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The classified section needs to cleaned up better.


Imracin68j

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New Boats:

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When dealerships drop 2019 boats in the classified listings, it clogs it up and things get buried too fast.  JMO.  

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11 minutes ago, Imracin68j said:

When dealerships drop 2019 boats in the classified listings, it clogs it up and things get buried too fast.  JMO.  

I agree with this part. I didn't like seeing all ads from Boulder Boats in the classifieds feed this morning.

Maybe you admins could create a filter that will show only ads by dealerships or owners? Craigslist has a filter that works nicely.

Edited by jaciche
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10 minutes ago, Imracin68j said:

New Boats:

Used Boats:

Parts and accessories:

When dealerships drop 2019 boats in the classified listings, it clogs it up and things get buried too fast.  JMO.  

Or do like craigslist does and separate By Dealer/By Owner.  That really helps unclutter the CL results

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1. Any Non Supporting member can post their ads for the $5 charge. They get the same exposure as anyone else.

2. All Supporting members get free ads as a perk of their Support. They will also get the same exposure as any other member.

If a dealer wants to Support the site, why would we say, ok, but because you sell boats for a living, we're going to post your ads where they won't be as easily seen by the membership?

If a Non Supporting member wants a change in the site, it's probably not gonna happen unless a majority of Supporting members want it too....then it may have merit.

(This thread was posted in the WRONG FORUM (General) and was moved to the CORRECT FORUM (Feedback).)

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Why would anyone looking for a new boat not look at a new boat section?  That would be a good place to not only list the boats, but post up videos and walk arounds on the new features. That's something you could charge for.  You could probably easily charge $200 for a video feature. There's not even a price on those boats.  It's a click link which has people leaving your page.  

Edited by Imracin68j
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1 hour ago, shawndoggy said:

Well there are plenty of other restrictions on what dealers/vendors can say here (which could be of interest to the membership). Not sure why, as @oldjeep suggests, segregating “by owner” and “by dealer” would be a bad thing. 

Or just get rid of ads with no price. That’s equally irritating. 

The restrictions on what Vendors are allowed to post is about the No Advertising policy. You've been here long enough to recall when dealers would post their complete online catalog here. We could certainly allow advertising and put ads on every page as well as popups on every other click. That's a LOT of money left on the table for us that we have no interest in. We've always felt we need to have the membership protected from censuring content as to not upset advertisers with negative reviews etc. Dealer's can always get their product infront of the membership with the Deal Street forum or Group Buy forum. That's what those forums are there for. Believe me when I tell you that if we allowed ads, all the Admins and Mods would be in Free new boats with all the free accessories we could put on them.

Dealers have always had the option to furnish content, most won't because it turns into a hostile environment for them with perceived issues or problems by members here when the dealer is identified.

Boulder Boats, for whatever reason they have, elects to post ads here on this site. I suppose it must work for them. 99% of the rest of Malibu/Axis dealers won't post ads here because of the regional sales policy they have. The majority of the members viewing the ads aren't in the region that the dealer is selling in so why put ads where they aren't going to be responded to. I would think that Boulder Boats has some success from posting these ads or they would not post them. For the "New" member here, separating the ads into categories inside categories would only confuse the locations they may be looking for. What if they were looking for boats and only went to the Dealer's ads and missed the member's ads? Would that be fair to the members? You would be very surprised how many new members answer threads with posts in the "Support Request" area to the Admins instead of the forum they are reading. I see these constantly where they just don't know how to navigate a forum like this. I get an email generated for every Support Request, then I have to go to the Admin Control Panel (different website) to view what they are reporting. I can't respond to the user from there so I need to go back and find the user, if they furnished their user name, and PM them to answer the question or direct them to the correct place to post. Most of the time, they have no idea how to find their PM to even see that they have one in return. With ads in categories like you are mentioning, IMO, it's just more confusing to some members and easily scrolled past if you're not interested in them. Not every ad is going to interest you, should we delete all ads that don't interest you? When I look at boat ads, most times the dealer is not identified. If they are most times it just says "Dealer" or the like. You can certainly see that a Dealer has posted an ad here if their User name reflects their business like Boulder Boats includes in their posts. Just scroll post anything with their name in it if you don't want to see that ad.

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15 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

With ads in categories like you are mentioning, IMO, it's just more confusing to some members and easily scrolled past. Not every ad is going to interest you, should we delete all ads that don't interest you?

I understand your argument.  Yet I (and millions of others) manage to navigate craigslist, which employs this exact seller-id filter (dealer or owner).  I think you're selling our members short in their ability to know what "owner listed" and "dealer listed" boats and products are.   (or trying to make it the easiest for the least sophisticated).  When selling my boat, heck yeah I would like my ad to not be drowned in a sea of boulder boats ads.  The "by owner" ads are the ones people WANT to see, not the dealer ones.

