Selling on Pinside forum FAQ
Why should I post for sale ads via the marketplace?
The standardised format of a marketplace ad (title, price, location, description, game link, photos ...) not only makes it easy to find games and parts (even filtered by geographical region) across the site, it also powers our marketwatch and (asap) marketwatch notifications, bang4buck list and game price info as well as seller stats. Because all for sale items are neatly linked to their game, the marketplace format generally keeps everything transparent - who's selling what and for what price. How long are items listed, etc.
My hopes are that an open and transparent marketplace will help keep people honest. After all, Pinside is a community, not an anonymous classified ads website. The marketplace includes a feedback system allowing for buyer/seller feedback about an actual sale. Another advantage of the marketplace is that it allows for an (automated) system for detecting scam ads based on various properties of the ad listing, something not possible with simple forum posts.
But posting a marketplace ad takes a lot more time!
It does take some more time to create a marketplace ad as opposed to a simple post. But the benefits outlined in the paragraph above greatly outweigh this. The marketplace system "pushes" people to provide all the basic information about their item in a way a forum post can't. Via the marketplace system, we can make certain aspects (pricing, location game link) mandatory in for sale ads, no need for a moderator to constantly remind people that pricing or location are mandatory (they are). The system handles these requirements. That's a big plus.
You're only doing this for money!
I resisted pasting a link to a particular Spaceballs fragment here. In all seriousness, last year we introduced a sales fee for successful game sales. We've got bills to pay too; Running a site like Pinside is not cheap and while most of the internet seems happy to be powered by banner advertising and Google adwords, I'm trying hard to keep Pinside free of such distractions. I think it's fair to ask for a small fee when you use our platform to successfully sell your game. Our classifieds ads fee is around 0.5% - 0.7% of the game value. That's about $10-$15 on a typical game, or $25 on a $5000 game! And then donating Pinsiders get an additional discount of 25% off that fee. I think that's pretty reasonable.
What about the regional for sale threads. They're super handy!
I agree, they are cool and convenient. And the plan is to keep them alive. After giving this some serious thought, we came up with the following rules exception.
1- We created a new sub-forum in the market forum section called "Regional for sale threads". All existing (and new) regional threads will be moved here. If you want to add a regional thread for your location/city/district/province you can do so in this sub-forum.
2- When selling games/parts in a regional for sale forum thread only quick blurbs will be allowed. That is, a short description of name, price and condition. The regional for sale threads are mainly geared toward inexpensive project games, warehouse finds, or other cheap games that you are just trying to to sell locally. For-sale posts in this section cannot be full-blown marketplace ads. If you want to post an extensive description (e.g. list of mods a game has) or post photos of your game, a marketplace ad is mandatory. Of course you can "embed" your ad in any (regional) thread of choice using the new feature described below.
3- A quick blurb is not to be used to post "top tier" games for sale in regional threads--this would include games in the $3k range and above. These games should be first listed in the marketplace. Of course they can be added to (regional) threads using the new embed feature described below.
How can I embed my Marketplace ad in a forum thread?
Simply go to the Marketplace Ad in question and look for the "embed this ad in a forum post" link.
More about embedding ads can be found in the post below.
Alkmaar
Marysville, IN
