Welcome to the Marketplace forum!

[Ed Zotti]

Welcome to the Marketplace forum, where SDMB subscribers may promote commercial and other ventures they're involved in. The following rules apply:

1. Only subscribers can start threads. This includes Members, Charter Members, SDMB staff and members of the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board. Anyone (including guests) can post a reply. Subscribers may edit their own posts (and ONLY their own posts) at any time. Unlimited editing is intended mainly for the benefit of the OP, whose offerings may change; please keep your use of this feature to a minimum.

2. Posts must be relevant to the OP. Don't promote your product or service in a thread started by someone else.

3. Marketplace is intended to provide you with a forum for promoting your own ventures. Don't use it to promote somebody else's business. For example, an affiliate page in which you merely provide links to other commercial sites for a commission is not in the spirit of what we're trying to do here.

4. The person starting the thread may post images that are relevant to the item or service being offered. You may only post pictures if you are the OP (that is, in your own threads). Please use this feature judiciously. We may review this policy later.

5. Members may post links to their Marketplace threads in their signatures.

6. The forum is subject to standard SDMB rules. The following additional rules apply:

- No ads for things that are illegal in the U.S., ethically dubious, or, in our opinion, likely to cause the Straight Dope to come into disrepute. Examples: get-rich-quick schemes, quack cures, products offering impossible benefits.

- No ads for drugs or medical treatments, legal or not.

- No ads for adult services, pornography, or dating/matchmaking services.

7. We reserve the right to remove any ad or to prohibit additional types of ads at any time.

8. Please don't "bump" your own thread more than once (i.e., post solely to move it to the top of the thread display list). We reserve the right to limit the number of Marketplace threads a member may start within a given period of time.

9. To all SDMB users: This is a free service offered to members. We don't vouch for advertisers or what they offer. PARTICIPATE AT YOUR OWN RISK. If a transaction leads to problems, we advise that you make this known privately to the other party in the first instance. Comments about transactions in the seller's Marketplace thread are also permissible. Please keep complaints factual and refrain from personal attacks. We will not adjudicate disputes between members concerning Marketplace transactions; however, see below.

10. To Marketplace advertisers: By advertising in Marketplace you agree to abide by the highest standards of business practices and ethics. If we have reason to think you engage in questionable business practices, we may revoke your right to participate in Marketplace or take other action.

11. This is an experiment and may be discontinued at any time.

[MOIDALIZE]

2nd post!

[Covered_In_Bees!]

This is awesome!

[Northern Piper]

Ed, I like this new forum, but is it possible to move it down the list of forums? For me, GQ and GD are the heart of the SDMB and should be forever twinned in location, location, location!

Maybe not right away, since you want to catch people's attention with a new venture, but at some point?

thanks.

[hajario]

Great idea. Thanks.

[UncleRojelio]

Aw man! Adding another forum bumped "MPSIMS" off my popup menu! Now I have to move my hand and press down with my finger to scroll to it. Curse you Ed Zotti!

No really, please move this to the bottom of the "traditional" Straight Dope forums. Pretty please. Thanks

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Northern Piper and UncleRojelio, that's a good idea. We'll put it down near the bottom of the "main" list. Give us a few minutes - I can't make that kind of global change, so Ed Zotti will have to do it.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Okay, done. It's now between MPSIMS and the Pit.

[Northern Piper]

thanks very much!

[Spoons]

A better place for it than previously. Thanks, folks!

[Little Nemo]

Is this limited to offering things for sale? Or can we start a thread expressing an interest in buying something and asking if anyone has one they're willing to sell?

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

This is both for things you wish to buy and things you wish to sell, so post away!

[Czarcasm]

Are auctions allowed?

[Sunspace]

Hey, cool!

:: starts thinking up hare-brained schemes ::

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

I'm not ignoring you, Czarcasm, I just wanted to run the question around the mod loop before committing to my answer.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Originally Posted by Czarcasm

Are auctions allowed?

Yes, go for it, *IF* the rules of the auction are laid out in the OP and it's crystal clear that we poor underpaid Marketplace moderators have nothing to do with the process. We're not certifying buyers, facilitating payment, enforcing end times, validating bids, performing currency conversions, calculating shipping, or anything else; just providing a place to do it.

[davidm]

I think the answer to this will be no, but I'll ask. I have an online "storefront" that I've run a number of years. It's on my server, my coding, etc. It's basically a place to browse, search, and compare products from a number of different merchants. It's my business, I file a schedule C and all that, but I can see where you might consider it to be promoting other people's businesses. I can also see where you wouldn't want to open the door to affiliate sales in general, but this is more than that. Sort of like a shopping mall where the merchants and products change over time and you can browse and compare.

If you want to check it out I can send the URL in a PM to Ed or whoever is appropriate.

[Ed Zotti]

The rule is intended to prevent some kind-hearted soul from posting a lot of threads on behalf of his buddies who are too cheap to pony up for an SDMB subscription. What you describe sounds different. It's a store, right? I presume you mark up the prices your vendors charge you, you make money, you file a schedule C. If so, this is a perfectly legitimate business and you're welcome to promote it here. If this isn't what you're doing, please clarify so we can better fix on the situation.

