Make marketplace forum even better

[Siddhant654321]

Earlier this year, an algorithmic change was introduced to the marketplace forum. This change ensures the safety of the buyers and quality of the service.

I would like to bring the attention of mods towards a criteria that could make the current marketplace forum even better. However, the downside to this is lower revenue for the forum and we all know that revenue is one of the important metrics for this forum to keep working as the BEST forum on our planet Earth.

Now the approach - change the criteria for Jr. VIP to the following:
- Must be active for more than 6 months on the forum.
- Must have at least 250 messages.
- Must have at least 150 upvotes/reactions

This criteria ensures that anyone with malicious intent cannot become a Jr. VIP and if he wants to post a marketplace thread without going through all this hustle, he will have to pay for the marketplace seller subscription, which is costly for a scammer to buy.

I suspect the following activity will most likely result in a 50% reduction in the forum's revenue and that's why it needs more thinking. I urge the mods to give it a thought, especially introducing an upvotes/reaction metric to ensure only legit sellers get access to thousands of buyers on the forum.

P.S. - Have a great day!

 

[melodicnutrient]

I suspect the following activity will most likely result in a 50% reduction in the forum's revenu

and what is benefit of this?

 

[HerdEmblem]

pay for the marketplace seller subscription, which is costly for a scammer to buy.

recently few marketplace seller did scam here for google ads

now what you suggest raise marketplace seller price to $2k?

the fact is people need open eyes. they dont need to through money. Avoid crypto first time and also avoid big money

start with lower amount and once you have trust then move to bigger

call seller and talk via video chat... why not

there is many things which every buyer need to know before sending money to anyone

 

[Siddhant654321]

and what is benefit of this?

Anyone with malicious intent won't go through so much trouble. Also, he will need a lot of knowledge to provide valuable insights so that he can get upvotes and reactions. Ultimately, this will result in a lot less scammers.

recently few marketplace seller did scam here for google ads

now what you suggest raise marketplace seller price to $2k?

the fact is people need open eyes. they dont need to through money. Avoid crypto first time and also avoid big money

start with lower amount and once you have trust then move to bigger

call seller and talk via video chat... why not

there is many things which every buyer need to know before sending money to anyone

Marketplace seller is already $749 if I reckon. While it's true that someone can pay this price and scam people, it's very unlikely he will take the risk to do that and yes, people should be aware of how to protect themselves but if that was the case, scammers wouldn't exist in the first place. This is just a step that could be considered to reduce the scammers on the forum with malicious intent as $149 and a 100 posts requirement might not be sufficient.

 

[LilMosey]

It won't help. Some people will still deal with the seller off-site, sending them a $1000 deposit and then an additional $500 to top up the account, all via crypto, no background check etc... The greed is what keeps the scams going, along with the lack of due diligence.

 

[AccKing]

Putting up too many barriers will reduce the forum's revenue...I'm not saying it's the priority, but it's certainly something to take into consideration and I don't judge the forum owner for considering the financial aspect before making sudden changes to the rules...in the end, they need money to continue running this forum in a profitable way

 

[Siddhant654321]

Putting up too many barriers will reduce the forum's revenue...I'm not saying it's the priority, but it's certainly something to take into consideration and I don't judge the forum owner for considering the financial aspect before making sudden changes to the rules...in the end, they need money to continue running this forum in a profitable way

Yeah, I already mentioned this in my post. Smooth running of the forum comes first. This is something which requires more attention and consideration and definitely not a short-term decision

 

[Echo]

Many thanks for the suggestion, it looks like you've put some thought into that.

However, the suggestion has its flaws, not only from the business perspective. You'd be surprised to know how many people are actively farming accounts on the forum. There are services out there that do exactly that and we fight against them all the time. There are constant streams of networks of farmed accounts that are being investigated and banned by our Mods.

As for each of the points that you've mentioned, I'd like to point out some things:

- Must be active for more than 6 months on the forum.

That falls under any farm account out there. Also, unrealistic expectation in many cases, and we cannot punish people for taking a break if they need it. The majority of our Jr VIP sellers are honest and hardworking people, but setting an entry-level too high for them to even join is not our goal. 6 months is such a long period that it would discourage people from joining if they can only afford Jr VIP. 2 months is more than enough waiting period.

- Must have at least 250 messages.

When you increase the requirement of the messages that much, the effect this would have on the forum is more spam and lower quality posts coming from new accounts just to reach this magical "250" posts goal. It's definitely not a good idea.

- Must have at least 150 upvotes/reactions

Spend a few days in the lounge, post some funny stuff and watch the reactions pour in. This is not a valid criteria for a membership.

You already mentioned that we introduced the Marketplace algorithm and that helped a lot to improve the Marketplace.

There has been no increase in disputes, and percentage-wise, the disputes are a tiny fraction compared to all of the sales threads and orders that start on our Marketplace.

Asked - Answered - Closed.