Classifieds - Getting worthless

[LivinLaVidaLotus]

Is it just me or are the classifieds starting to become worthless? Every time I go in there, I can pretty much guarantee that the first page of cars will have 3 or 4 if not more that are already sold and have been sold for a long time - but listed up there with a price like a newly listed car. Either the title or the body will say, "Already Sold". Starting to get really annoying now.

[Austin.J]

It's all them adds offering to buy your car/buying all xxxx that's getting to me, I'm searching for a banger to run in to the ground & I'm having to skip a few pages 1st. Whilst this is a tiny thing & I'm not that bothered, still a bit annoying.

[LivinLaVidaLotus]

Yup, they are just as bad. All the wanted ads (which is what all these sold ones are, "We've sold this one, we want to buy yours like it to sell as well") should be moved in to a separate section. If I'm looking to buy a car, I don't give a damn if you're also looking to buy the same type of car for your stock - you're just wasting my time and in fact making it less likely I'd buy from you if you had the right car.

[ArtVandelay]

A little O.T here but the kitcar classifieds could do with sorting out a bit. Other Marques could do with being split up into replicas and standard kitcars. There are pages and pages of replicas and you've got to look fairly carefully to find a decent car in there.

Just a suggestion

[RacingPete]

All points taken note of... keep them coming as we are very keen to hear them.

Obviously we are not happy to hear that the classifieds are becoming pointless and thus we want to make sure we can solve that. What sections of the site are you looking at? Are these dealer or private classifieds, or both? Are they marked as sold, or just sold in the text?

All this information gives us ammunition to nuke certain adverts from the site and stop sellers if they are abusing the system, so fire away.

[RacingPete]

ArtVandelay said:

A little O.T here but the kitcar classifieds could do with sorting out a bit. Other Marques could do with being split up into replicas and standard kitcars. There are pages and pages of replicas and you've got to look fairly carefully to find a decent car in there.

Just a suggestion

I will get the classified administrator to have a look at this section and see what we can do.

[ArtVandelay]

RacingPete said:

ArtVandelay said:

A little O.T here but the kitcar classifieds could do with sorting out a bit. Other Marques could do with being split up into replicas and standard kitcars. There are pages and pages of replicas and you've got to look fairly carefully to find a decent car in there.

Just a suggestion

I will get the classified administrator to have a look at this section and see what we can do.

Cheers Pete

[LivinLaVidaLotus]

RacingPete said:

All points taken note of... keep them coming as we are very keen to hear them.

Obviously we are not happy to hear that the classifieds are becoming pointless and thus we want to make sure we can solve that. What sections of the site are you looking at? Are these dealer or private classifieds, or both? Are they marked as sold, or just sold in the text?

All this information gives us ammunition to nuke certain adverts from the site and stop sellers if they are abusing the system, so fire away.

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/list.asp?s=854 - 3 of the top 4 on there are sold. Another (the red one) is sold as well (even though it says deposit taken, marked as sold at the dealer), then there's a "more like these" wanted as well - and one properly marked as sold (which I have no issue with, easy to spot).

[Toyless]

LivinLaVidaLotus said:

Is it just me or are the classifieds starting to become worthless? Every time I go in there, I can pretty much guarantee that the first page of cars will have 3 or 4 if not more that are already sold and have been sold for a long time - but listed up there with a price like a newly listed car. Either the title or the body will say, "Already Sold". Starting to get really annoying now.

I cannot believe it is that hard to set up a sold filter, I really cant.
Ive been moaning about this for months.

[RacingPete]

Toyless said:

LivinLaVidaLotus said:

Is it just me or are the classifieds starting to become worthless? Every time I go in there, I can pretty much guarantee that the first page of cars will have 3 or 4 if not more that are already sold and have been sold for a long time - but listed up there with a price like a newly listed car. Either the title or the body will say, "Already Sold". Starting to get really annoying now.

I cannot believe it is that hard to set up a sold filter, I really cant.
Ive been moaning about this for months.

It isn't a sold status though, it is the dealer writing in the advert that the car is sold. Thus there is no flag on the system that can differentiate the advert unless we start looking through the description of the adverts (which is a big performance issue).

[LivinLaVidaLotus]

RacingPete said:

Toyless said:

LivinLaVidaLotus said:

Is it just me or are the classifieds starting to become worthless? Every time I go in there, I can pretty much guarantee that the first page of cars will have 3 or 4 if not more that are already sold and have been sold for a long time - but listed up there with a price like a newly listed car. Either the title or the body will say, "Already Sold". Starting to get really annoying now.

I cannot believe it is that hard to set up a sold filter, I really cant.
Ive been moaning about this for months.

It isn't a sold status though, it is the dealer writing in the advert that the car is sold. Thus there is no flag on the system that can differentiate the advert unless we start looking through the description of the adverts (which is a big performance issue).

Yup, that's the problem. If it's a sold status when you're quickly scanning through you can spot that before you click through to an advert. It's when you click through, read an ad then realise as you get to the bottom that it's already sold or a wanted advert.

[Famous Graham]

RacingPete said:

Toyless said:

LivinLaVidaLotus said:

Is it just me or are the classifieds starting to become worthless? Every time I go in there, I can pretty much guarantee that the first page of cars will have 3 or 4 if not more that are already sold and have been sold for a long time - but listed up there with a price like a newly listed car. Either the title or the body will say, "Already Sold". Starting to get really annoying now.

