Trade sellers swamping classified section!
Discussion
Firstly, I have been a member of PH for almost 7 years and have bought and sold a number of vehicles on through the classifieds section.
I have noticed though the increasing amount of large traders advertising with a huge number of adds which simply swamp the classifieds. Yesterday I added a private sale add for a Ford Focus, which naturally was top of the list when first added. By yesterday evening though it was seven pages down after a dealer added dozens of invividual adverts, thereby losing mine well down the list.
I'm sure these traders pay well for the right to advertise on PH, but do feel that the private sellers, such as myself, are being disadvantaged by their swamping of the adds.
Surely there is a way that the classifieds section can be improved to give private sellers a fighting chance to have their adverts seen by anyone with less than an hours of available searching time? Perhaps a completely separate 'trade' and 'private' sales section under each manufacturer/model.
Any thoughts or suggestions from other members, or indeed comments from the PH powers that be?
I have noticed though the increasing amount of large traders advertising with a huge number of adds which simply swamp the classifieds. Yesterday I added a private sale add for a Ford Focus, which naturally was top of the list when first added. By yesterday evening though it was seven pages down after a dealer added dozens of invividual adverts, thereby losing mine well down the list.
I'm sure these traders pay well for the right to advertise on PH, but do feel that the private sellers, such as myself, are being disadvantaged by their swamping of the adds.
Surely there is a way that the classifieds section can be improved to give private sellers a fighting chance to have their adverts seen by anyone with less than an hours of available searching time? Perhaps a completely separate 'trade' and 'private' sales section under each manufacturer/model.
Any thoughts or suggestions from other members, or indeed comments from the PH powers that be?
Dealers are not given any advantage or disadvantage compared to Premium adverts, I'm afraid that the "rate of sink" is simply due to your car being in an incredibly popular category (945 cars means ~30 cars being added per day).
There is a very easy way to filter out the trade or private adverts though, the box at the top of every classified section will allow you to see only the ones you are interested in, like this: http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/list.asp?s=838&am...
The other thing to bear in mind is that a large number of people will be using the search or filter tools to narrow down the list, or changing the sort order, so being at the top of the list is not the be all and end all of selling your car.
Hope this explains, and if you have any more comments or suggestions then I am always happy to listen.
There is a very easy way to filter out the trade or private adverts though, the box at the top of every classified section will allow you to see only the ones you are interested in, like this: http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/list.asp?s=838&am...
The other thing to bear in mind is that a large number of people will be using the search or filter tools to narrow down the list, or changing the sort order, so being at the top of the list is not the be all and end all of selling your car.
Hope this explains, and if you have any more comments or suggestions then I am always happy to listen.
pstruck said:
That's fair enough and yes, I was aware of the filtering option. I guess the comments were more based on my own patern of browsing the adds. Maybe I should make more use of the filtering tools.
We do also have some new tools in the pipeline which should make things a lot easier...Gassing Station | Website Feedback | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff