Refreshing Old For Sale Forum Ads

The rules are very clear.  No bumping.  Period.

 

 

Do not attempt to keep your item on page one by "bumping" it to the top.
Threads where "bumping" has occurred will be deleted.

Hmmm...interesting idea.

 

I'll give it some thought.

I don't think what the OP is asking for is feasible.  If that policy was adopted, the For Sale forum would be filled, literally, with re-posts by sellers whose items did not sell on the first day of posting, and they would continue to repost day after day until their item sold.  How would a potential buyer ever find anything newly posted--he'd be clicking past all of the reposts of items he'd already decided not to buy.

 I would tend to agree it would be used and abused daily by some.

Once every week, two weeks, or once a month would fit the bill better Id think.

 

 

 

Not a good answer. Simply means recreating the entire ad and leaving the old one in the dust is an alternate option.

I hadn't considered that, since I'm really only thinking about this logistically and not really with any angles or ulterior motives. A limiting factor does make sense to prevent the usual abusers. Either in the number of times an ad can be "refreshed" or in the time frequency. For me personally I practice this "refresh" strategy on weeks old ads, not every day.

My 2 cents worth would be to allow a weekly bump or a bump every other week.  Otherwise, if the ad were to be recreated time and time again on the daily allotment basis and someone were to search ads they might encounter dozens of the same ads - could be very confusing and a waste of server space.  Also limit the total number of bumps to say 4, 5 or 6 then require that a new ad be created.

 

Best,

Dave

I think the week, two week or something similar. I don't sell very often but happen to have a item on the FS currently. I was going to wait at least a week before doing the bump thing. To me the item went through the first page very quickly.

 

HOWEVER... the fact that I can see how many times it was looked at leads me to believe I am the one that needs to adjust price, or forget about selling it all together.

 

Just a thought.

 

Larry

I have had both scenarios happen to me.  The first time I sold some things here I admit I didn't read the rules, I just followed the examples I had seen from others.  After a period of time with no interest on the remaining items I posted something along the lines of "any interest?"  I didn't realize I was committing a rules infraction at the time.  Any way I think it stayed there and i never heard any feedback on that post. 

 

Towards the end of last year I did something similar and the bump post was deleted, which was when I became more aware of the rules. 

 

Anyway, I can understand a little confusion on OP's part.

I don't agree with the bump without any change in the terms of the posted sales listing for only to bring the original post to present day.  Changes in price, multiple discounts, shipping are IMO qualities that would justify a "refreshed bump".

 

There are plenty of reasons that a sale posts ages without a completed sale: price too high, item not in demand, other for sales posts being "effectively bumped" by conversational posts that are better suited for direct email than the for sale thread.  I do believe that a buyer's thank you or great service/packing reply is worthy of the "effective bump" because it informs others that the seller performed well and if the entire lot is sold that thread will eventually be deleted w/ no harm or foul to others with the short-term "thank you bump".

 

If you want to split hairs on the "technical wording" of the for sales rules, I guess you could post the same item each day until the item either sold or you got tired of doing such a practice.  IMO such action is an abuse of the "spirit" of the rule and that the moderator(s) has every right to delete those posts since this is their sandbox.

Some of the For Sale post are added to, prices cut, and become so cluttered I no longer know what is still available, so just ignore them.

Being involved in other Forum that allow their members to sell their items, they all allow bumps from once every 72 hours to once every 7 days. They have lot more participants selling and lots more items for sale then I see here, with never a problem of bumping an ad.

 

josef: i wanted to contact you off-the-forum as to who the "other forum" was with the buy sell....but theres nothing in your profile to email to.-jim

       

a general interest question

 

who is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the site

 

and, how much time does it take

 

enjoy the forum a lot

 

j

And while we're at it.........I thought that replying to any ad with "email sent" or

"give us pictures" or "you forgot the price" or "you can't put an ad in twice in the same

day" on the forum, was forbidden.  These only serve to clutter the sale thread, or bump it to the top of the forum.  Particularly the term "email sent" in reply to an ad is

a regular occurrence. What is the verdict on these practices?

And here's where it gets so complicated that OGR re-thinks whether it's worth the trouble.....

 

(I have no issue with what Nick is asking, but no matter how the rules are written, somebody will end up pressing the limit of the legalese and abuse the free service)

 

I had an old York Sale post a year or so ago that I brought back from the dead when the next York rolled around just to keep from having to re-post the pictures and text for remaining items (similar to Nick's idea, but spread out by more time).

 

As it is, we have people who put up a post, then of there are no bites, delete the old one and re post the exact same thing with maybe a dollar or 2 off the prices.  Since there is no "hard evidence" of the original post, they don't need to follow the 24 hour rule either to get away with this.  (while not likely within the intent of the rules, at least this practice doesn't result in massive duplicate posts for the same items as some have described could happen above)

 

Since this forum was not designed to treat For Sale any different than normal postings, we will just have to all agree to try to follow the rules as best we can......

 

-Dave

Well you can NOT delete your own thread...

How many times shall we beat this dead horse?

I realize that all the rule violations in the For Sale forum are all life altering events for us members.... but really... who cares! Your stuff sells or it don't.

Email sent!

Yes, you can delete your own post, if there are no replies to it. Once the first reply is posted, the OP can no longer delete the thread.

Well in that case.... let the games begin lol

I've totally done it before where you delete your own ad with no replies and just repost, but only with the intent of avoiding a duplicate post or a bump. Again, this is only on weeks / months old ads, not every day.

 

I think everyone here has done a pretty good job fleshing out the pros and cons of the practice. Like everything else it's a good idea among honorable posters, but will need some limiting parameters to keep the abusers away.