Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

What is the point of putting things for sale on this forum, listing every attribute and information, but no price? This is the first thing any prospective buyer wants to know, surely?
Sellers who fail to put the selling price on their post should have the post deleted by the moderators, or held until the price is given. How many times have we seen people asking for the price, only to be told they will be PM'd by the seller?
It's doesn't make sense and it's not helpful.

It makes perfect sense if the seller wants to be able to negotiate the highest price possibe with each individual prospective purchaser, and keep all the others 'in the dark' about the 'best price'.

I would never consider buying anything where the initial asking price is not clearly stated up front - I wouldn't even ask the price, 'cos it just encourages them!

If people don't ask the price, the item will not sell, and they'll soon stop doing it

But Keith Caley........YOU are priceless !!!!!!.Wouldn't like to put a price on you !!!!!!

Couldn't agree more - to sell an item you need a "price" and to withhold that information makes no sense at all.

I too would never contact a seller to ask. If they don't want to divulge the price, well they can hang on to it!!!

C'pass

I have asked about price and been told the seller doe snot know what to ask. Then I ask for photos which get promised and odn't arrive, but at the end of the day, it means I have spent no money and probably didn't really need the item in the first place.

So in other words, everyone has wasted everyone's time.

Yep. But we have had a bit of chat about it"! And maybe people won't do that in the future.

Maybe it should be a house rule? No price - post gets deleted!

Basically I can fully understand and do support the comments given here. Especially when it comes to “normal” things (whatever this may be) I do not see any reason not stating a price. However, I have -not once- also noticed that sometimes people not being interested at all in buying the specific thing offered had nothing better to do as given comments as:
- This article is offered cheaper or for the same price at Amazon UK
- You have no chance selling this for the price mentioned etc etc
With other words they are interfering in matters which are not their business.
Another point is that I do regard it as quite acceptable in case somebody for instance is offering a better class motor car and asks to contact him by phone or pm for the price. A person really interested will have no problem then contacting the seller and discuss various other points regarding the value of the car.
I even have noticed that people started to argue about the car price without even having had a look at it at all.
So – “no price – post gets deleted”, as Groucho suggests, is maybe going a bit too far.

I still think it stinks - it's dodgy and underhand, and looking to take advantage of people.

All the rest is a load of bullsh1t.

I get more P----d off by the amount of people who you take the time and trouble to try assist or help via the forum and they don't even post a thank you

I also would not really inquire about anything not priced.

OK so how about a house rule - all non-priced adverts have to be paid for to support the running costs of the board....

The exception being adverts for items 'Free to a good home' or 'all money received goes to charity' ...

Dear All,
Perhaps sellers should have the right to do as they wish with there own goods... for those who dont like it just jog on by!

I am sure there are far more important things to worry or should I say winge about by the same old contributers.

Keith is the most 'A' typical of posters who in so many posts just has to say some something however inconsequential it might be and in this case he should consider this in the light of 'every' jeweller I know who do not show prices in their window.....if you are interested you just have to ask! Its no different but I dont see a 'mass' complaint on the forum.

Maybe habitual whingers should also pay a small donation to Soner as he seems to be providing a valuable service and outlet to some people.

Get real and Calm Down please.

I'm glad that you find my posts so interesting that you feel compelled to read them and comment on them, and not just 'jog on by'...

...and incidentally, my advice to potential customers looking in shop windows with no prices displayed, is to do exactly that - 'jog on by'

And car sales forecourt in the TRNC and restaurants/bars/clubs.

I'm thinking of starting up a website where people can put things up for sale, no price given and then people can bid on it. Highest bid after so many days wins! What do you think? Too far fetched? Will it catch on and solve the Kibcom 'no price' problem?

Groucho wrote:OK so how about a house rule - all non-priced adverts have to be paid for to support the running costs of the board....

The exception being adverts for items 'Free to a good home' or 'all money received goes to charity' ...

Good idea but you don't say what the price is

Hedge-fund wrote:

Groucho wrote:OK so how about a house rule - all non-priced adverts have to be paid for to support the running costs of the board....

The exception being adverts for items 'Free to a good home' or 'all money received goes to charity' ...

Good idea but you don't say what the price is

You are quite right - I don't - but Soner would no doubt have a sum in mind! It's hardly for me to suggest a price for something I'm not providing...

Silverfox, I find your post both dismissive and arrogant (but that's only my opinion - you are of course at liberty to jog on by get real and keep calm)

BYD though....

Silverfox love it

And me

Only one thing left to say on this thread "priceless"

I have constantly asked sellers to donate to forum to help with upkeep, but it just falls on deaf ears. As for pricing on threads, then I guess it is no harm providing the seller responds to buyer enquiries.

I have been researching auction websites for the past year and am already in the process of having a Kibkom Online Auction being developed. This may replace the current pages on the forum for selling items / cars / houses, but the case may be that nobody will use it because they will have to pay for the service. Can't believe after 3 plus years that most members are happy to sell without contributing anything. Thanks to the odd one percent that do.