I cannot believe it is that hard to set up a sold filter, I really cant.
Ive been moaning about this for months.

It isn't a sold status though, it is the dealer writing in the advert that the car is sold. Thus there is no flag on the system that can differentiate the advert unless we start looking through the description of the adverts (which is a big performance issue).

The only way around that is to penalise dealers for doing that. Ie, encourage them to use the status.

[pits]

I find the premium adverts slightly irritating, arrange by price, then find out there is more normal adverts 2 pages on, by which time you have already got out of your price range, as you think you have seen all the ones in your price range.

Would be nice aswell if there was a filter where you could search for a max price and by date added, sometimes you find cars that are real bargains, then find out they have been listed for more than 15 days and probably sold.

Look on the bright side though, it isn't the ghastly Autotrader search page

[Mr Will]

pits said:

I find the premium adverts slightly irritating, arrange by price, then find out there is more normal adverts 2 pages on, by which time you have already got out of your price range, as you think you have seen all the ones in your price range.

Would be nice aswell if there was a filter where you could search for a max price and by date added, sometimes you find cars that are real bargains, then find out they have been listed for more than 15 days and probably sold.

Look on the bright side though, it isn't the ghastly Autotrader search page

The "Filter" tab at the top of each category will help with the problems you are having, it lets you show only the cars which fit your search criteria. This means you can put in a price range and not have to scroll past the cars you aren't interested in to get to the standard adverts.

If you want to specify a maximum age for the adverts, then you'll need to use the advanced search, but this will let you show only adverts less than 1/3/7/14 days old, as well as specifying a price range, specific model, etc.

[pits]

Mr Will said:

pits said:

I find the premium adverts slightly irritating, arrange by price, then find out there is more normal adverts 2 pages on, by which time you have already got out of your price range, as you think you have seen all the ones in your price range.

Would be nice aswell if there was a filter where you could search for a max price and by date added, sometimes you find cars that are real bargains, then find out they have been listed for more than 15 days and probably sold.

Look on the bright side though, it isn't the ghastly Autotrader search page

The "Filter" tab at the top of each category will help with the problems you are having, it lets you show only the cars which fit your search criteria. This means you can put in a price range and not have to scroll past the cars you aren't interested in to get to the standard adverts.

If you want to specify a maximum age for the adverts, then you'll need to use the advanced search, but this will let you show only adverts less than 1/3/7/14 days old, as well as specifying a price range, specific model, etc.

Yes, I know that what I am saying is you put in the criteria, lowest-highest then you get to say £4000 and think, "right that is out of my budget now" yet you haven't even got out of the premium adverts, and don't even realise that there is more standard adverts passed the premium ones.

[BriC175]

pits said:

Mr Will said:

pits said:

I find the premium adverts slightly irritating, arrange by price, then find out there is more normal adverts 2 pages on, by which time you have already got out of your price range, as you think you have seen all the ones in your price range.

Would be nice aswell if there was a filter where you could search for a max price and by date added, sometimes you find cars that are real bargains, then find out they have been listed for more than 15 days and probably sold.

Look on the bright side though, it isn't the ghastly Autotrader search page

The "Filter" tab at the top of each category will help with the problems you are having, it lets you show only the cars which fit your search criteria. This means you can put in a price range and not have to scroll past the cars you aren't interested in to get to the standard adverts.

If you want to specify a maximum age for the adverts, then you'll need to use the advanced search, but this will let you show only adverts less than 1/3/7/14 days old, as well as specifying a price range, specific model, etc.

Yes, I know that what I am saying is you put in the criteria, lowest-highest then you get to say £4000 and think, "right that is out of my budget now" yet you haven't even got out of the premium adverts, and don't even realise that there is more standard adverts passed the premium ones.

The whole point in premium adverts is that you see them first, so if premium and non premium were mixed together, what would be the point in having premium adverts?

[Mr Will]

pits said:

Mr Will said:

pits said:

I find the premium adverts slightly irritating, arrange by price, then find out there is more normal adverts 2 pages on, by which time you have already got out of your price range, as you think you have seen all the ones in your price range.

Would be nice aswell if there was a filter where you could search for a max price and by date added, sometimes you find cars that are real bargains, then find out they have been listed for more than 15 days and probably sold.

Look on the bright side though, it isn't the ghastly Autotrader search page

The "Filter" tab at the top of each category will help with the problems you are having, it lets you show only the cars which fit your search criteria. This means you can put in a price range and not have to scroll past the cars you aren't interested in to get to the standard adverts.

If you want to specify a maximum age for the adverts, then you'll need to use the advanced search, but this will let you show only adverts less than 1/3/7/14 days old, as well as specifying a price range, specific model, etc.

Yes, I know that what I am saying is you put in the criteria, lowest-highest then you get to say £4000 and think, "right that is out of my budget now" yet you haven't even got out of the premium adverts, and don't even realise that there is more standard adverts passed the premium ones.

I'm not sure I understand, The main point of the premium adverts is that they appear ahead of the standard adverts but if you use either of the tools that I mentioned to put in a maximum price of £4000 then you won't have to scroll past loads of premium adverts at over £4000, once you get to the top of your budget it will start again straight away with the standard ones.