[davidm]

I get data feeds from the merchants and show their products, prices, etc. on my website. You can browse and search the various merchants and products all on my website. When you see something that interests you, you click for more info and are then taken to the merchant's website where you place the order with them. I then receive a commission for the sale. I do not mark up the prices.

So it's basically affiliate sales but I'm not sending people directly from here to someone else's website. There's a presentation and some functionality. What I could do is showcase particular items in Marketplace threads and send people to the appropriate page on my store. Of course they'd then be free to buy anything else that interested them while there.

If you have any concerns I can PM the URL to you.

[Ed Zotti]

Without having given it a ton of thought I don't think we have a problem with affiliate sales in principle. You're a middleman, you make commissions, it's a business. Sounds OK to me. If you were repping for a bunch of anvil manufacturers showing the latest in anvil technology I'd be OK with your posting about that, too. Bear in mind that we just started doing this and aren't sure what all the pitfalls are, so tell you what. Email the URL to Gary, Rico, and me. If you don't hear back from anybody by tomorrow morning, go ahead and post. Possibly we may later decide this wasn't such a hot idea and say the post has to come down, but you won't get into trouble, unless of course you're fronting for a gang of Mexican drug dealers or something.

[davidm]

Okay. I know who Gary is, and you of course, so I'll PM it to you two, but who's Rico?

[samclem]

Originally Posted by davidm

Okay. I know who Gary is, and you of course, so I'll PM it to you two, but who's Rico?

Moderator Rico

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php?u=207

[Rico]

Originally Posted by davidm

Okay. I know who Gary is, and you of course, so I'll PM it to you two, but who's Rico?

<mod sigh>

The invisible moderator, that's who.

Also the tallest moderator, now that Giraffe's gone.

</mod sigh>

[Starving Artist]

Is this forum for the promotion of ventures and storefronts only, or also for misc. household items people are looking to get rid of. Just my opinion of course, but I think the forum would be more fun and interesting as a place to check out Doper businesses and their products for sale rather than as a place to put individual household items up for sale, turning the forum into a virtual Craigslist where there are so many individual items clogging the pages of the forum that business ventures get lost.

Perhaps a separate forum (Ow! Ouch! Stop it!) for individual items and this one for businesses?

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Originally Posted by davidm

So it's basically affiliate sales but I'm not sending people directly from here to someone else's website. There's a presentation and some functionality. What I could do is showcase particular items in Marketplace threads and send people to the appropriate page on my store. Of course they'd then be free to buy anything else that interested them while there.

As I explained in the PM I just sent you, davidm, you really don't have any products or services of your own on the site. It appears to be just ads and links for other people's sites, so I'm going to have to say no on this one. Sorry about that.

Originally Posted by Starving Artist

Is this forum for the promotion of ventures and storefronts only, or also for misc. household items people are looking to get rid of.

(snip)

Perhaps a separate forum (Ow! Ouch! Stop it!) for individual items and this one for businesses?

Howsabout if we give this a try with just one forum first ? This is for your products and services, whether it's an old toaster you want to sell, or your own personal toaster megastore.

Originally Posted by Rico

<mod sigh>

The invisible moderator, that's who.

Also the tallest moderator, now that Giraffe's gone.

</mod sigh>

Gee, and I used to be the invisible one

And tallest? Are you taller than 6'5"?

[Starving Artist]

Originally Posted by Gary "Wombat" Robson

Howsabout if we give this a try with just one forum first ? This is for your products and services, whether it's an old toaster you want to sell, or your own personal toaster megastore.

Fair enough. Thanks for the answer.

[Rico]

6' 7" - didn't know you were that tall, Gary.

We'll form the TallMod Club

[Ed Zotti]

Originally Posted by davidm

I get data feeds from the merchants and show their products, prices, etc. on my website. You can browse and search the various merchants and products all on my website. When you see something that interests you, you click for more info and are then taken to the merchant's website where you place the order with them. I then receive a commission for the sale. I do not mark up the prices.

So it's basically affiliate sales but I'm not sending people directly from here to someone else's website. There's a presentation and some functionality. What I could do is showcase particular items in Marketplace threads and send people to the appropriate page on my store. Of course they'd then be free to buy anything else that interested them while there.

To amplify what Gary said: we had some discussion and I had to agree, what an affiliate site does basically is promote somebody else's business, which is not what we're trying to do here. Sorry - I'll put a clarification in the rules.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by Gary "Wombat" Robson

As I explained in the PM I just sent you, davidm, you really don't have any products or services of your own on the site. It appears to be just ads and links for other people's sites, so I'm going to have to say no on this one. Sorry about that.

I understand if you don't want us promoting affiliate products, and if that's the issue then that's that, but just so there's no misunderstanding, when you click on the merchant links on that first page, you don't go directly to other's sites you go to pages on my site showing merchandise.

You can search and browse that merchandise all on my website. It's only when you're interested in a particular product that you end up on another site. Yes. there are also banners but they're not the main focus. Any links I post here would not be to that opening page, they would be to pages of products.

[davidm]

Just saw Ed's post. I guess that's the final word then. No biggee, thanks for looking.

[Little Nemo]

I'm definitely putting my money on Marketplace to win this year's interforum basketball tourney.

[Northern Piper]

Originally Posted by Gary "Wombat" Robson

We're not ... enforcing end times...

Good thing - I think the Archangel Gabriel has a monopoly on that function.