who is thought that using it as an quasi-ecommerce site for a business was out of bounds.

So what's the solution? Restrict commerce?

As EP says, the Marketplace needs to be defined better. A number of people think that it was intended for gamer to gamer selling and not an alternative for businesses. So if its intent is to be wide open then great, define it as such. Businesses already have a way to sell on TMP. It is called "Advertiser".

Act on a jealously of a successful small businessman?

Not sure what you mean here unless you equate number of postings to being successful. Especially when its the same items over and over in some cases. Maybe that's some new business metric that I am not familiar with. Perhaps you can enlighten us.

Perhaps you could sell something so only 15 of the 50 current posts would be his?

I do sell on TMP from time to time but usually I post just once linking to my eBay auctions that are active at that time. I could list each individual item per TMP post which would blow everyone off the Marketplace but that doesn't seem to be very respectful of the rest of the TMP community.

Ah, there I go. Thinking like an "old person". I think that is the stereotype you like to use for anyone who has a differing opinion than yours?