[Paul Coleman]

I see that selling second hand equipment on here will soon be chargeable.  Just wondering how people view this.
My own view is that of course I would prefer it to be free.  However, forums use bandwidth that costs money.  If it were advertised on ebay it would cost too.  The lack of private messaging on here prevents people from doing deals behind the scenes (as well as causing personal messages to be posted on the boards).  There are of course places where things can be advertised free - but linking to them possibly gets you banned from the forum.
The only time I have sold anything directly via a forum contact was a point ladder a couple of years back.  However, I also sold another ladder and a pole (both second hand) to someone who I originally got to know via the forum - although we had done other business too (subcontracting).
I imagine that charging people for selling the occasional second hand item will lose a lot of goodwill and could potentially backfire.  Although I don't have any real problem about a small charge being made, my main concern is that this could be the start of the "slippery slope syndrome" where it becomes the forerunner to forum access becoming chargeable - a situation that would more than likely see me out of here.

I ask that any responses be kept sensible as I wouldn't want this thread to be deleted.

[david moss]

Everone should pay to advertise on here as the forum is not a charity, the only exception should be for companies that provide exceptional products and free advice

[♠Winp®oClean♠]

Forum members (us). Lose these & you have nothing, fact!

There are other "cleaning f o r u m s" which are totally free.

[Dave Willis]

Everone should pay to advertise on here as the forum is not a charity, the only exception should be for companies that provide exceptional products and free advice

Spot the obvious dig  pretty easy to work out who you are - a disgruntled supplier who's jealous of another companies popularity.  Sad really.

[david moss]

Sory youve lost me?

[Dave Willis]

Yeah right 

[Window Washers]

Everone should pay to advertise on here as the forum is not a charity, the only exception should be for companies that provide exceptional products and free advice

I agree with the free advice part the exceptional products they would not need to advertise as they are self seeding.

my question would be what are the costs to advertise are these are hidden at the moment for an unknown reason.

if selling an item does not sell is there no fee to pay, what are the fees anyway, if greed kicks in the forum members will leave in there droves IMHO
the forum is being affected by posts that are made stickies to make money, I am at the moment looking at a universal orlando resort ad thats has nothing to do with window cleaning.

business advertising revenue should easy cover costs to run the server costs I already have a server myself to know the costs and bandwidth pricing, if this was a paid service then I would want the servers updated and the same goes for the software used on the site as it is very temprimental and slow loading all to often, it could work out well for the forum if done right, and as long it is not one sided

[david moss]

No really I dont get it, im not being funny

[H S and Son]

Pay to use the forum? They'll leave in their droves and settle elsewhere, plenty of other sites. The admin will then lose all their advertising revenue and wonder where the hell they went wrong. Theyre not that stupid surely?

The only person left will be Tosh mumbling to all his alter egos he's got on the go on the other side to keep himself amused 

[LWC Ltd]

Business is business I suppose - as long as it works. Imho there are better places to advertise  eg this forum is not picked up by google. Only a small percentage of cleaners come on here in the big picture

[Blue Frog Systems]

I give out great advice so it should be free for me ... cant speak for anyone else though  

[Window Washers]

Business is business I suppose - as long as it works. Imho there are better places to advertise  eg this forum is not picked up by google. Only a small percentage of cleaners come on here in the big picture

this forum is picked up on google and this is where the confict will be with some of the better helping people on here

[H S and Son]

Show us the cached page of this

http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?board=4.0&here=1

that is on Google then Ian.

[Window Washers]

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=site:%2F%2Fcleanitup.co.uk&rlz=1R2ACAW_enGB422&oq=site:%2F%2Fcleanitup.co.uk&aq=f&aqi=g-l1&aql=&gs_nf=1&gs_l=hp.3..0i13.1531.7942.0.8165.22.22.0.0.0.0.170.1921.16j6.22.0.ZkGv64-asAw&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=13f2e33352e10a14&biw=1680&bih=933

2700 plus pages are indexed on google

[H S and Son]

   

Come on you can do better than that    

You do know what a cached page is dont you?

[H S and Son]

Why d'you think Google have this



at the top of that page you posted Ian? Its because Google doesnt crawl this site

[Window Washers]

 

Come on you can do better than that    

You do know what a cached page is dont you?

yes I do Matt, and I know I can 

Just noticing ciu more and more on google of late and thats not a great thing for some