engifineer

I have said it before... but I think it needs to be said again. Allowing sponsors and vendors to create 10-15 new threads in a DAY, one for each region, specific product, etc is nothing more than allowing annoying spam-like messaging. It 100% steers me away from a vendor, and when I log in and click new posts and practically the entire first page or so is nothing but one vendor posting a billion new threads I simply leave and go to another site for a while. To me it is nothing more than begging for attention in a sense. I realize this is hard to police this without unreasonably locking things down, but I would hope more share the same feeling and the vendors will read this and take a better look at how to gain the attention for their business.

Maybe I'm alone in this and if so, thats fine, but its just sad that the forums have completely turned into "hey... come look at my business PLEEEEEAAASSSEE" threads.

HookItUp7

Well you sure aren't alone on that. That's exactly how I feel every time I see a page worth of nothing but the same posts over and over again.

STlTCHES

^^Agreed it kills the community at times when someone might be able to answer a difficult question and it gets lost in the clutter bumped out due to over posting by vendors

Greg S

iTrader: (1)

Like I'm sure everyone else I don't like it either. That said, those vendors and their annoying posts help pay for a lot of this site.

You have to look at it from a slightly different angle and think that we get to have a site like this because of their advertising and posting about the products they sell.

In all reality it's not that hard to scan past the posts you don't want to read and get to the ones you do. It only take a few more seconds than normal. If the site was a pay site only open to paying memebrs then I think it would be great to get rid of all the vendor posts, but you know that isn't going to happen. How many people here do you really think would want to fork out money every month just to read about other peoples cars?

engifineer

There is a balance.. and we have gone past it. This site's (and many others) soul was sold to advertising a long time ago. it is bathed in banner ads, which most likely make more for the site than a few 2-3 person companies paying $400 or so per year to be able to post thread advertisements. The site makes no more money if they let someone post 1 thread or a million to advertise. I used to be one of these homegrown businesses on here back when I started the whole led swap trade for this car (back in 2005). I looked, and decided it was not worth the price just to be able to post prices on here since I was utterly covered with business just by word of mouth (being highly trained and having fair prices helped that out) so I never did it. But for those that do, they dont pay the site more for 10 threads than they do for 1. So it making money for the site has nothing to do with how many separate posts they make.

And I am not asking that no one be able to advertise in this way, simply that people look at what is reasonable. Every inch of this site is filled with ads as it is.. now there are 2 pages a day of the smaller companies (which I do support.. just not the way they advertise) bumping their threads and trying to get more attention.

Chrisb319

iTrader: (1)

It is also annoying when everythtead of theirs gets bumped in the sponsored sales forum. I agree, but vendors pay to sell their products here part of me believes that they have the right to do that. Just trying to look at it from another pony of view, this place is a business to these guys. So i suppose I'm in the middle.

engifineer

This is as much to the vendors themselves though, not just the rulemakers on the site. I STILL get people emailing me requesting led swaps 6 months after I posted in multiple forums that I was going to stop doing them (dont really need the money and it takes too much family time away on top of my career), had Doc I take down the ad there, on top of never formally advertising on the forums. If you provide a decent, fair priced service you dont need to bump 10 threads every frickin day for people to know who you are. If you want (or need) that much exposure then get a banner ad or do it differently. Hell, I wouldnt even mind having ONE thread per vendor that they bump daily. At least then you only see it once, not splattered all over the page like a kid yelling "dad, dad, dad, dad, dad" over and over to get attention

paul_dezod

Wow! I hope we are not part of this bash-fest at all.

As a paying vendor (since 2006) I do feel the right to show the community new products, excellent bargains and overall good buys. I do not feel we spam the community with 10-20 sale threads in every section about our products and services. We typically keep things very low-key and I feel some other vendors do cross this line MUCH more than we would ever do or have.

I like to think we are much more laid-back with our marketing, but make our presence known in other fashions of the community. I do feel the same way about some of the companies, but some pay hundreds per month to be on here with banner ads everywhere, so I am sure they want to get their money's worth some-how and some way.

It's like corporate america approach to marketing: RAM IT DOWN YOUR THROAT vs mom and pop marketing: Here's what we've got, take it or leave it. To each their own.

engifineer

Dezod is definitely not what I was targeting. I dont even care about banner ads (they are where they should be and serve their purpose). I was aiming more for those that are not paying for banner ads, but just paying for the right to be a site sponsor, thus advertise in the threads themselves. I think that is great and fosters small business (which I support to a huge degree). Its just the use of the threads that bothers me. If you have a company and are advertising on the threads, you DONT need a separate thread for EVERY product you sell and certainly dont need to bump your other picture/diy, etc threads just to gain attention for your service. To most people I know, it actually does your business a dis-service since people view it negatively. Create yourself a thread and keep it updated with your current sales, offerings, etc. Bump that every day if you wish. Just dont ram it down our throats with so many threads that it is ALL you see when you hit "new posts".

I have always found Dezod advertising to be to the point and non-intrusive. To make the point better, even with your small amount of in-thread advertising and the fact that I completely ignore banner ads on forums all together, I have known about their business from day one and have purchased from them multiple times. I would say on average I learn about a new business that I later end up ordering from via word of mouth/my own research about 75% of the time. I rarely find myself choosing a business based upon any sort of commercials, ads, etc and never choose one (even if it may have turned out ok) that barrages me with advertising.

Bean_Garage

iTrader: (2)

I think each vendor should have their own sub-forum like most other forums do. That way you don't have to bump your thread to get noticed and people can access your current deals much easier without having to go through 6 pages of ads.

I also agree with Dezod on this... With this setup, it is hard to get noticed unless you get in people's faces with your name and ad. This has been brought up before and I think that the best way to solve the problem is to get sub-forums for each vendor, so the customer can approach each vendor and get a sense of what they have to offer as a company.