BHW marketplace 2.0 - thoughts.

[Diamond Damien]

Your counter arguments on Sherb's point of view are valid based on info provided. But you didn't reply to the following.

''Fix your current issues (blatant fake review spam, site downtime, nightly spam threads where fixes have been proposed and ignored, attrition of high-value members leaving the forum, etc), THEN talk about shiny new objects.''

Which i totally agree, just browse through the comments in marketplace and you will see ''order 10 Transaction ID XXXX'' ''this is my 3rd order'' from users that have 10 posts and comments only on BST.

Imagine having a house that water enters from the roof and you are planning to build your second pool in your backyard instead of trying to fix your roof.

Also BHW should be doing regular checks on the quality of the products offered (i would pay an extra 5% for that instead of losing my value). In addition, something has to be done with the review copies on members (i am not saying they should not being allowed but there should be a way to be monitored and a heavy banhammer if someone fakes reviews-buyer or seller-)

Then again i am nothing here but a simple member, so yeah If something is planned for the current marketplace i wasn't aware off, feel free to ignore my message.

Thanks and fair catch - this is exactly the sort of thing we're looking to deal with.

''order 10 Transaction ID XXXX'' ''this is my 3rd order'' from users that have 10 posts and comments only on BST.

Each order would be verified from a payment on the backend so users would know which is real and which is spam.

Re the other points.

''Fix your current issues (blatant fake review spam, site downtime, nightly spam threads where fixes have been proposed and ignored, attrition of high-value members leaving the forum, etc), THEN talk about shiny new objects.''

"Blatant fake review spam" - something we're aware of and shut down frequently but equally often these are real buyers when we dig into the transaction history of sellers that would otherwise be banned.
"Site downtime" - 30 day rolling we're currently on 99.37% working on 100% ref https://share.pingdom.com/banners/8e3f5cfc
"nightly spam threads where fixes have been proposed and ignored" - those fixes, unfortunately, didn't work hit the report button we're working on it. We catch a lot of spam, some get's through which is true of any platform from us to Facebook.
"Attrition of high-value members" People move on and come back and go about their days. It's a thing true of all forums, we have many threads about member engagement and what should happen. We're always honoured that you all spend the time you do on our little piece of the internet.

As mentioned previously, we do run checks on marketplace sellers services currently as incognito secret shoppers we're always happy when we find no problems, where we do we work with the sellers to improve the issues at hand. We're as invested in making sure buyers and sellers on the marketplace are as happy as they can be.

PS our roof is tight.

 

[Diamond Damien]

My understanding was that the current sellers in the current marketplace are already on BHW and engaging its users. Sellers are already paying yearly for their BSTs to remain active as well as JR VIP memberships, yet not all of the rules laid out for the marketplace are being enforced. With this last comment, it almost sounds like the current state of the regular marketplace is going to become even worse, with all the moderation and support of the staff going to the new marketplace instead.

You also mention providing us leads in return for a cut of the sales made on the second marketplace. Unless I missed it, this was not initially mentioned elsewhere. How exactly will you be generating leads for the sellers on the second marketplace, that is not already being done on the current marketplace (traffic to the forum)?

No - once again to clarify we're not changing anything on the current marketplace.

I'm probably not making myself very clear here. In the new marketplace, we'd offer an affiliate program for any sales made through the marketplace. This would be available to sellers whereby they could agree to pay any BHW member x%, that would come out of the BHW % thereby enabling the entire BHW membership to (potentially) become affiliate driving traffic to your BHW 2.0 marketplace sales thread.

It's an idea - maybe a good one, maybe not? But that's why we're here.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

None of the moderators I know are talented writers.

I'm butt hurt.

but as the marketplace grew the staffing to handle did not.

That is not accurate. You don't see what goes on in the BST Approval subforum.

I've not commented in this thread as it has gone three ways sideways with a lot of commentary not germane to the topic and I've deferred to @Diamond Damien as he is quite active here but I'm fine with making the above comments.

@Blain Cooper, if you have one of those butt hurt reports you see floating around the internet please PM me three copies so I can fill them out and get them notarized by the girl in the office.

 

[Diamond Damien]

Thanks for the response. By "increase annually" my wording was meant to be "increase in the annual fee". Sorry if I mis-wrote there. As for me not running any services on the Marketplace, I think we are both well aware as to why I have not done so in the past year and a half. With the way things are structured as you have mentioned, I believe the major burden of additional costs fall on the buyers, not the sellers anyway. Except...

The concern for the sellers, which hasn't been touched on at all in this thread yet, is that they are going to need to provide a review of the full top level of their service with this new structure every month. If I'm offering an SEO service for $1,500 at the highest end that costs me $1,200 to do, I'm looking at another $1,200 every month out of my pocket to ensure that my sales thread stays on the up and up. Say that the highest level is rarely purchased and my revenues are $15,000 a month. With $12,000 in costs, I'm making $3,000 a month profits, $1,200 of which has to go to you just to re-review. What if the service I offer takes 45 days to complete? How will you review every 30 days?

What I'm seeing as a bottom line based on all of these pages of responses is:

• Buyers pay more for security that should be present on this platform anyway, but as the marketplace grew the staffing to handle did not.
• Sellers lose out on revenues having their services re-reviewed, and also have less buyers as the pool of buyers at a 30% inflation in pricing is going to shrink.
• Staff members, if not properly and additionally staffed, will have an additional burden of monthly reviews, which sucks especially for those unpaid and exhausted mods.
• New members will be hella confused with two different tiers of marketplace running concurrently on a site where there are outstanding issues that went unaddressed in your response.

At the end of the day, there might be a few sellers who benefit. There might be a few buyers who can pay an additional 30% to avoid being scammed and walk away happy. But the only person who will truly benefit from this Marketplace 2.0 are those who have an equity stake in Blackhatworld, which is what, you and Greg?

As I stated in my response, my bottom line constructive feedback, which seems to be echoed in 80% of the responses thus far to this: Fix your current issues (blatant fake review spam, site downtime, nightly spam threads where fixes have been proposed and ignored, attrition of high-value members leaving the forum, etc), THEN talk about shiny new objects.

I'll bow out of this thread now. Plenty of work to do. Thanks for hearing me out. Hopefully you can see things from my point of view. As I've mentioned over and over again in these long tirades, I want what is best for the community. And even though it's optional now, it's pretty obvious that two marketplaces won't be able to run simultaneously for long before we are grandfathered into this new format.

I think we're all on the same page re Jr. VIP I think we've cleared that up. For those who didn't catch it it's a one time increase to $147 per year. All current Jr. VIP's will be able to maintain their Jr. VIP status.

Re the sellers - these re-reviews will be paid for out of our 20-30%. As we currently do, once we've reviewed for the first time we're not going to ask a seller to pay for us to re-review on a monthly basis for free. BHW pays for that out of our fees, the change is the frequency of review. If a service take 45 days to complete then we'd review every 90 for example, it's not a foolproof system but it's a start.

To your bottom line point.
It's an additional layer of security, the team has grown with the growth of the forum.
Nope I've covered that above. The re-reviews are paid for from the revenue generated from the 20-30%.
Nope - again covered above this is taken care of with the 20-30%
These issues were addressed above https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/bhw-marketplace-2-0-thoughts.1106901/page-6#post-11922133

Look you understand running a business isn't about the money you get in, it's not 100% profit we're working to build a better marketplace and we're looking at ideas and opportunities for the entire BHW membership, is there a benefit to the owners of BHW - sure, but with what we're trying to build there should be a benefit to all BHW members through affiliate payments from services they promote.

I'm interested in all points of view and I'm sure this thread will continue to grow. I'd see no issue with running multiple marketplaces on different terms as long as it was beneficial to all parties.

 

[virtualpurity]

No - once again to clarify we're not changing anything on the current marketplace.

I'm probably not making myself very clear here. In the new marketplace, we'd offer an affiliate program for any sales made through the marketplace. This would be available to sellers whereby they could agree to pay any BHW member x%, that would come out of the BHW % thereby enabling the entire BHW membership to (potentially) become affiliate driving traffic to your BHW 2.0 marketplace sales thread.

It's an idea - maybe a good one, maybe not? But that's why we're here.

If you are planning an affiliate model than why not make it members share based as well - giving access to each BHW member (affiliate tracking link maybe) to be able to drive traffic to the new Marketplace 2.0 and earn % of any sales through his channel, whatever that might be.

So that way sellers pay 30% more - BHW can get 20% and normal users can get 10% ( if sell comes through a member channel / link etc ).

That would motivate the normal users on this forum - also will give them an oportunity to sell / ressel quality services from the 2.0 Marketplace and also would drive a huge load of additional traffic from all BHW members that want to earn, giving the sellers more worth for their additional 30%.

Just a thought.

 

[nonai]

Look you understand running a business isn't about the money you get in, it's not 100% profit we're working to build a better marketplace and we're looking at ideas and opportunities for the entire BHW membership, is there a benefit to the owners of BHW - sure, but with what we're trying to build there should be a benefit to all BHW members through affiliate payments from services they promote.

So you're copying warrior forum.

 

[Diamond Damien]

If you are planning an affiliate model than why not make it members share based as well - giving access to each BHW member (affiliate tracking link maybe) to be able to drive traffic to the new Marketplace 2.0 and earn % of any sales through his channel, whatever that might be.

So that way sellers pay 30% more - BHW can get 20% and normal users can get 10% ( if sell comes through a member channel / link etc ).

That would motivate the normal users on this forum - also will give them an oportunity to sell / ressel quality services from the 2.0 Marketplace and also would drive a huge load of additional traffic from all BHW members that want to earn, giving the sellers more worth for their additional 30%.

Just a thought.

Exactly - That's the plan, but put much more succinctly than I did.

 

[Diamond Damien]

So you're copying warrior forum.

God no - I've not been there in years. Are they providing revenue share/affiliate benefits to all their members and lead gen opportunities to their sellers. Hell Matt really shook things up there. ?

 

[rafark]

I'd love to see a separate rating/reviews system on every BST thread, a system that allows buyers to leave reviews on a dedicated tab under the thread, and that can easily be accessed by anyone interested in reading reviews instead of the actual system where you have to navigate through pages and pages to find reviews, something like this:

 

[virtualpurity]

Exactly - That's the plan, but put much more succinctly than I did.

If thats the case - sign me up

Def a unique idea for a brilliant marketing forum - this would be a whole new level for bhw and would open new doors for its memebrs.

 

[Lukmat]

If there will be an affiliate program. Then cool!
I agree. BHW traffic itself isn't worth 30% but if we can get leads from other users, then awesome. Only as optional, we don't know the value.

 

[TerryPrince]

So this new business model will run/sell your products via BHW Marketing plugin/system?

Moderators/Super Moderator will keep on checking the quality of the products being sold on this forum?

Is that so paying 30% to the forum's management shouldn't be an issue.

Maintaining the quality of product and keeping the tabs with customers would be great for business with BHW staff involved.

Just a quick request, Don't let scammers take over this marketplace there are markets filled with such people and BHW is exceptional and I would & all of us would love to see it as it is!

Good luck with your plans!

 

[rafark]

You got views from sellers. It's ok, if seller have some $19 product but what will keep seller on BHW, if he have $1000 product and each sale you want 30%? For what?
This cash is enough to build SEO and not sell on BHW.

The most worry is that new marketplace will just steal traffic from regular marketplace and users will ask "why the hell your BST is not in new marketplace?"

I can pay even $500/year for Jr.VIP

 

[nonai]

God no - I've not been there in years. Are they providing revenue share/affiliate benefits to all their members and lead gen opportunities to their sellers. Hell Matt really shook things up there. ?

I don't go there much but I think you should, they have a great marketplace that does exactly what you're saying with the affiliate program, no spam and the membership doesn't seem in perpetual revolt with the owners.

I've read all 6 pages, you only just now are mentioning the affiliate thing. Did you just add this to make it appeal more to members? You seem hellbent on giving away money that should be going to the seller.

Very interesting way to try and sell this 30% fee, very socialist. It's not working for the democrats and it won't work for you Mr Damien.

Nonai, out!

 

[Diamond Damien]

I'd love to see a separate rating/reviews system on every BST thread, a system that allows buyers to leave reviews on a dedicated tab under the thread, and that can easily be accessed by anyone interested in reading reviews instead of the actual system where you have to navigate through pages and pages to find reviews, something like this:

View attachment 114225

Then you're going to be a very happy dude fairly soon - before Marketplace 2.0

 

[Diamond Damien]

I don't go there much but I think you should, they have a great marketplace that does exactly what you're saying with the affiliate program, no spam and the membership doesn't seem in perpetual revolt with the owners.

I've read all 6 pages, you only just now are mentioning the affiliate thing. Did you just add this to make it appeal more to members? You seem hellbent on giving away money that should be going to the seller.

Very interesting way to try and sell this 30% fee, very socialist. It's not working for the democrats and it won't work for you Mr Damien.

Nonai, out!

I think I made it very clear from the start this is a discussion thread. Thoughts around the new marketplace. I'm also fairly sure I've covered this but it's a 2 tier marketplace if you don't want to be part of it we're not going to force you and you can maintain the current system.

For clarity it's listed in my OP under

will provide additional sources of leads and revenue to those with a 2.0 marketplace seller account and affiliate deals for all forum members baked into your BHW account.

But put far more effectively and succinctly by @virtualpurity here

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/bhw-marketplace-2-0-thoughts.1106901/page-6#post-11922185

Let's not go into politics we're based in the UK and the cluster fuck that is Brexit has been most revealing. - self infraction Political discussions.

 

[rafark]

Then you're going to be a very happy dude fairly soon - before Marketplace 2.0

Awesome, looking forward to it! Would be great if you could have a "top rated" page (perhaps under each marketplace forum) where you show the threads with the best ratings, something like this: https://themeforest.net/popular_item/by_category?category=wordpress

 

[Aty]

"nightly spam threads where fixes have been proposed and ignored" - those fixes, unfortunately, didn't work hit the report button we're working on it. We catch a lot of spam, some get's through which is true of any platform from us to Facebook.

I'm pretty sure you can handle this so much better, I just don't know why you refuse to implement a solution.
Here's one that came to my mind in less than 10 seconds, one that has probably been mentioned before: limit the number of threads that one can start to 1 every hour (especially for newbies). Let's be honest, how many of us need to start a second thread in less than one hour? The ones that do need, probably have some patience issues, because no matter how important, you can wait one hour to start another thread.

 

[Lukmat]

I think we should delete all forums and leave only marketplace

 

[Makemeproguys]

Drop the fee to 15%..
A fantastic idea.. make bhw marketplace a little advance like fiverr or Upwork..