Why are classifieds even offered for free?

[Seeed]

"Starting Monday, the free Classifieds ad limit will be lowered from 3 to 2 active ads."

I personally feel there shouldn't be ANY classified ads for free. Support the site, even if it's temporary to sell your stuff.

 

[ton809]

I agree, I’ve noticed some accounts even post ads and never log back in, or never even reply,
Want to post then you should pay for the privilege

 

[nescott24]

I’m really enjoying this site.

A donation goes a long way for these guys. I have found many firearms on here that I added to the collection. Fortunately the people I have meet, have been beyond cool.

Will continue to support!

 

[Hindsight]

"Starting Monday, the free Classifieds ad limit will be lowered from 3 to 2 active ads."

I personally feel there shouldn't be ANY classified ads for free. Support the site, even if it's temporary to sell your stuff.

Probably because people aren’t as likely to stick around, become a contributing member of the community in terms of discussion, or sell a lot of things if they don’t get to sample the experience in some way.

I’d say 1 slot would be fine for non-paying members, but it’s obviously not my call.

Once I saw how well designed and curated the experience on here is versus calguns it’s was a no brainer and easy math to do on paying a very small fee to reach a wider and more targeted audience, good feedback system, easily searchable, highly transparent ad requirements, etc.

I may or may not have stuck around or sold more stuff if not for the ability to trial it for free.

 

[Plenty_Pack_556]

That's a good way to alienate members. Calguns network is picking back up, people/classified/private party will head back.

 

[MattB]

"Starting Monday, the free Classifieds ad limit will be lowered from 3 to 2 active ads."

I personally feel there shouldn't be ANY classified ads for free. Support the site, even if it's temporary to sell your stuff.

I wish I had more hands so I could give this post four thumbs down.

 

[Plenty_Pack_556]

How about not advertise Armslist (subcription based site) on here for starters might help if anything, but I guess they are paid advertisers here so it cancels each other out?

 

[ikeo1]

How about not advertise Armslist (subcription based site) on here for starters might help if anything, but I guess they are paid advertisers here so it cancels each other out?

Yes, they are paid to help pay for people who do things here. For me it's not about alienating, like i said when I lost my job I wanted a site i could go to and Calguns wasn't working properly and a lot of folks were 's so went to reddit where my fellow autists were and wanted to have something free.

I am a bit surprised at how many people make deals and save all kinds of $$ but don't donate back to the site. That's ok, but as the site grows I have to reign things in. It's ironic that people will tell you not to make money so they can make money or get deals at your expense. My original concept was to keep things fair and make enough to support myself and family, health insurance that sort of thing you know. If this doesn't work out in the long run, and more people take than balance out, it would've been a fun project. I think you can see how that was run at the other site as a side gig. I opted to try and make this my main gig while building from the ground up.

We got some solid folks and I'm really glad to see that, but I'm realizing a few things in this industry and adjusting accordingly. If people leave and want to go back to Calguns, I wish them the best. There's a lot of other things I can do too. The whole point is to continue development and growth.

 

[ikeo1]

"Starting Monday, the free Classifieds ad limit will be lowered from 3 to 2 active ads."

I personally feel there shouldn't be ANY classified ads for free. Support the site, even if it's temporary to sell your stuff.

I think freemium is the appropriate model for this niche. It's kind of interesting though the people that don't want to be charged are the same ones that complain about immigrants using up resources though. I think it's good for people to try and support the site if they want. I don't think I put too much emphasis on upgrades, but moving in that direction now that the stats are showing that people get a lot of value from the site.

Now that merch is coming out, etc. there will be ways where this can be sustaining and I won't need to work multiple jobs to make a living.

This site is bigger than a hobby site and over engineered for sure.

 

[Seeed]

I wish I had more hands so I could give this post four thumbs down.

Instead of hand waving why not explain why? You've got 2 classified and some feedback. My guess is you like the free platform to do what you gotta do.

 

[ikeo1]

Instead of hand waving why not explain why? You've got 2 classified and some feedback. My guess is you like the free platform to do what you gotta do.

People are conditioned to like free better than paid, but at the same time don't value what doesn't have a price. It's a bit of a catch 22, but I think we'll settle here for now. I mainly want to give the people who do support the site more services beyond the classifieds. I don't want to gate classifieds because I think people should be able to try the system and join the overall community.

I also tried to price it very low now that we have more people.

$1.65/mo
$3.30/mo
$5/mo

is the majority of what we have. Some of the strong supporters really help out, which I thank very much. There's a few people out there who are very generous and extremely supportive of what we're doing.

 

[Seeed]

People are conditioned to like free better than paid, but at the same time don't value what doesn't have a price. It's a bit of a catch 22, but I think we'll settle here for now. I mainly want to give the people who do support the site more services beyond the classifieds. I don't want to gate classifieds because I think people should be able to try the system and join the overall community.

I also tried to price it very low now that we have more people.

$1.65/mo
$3.30/mo
$5/mo

is the majority of what we have. Some of the strong supporters really help out, which I thank very much. There's a few people out there who are very generous and extremely supportive of what we're doing.

Personally then I would give them 1 active classified, and after 3 "sales", no more free listings... That's enough of a test drive IMO. Give people free and they'll take advantage, and I would bet all the on the posts here, are those that list for free.

 

[ZeroFoxGiven]

That's a good way to alienate members. Calguns network is picking back up, people/classified/private party will head back.

I kid I kid

 

[ikeo1]

Just so people here understand.. even folks like Reno may who has 260K followers on YT and active social doesn't make all that much... What we do here is try to pool together..

https://twitter.com/x/status/2100320946041315534

 

[ZeroFoxGiven]

"Starting Monday, the free Classifieds ad limit will be lowered from 3 to 2 active ads."

I personally feel there shouldn't be ANY classified ads for free. Support the site, even if it's temporary to sell your stuff.

I think this would just about 100% filter out flakes and scammers. I get though why people would be against it.

 

[JRAUS]

I support the site, but I still want ads to be free because the second you start charging for them you are going to lose out on a lot of potential sellers.

 

[Plenty_Pack_556]

Some people don't make money on selling. Hell some give back by selling things cheaper than anyone else on server. Hell, same thing could be said to the people buying at a massive savings/discount could chip in as well.

And I introduced alot of users to this site, which almost every one of them became a contibutor.

 

[ZeroFoxGiven]

Some people don't make money on selling. Hell some give back by selling things cheaper than anyone else on server. Hell, same thing could be said to the people buying at a massive savings/discount could chip in as well.

All valid, if they did like a flat $1.00 to list, how many scammers would that block? Don’t get me wrong, I like free ads, but after I sell a few items I usually do the $20 flat one time donation to the site as way of thanks.

Once my last firearm listed here sells I’ll do another donation. I do not like recurring monthly donations but I can go two days without an ice coffee to give back now and then

 

[ikeo1]

Some people don't make money on selling. Hell some give back by selling things cheaper than anyone else on server. Hell, same thing could be said to the people buying at a massive savings/discount could chip in as well.

When people upgrade, they remove the DM ads and increase the number of saved searches. That's ultimately the point, I think 2 is enough for most people especially since you can list multiple on one listing.

GAFShub also limits you to one per 24 hr but since our search is significantly better, I think 2 is a good number.



Just so everyone knows, we won't be going to a paid only model.

 

[Plenty_Pack_556]

Or just be a smart consumer, wonder how many scammers that would prevent. Putting the scammers on the free users that have never scammed or been scammed is...

Maybe make a sub for the senile and gullible, ftf only.