There's zero judgment to be put into such a system by the mods -- rather a mandatory "either or" box that gets checked when the ad is placed (dealer or owner: check one).

If the real concern is potential member confusion, is it "less confusing" for members to have to scroll through ad after ad of "please call" priced boats being sold by an out-of-territory dealer?  

Edited by shawndoggy
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8 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Not every ad is going to interest you, should we delete all ads that don't interest you?

I am very interested in the 2019's boulder has listed for $0 but unfortunately I don't think they will sell me one at that price.  The dealers should post new boats with MSRP pricing.  At least that would be useful to see what kind of price increases we are seeing in the upcoming models.  Posting something with the wrong price is just false advertising.  

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15 minutes ago, shawndoggy said:

I understand your argument.  Yet I (and millions of others) manage to navigate craigslist, which employs this exact seller-id filter (dealer or owner).  I think you're selling our members short in their ability to know what "owner listed" and "dealer listed" boats and products are.   (or trying to make it the easiest for the least sophisticated).  When selling my boat, heck yeah I would like my ad to not be drowned in a sea of boulder boats ads.  The "by owner" ads are the ones people WANT to see, not the dealer ones.

There's zero judgment to be put into such a system by the mods -- rather a mandatory "either or" box that gets checked when the ad is placed (dealer or owner: check one).

If the real concern is potential member confusion, is it "less confusing" for members to have to scroll through ad after ad of "please call" priced boats being sold by an out-of-territory dealer?  

The rest of my argument is that we want to treat everyone the same on the ads. I understand that you do not want to see those ads. You are a very small number in the general population of this website. There are members that do want those ads or they wouldn't keep posting them.

15 minutes ago, vanamp said:

I am very interested in the 2019's boulder has listed for $0 but unfortunately I don't think they will sell me one at that price.  The dealers should post new boats with MSRP pricing.  At least that would be useful to see what kind of price increases we are seeing in the upcoming models.  Posting something with the wrong price is just false advertising.  

I see you are in a '18 Axis model. You should understand the process having just gone through it. Do you entertain any thoughts about why they don't list the price on a boat as a dealer. How many people do you think would respond if they posted their top price for the boat? How many people would use the lowest price to negotiate with their home dealers if that was a basement price? I think a lot of you are thinking as an individual buying a boat instead of the way a business selling boats is thinking. When I work the boat shows, I am given a price range to respond to the customers asking for a price. The final negotiated price is in that range depending on buying out right, trades etc. There are always things that effect the price finally paid. Maybe dealers ads here should be in a range of costs. Then would you look at their ads? You have a cost to compare with. If they posted MSRP prices, would they even get one call?

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11 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

There are members that do want those ads or they wouldn't keep posting them.

Ronnie, with all due respect there is a difference between advertising as effective for the advertiser and wanting to be advertised to as a consumer.  Your argument suggests that more people than not must like having their mailbox stuffed full of junk mail, or else there wouldn't be junk mail.  Which I'm pretty certain isn't true.  Or that everyone wants political commercials on TV or else we wouldn't have them?  Just because a form of advertising is effective for the advertiser doesn't mean the consumer WANTS it.

My Tivo can skip commercials.  It's not a special feature just for me.

Edited by shawndoggy
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1 hour ago, Ronnie said:

The rest of my argument is that we want to treat everyone the same on the ads. I understand that you do not want to see those ads. You are a very small number in the general population of this website. There are members that do want those ads or they wouldn't keep posting them.

I see you are in a '18 Axis model. You should understand the process having just gone through it. Do you entertain any thoughts about why they don't list the price on a boat as a dealer. How many people do you think would respond if they posted their top price for the boat? How many people would use the lowest price to negotiate with their home dealers if that was a basement price? I think a lot of you are thinking as an individual buying a boat instead of the way a business selling boats is thinking. When I work the boat shows, I am given a price range to respond to the customers asking for a price. The final negotiated price is in that range depending on buying out right, trades etc. There are always things that effect the price finally paid. Maybe dealers ads here should be in a range of costs. Then would you look at their ads? You have a cost to compare with. If they posted MSRP prices, would they even get one call?

If this about treating all post equally I think there would be a complete meltdown if all members started posting all items for $0.  

The dealer ads are different and it would be nice if they were treated differently BUT I also understand that separating these would create more work for the mods and I'm strongly opposed to anything that keeps anyone off the water.  That's why I suggested the MSRP approach because at least that would add some value to the post without out actually changing anything.  I don't think asking that classifieds should be accurate is setting the bar too high. 

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Not that you should model yourself after Facebook, even though they are the smartest social media company on the planet.  It's all about edge rank with them.  Violate the rules and your edge-rank goes lower.  One of the biggest edge-rank killers is posting a website taking the audience off Facebook.  The reason why is because, in their mind, if a business wants to do business, they want them to do it on Facebook, not traffic the audience off Facebook.  Those Links draw people out of malibu crew and in many cases people probably keep surfing elsewhere instead of jamming the back button.  That's a little social media inside information from a marketing guy.  Figure out a way for the companies to create "GOOD" content here on new boats and charge for that.  

BTW: I can help you with your FB page.  74% of the population is on FB and each person spends about 45 min a day there.  I run Bakersfield tuff on FB.  You can check it out.

Edited by Imracin68j
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17 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

I am of the opinion that MSRP is about as misleading as $0. Who buys a boat at  either price. 

It would at least add some value to the post.  It does not take a lot of research to find a range of percentage off MSRP these boats sell for.  It's also not real easy to find MSRP numbers for the latest boats.  I'm sure we have all been curious at some point but don't want to bother our dealers. 

I'm just spitballing ideas here because as it stands now the ads are just spam and they might as well be a paid banner ad on the site.  I'd think someone would have to pay more to for a post that is an advertisement and not an actual post.  Is the classified section really intended to be a place for someone to run there business?

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Paul was never forced to stop posting. He was never asked to leave. He was asked to stop advertising his business just as any other advertiser will be. I'm guessing when he couldn't advertise his parts business, he had no need to be here.

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1 hour ago, Imracin68j said:

Not that you should model yourself after Facebook, even though they are the smartest social media company on the planet.  It's all about edge rank with them.  Violate the rules and your edge-rank goes lower.  One of the biggest edge-rank killers is posting a website taking the audience off Facebook.  The reason why is because, in their mind, if a business wants to do business, they want them to do it on Facebook, not traffic the audience off Facebook.  Those Links draw people out of malibu crew and in many cases people probably keep surfing elsewhere instead of jamming the back button.  That's a little social media inside information from a marketing guy.  Figure out a way for the companies to create "GOOD" content here on new boats and charge for that.  

BTW: I can help you with your FB page.  74% of the population is on FB and each person spends about 45 min a day there.  I run Bakersfield tuff on FB.  You can check it out.

Different animal here. We don't want anyone to run a business here. Even this website isn't a "Business". It's a forum run by and for Malibu/Axis enthusiasts. The Admins/Mods are volunteers and do not get paid. We have Supporting members here that help us with our costs to keep this website online. As stated above. We could have a cash cow here if we allowed advertising, but we don't allow it. 

18 minutes ago, Kojak said:

I'm proud to be in the remaining 26% that doesn't waste 45 minutes a day on that crap site. Gives me more time to waste on TMC looking for new mods to complete or dreaming of a new Malibu. :biggrin:

I'm not sure what he can help with on our FB page. Our FB page is only for messages to our membership when this site is down. You can't even post there. I think he has us confused with the other Malibu enthusiast page on FB. He might reach out to the Admins of that site to help them. Looks like they are doing well though. Maybe just a different enthusiast population than here. Or maybe he's offering help to Malibu's Facebook page. 🤷🏼‍♂️

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48 minutes ago, Bozboat said:

Boulder Boats,  looks like a nice place, cool boats and ads, but for me they are infinitely less helpful than Paul was before he was forced to stop.

preach.  

11 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Paul was never forced to stop posting. He was never asked to leave. He was asked to stop advertising his business just as any other advertiser will be. I'm guessing when he couldn't advertise his parts business, he had no need to be here.

I don't envy the job of a mod and it's easy for us to throw stones from the sidelines while you guys do your best.  But when one of the two online parts houses (the other being skidim.com) wants to take the time to post how to help people fix stuff (and post links to resources they host)... unlike the "I'm a retired stereo guy, but you need to call the dealer I sold the shop to".... it's frustrating for those of us who really appreciated his knowledge, patience, good humor, and, yeah -- links to the parts in question.  

Reasonable minds can differ tho, and a bright line rule is easier to enforce, kinda.  

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I agree with you (sorta). The problem we were having though was the next guy with the latest widget wanted to offer his expertise and parts and was asking why we let one and not him. And it snowballed from there. No advertising gets swept under the rug then.

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I’ll upgrade my membership to crew chief if it means boulder boats stops spamming the crap out of the classifieds. Tmc doesn’t “lose” their $25 a year that way and saves bandwidth to boot. Win-win, see what I did there? Heck, I bet I could find 25 people here that would gladly throw a dollar in the pot based on the responses here so far. If anyone here likes all the B.B. ads, they haven’t spoken up yet.

I thought a requirement of posting an ad was to list a for sale price? Doesn’t putting zero in that field defeat that purpose? 

Edit: is posting a price a currently a requirement? Hard to say for sure as I can’t find a rules section for the classifieds anywhere. 

Edited by Pnwrider
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59 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Paul was never forced to stop posting. He was never asked to leave. He was asked to stop advertising his business just as any other advertiser will be. I'm guessing when he couldn't advertise his parts business, he had no need to be here.

So he could pay $25 to be a supporting member and list his entire parts catalogue in the classifieds with no prices? Isn’t that effectively what boulder boats is doing? 

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