So, things will be changing soon with regards to selling on Kibkom, this is all down to those that take advantage of the forum by taking and not giving anything back.

Think Soner is right in that an online auction with charges might stop some people advertising.
Personally I think a simple charging scheme would be best e.g.

Property Sale = 150tl
Property rental = 50tl
Car = 50tl
General Items under 250tl = 5tl Each
General Items over 250tl =10tl Each

I have not done the stats but I am sure that this would drum up a fair bit of income for the forum without being onerous for any seller especially on the genaral items though ironically enough it would cause a problem for someone who does not show a price and therefore the default would be 10tlper item.

Lets see what people think.

I don't normally contribute to these type of threads but just wanted to add my take on things. When we advertised our house on all the forums, in the main it was only estate agents responding and asking if they could market , so I n the end I took the adverts off, with the price on. So should I have paid a fee here?

Also when we sold our contents,all with prices, again, we used all the forums and it was not necessarily a KibKom member that bought . So how would you charge that? A fee just for the advert? Just asking .

Keeping it simple and if the fees are nominal then if you advertise you pay, otherwise don't pay and you wont use the facility or reach the Kibkom 'audience'. JMO.
Obviosly Looseboots is no longer in the TRNC he may be involved with another Forum.

So 150TL to advertise your house for sale, whether it sells or not?

150TL for every house that an estate agent advertises on here, whether it sells or not?

- and in both of the above cases, regardless of whether it sold to someone who had seen it on the forum, or not?

The trouble with 'simple' solutions is that they don't take account of all of the factors.

Just taking a look at the advertising around the board and I was quite surprised at the potential that the board owners could earn from filling all the advertised space ?
Correct me if I am wrong but there is potential to sell over £100k of ad space a year,.....does it cost that much to run this site ?

Why not ask the owner in a PM?

Tom, dont really see the point of PM's on a public forum and even less point on a public discussion. ?

turtle wrote: Correct me if I am wrong but there is potential to sell over £100k of ad space a year,.....does it cost that much to run this site ?

Your 'estimate' would seem to be grossly out to me. A quick rough estimated calculation of what the current advertising income on the board is currently would be in the region of £4500 per year. I do not think there is 'unsold space' that represents 20 times more than what is currently on the site ? Please do correct me if I am wrong.

As for what it costs to run a site like this there are costs but one factor is how much Soner's time is worth. I have friends who 'build websites' as freelance contractors, typically for large corporations and have been doing so for over 20 years now. I think you would be surprised at how much they can earn as an hourly rate for such work. I would imagine that Soner could contract out his skills at considerable hourly rate to third parties. So would that kind of hourly rate for Soner's time spent building and maintaining this site be included in 'what it costs to run this site' do you think ? Or do you think that is not a 'real' cost in running this site ?

Turtle, I was trying, politely, to indicate that Soner's financial affairs are not the subject of a public forum. Ergo, if you wanted to know, you should ask him directly. I am sorry if my intention was misunderstood.

How many of you have tried to sell advertising ever?
Don't you think if it was
easy this site would be full of adverts?
Plus We do resoect that not everyone wishes to advertise and maybe can't afford it whilst also realising that some people
try to get away with advertising for free .
what they don't seem to realise and dont want to pay for is the effectiveness of advertising on here.
Soner and we mods are always happy to discuss advertising .
And thanks erol for pointing out that is costs skydiving when hackers have forced soner to pay out large sums of money to secure the site.

Yes Keith, it is 'simple' despite your simplistic contradictions.

Look at a few small websites like eBay, Amazon, Autotrader, 101Evler, KKTCarabam and Rightmove.
All these sites charge an upfront fee to sell and there is NO guarantee of a sale and a seller may well sell an item through a different outlet and there will be no refund.

silverfox1 wrote:Yes Keith, it is 'simple' despite your simplistic contradictions.

Look at a few small websites like eBay, Amazon, Autotrader, 101Evler, KKTCarabam and Rightmove.
All these sites charge an upfront fee to sell and there is NO guarantee of a sale and a seller may well sell an item through a different outlet and there will be no refund.

Fair Comment!

Keithcaley wrote:

silverfox1 wrote:Yes Keith, it is 'simple' despite your simplistic contradictions.

Look at a few small websites like eBay, Amazon, Autotrader, 101Evler, KKTCarabam and Rightmove.
All these sites charge an upfront fee to sell and there is NO guarantee of a sale and a seller may well sell an item through a different outlet and there will be no refund.

Fair Comment!

I thought so too but being the pedant I am I do feel it should be pointed out that on ebay you can list up to 20 items a month at no charge for the listing unless it sells. It seems to me both 'classified ads' where the advertisers pays a fixed up front fee just to make the listing regardless of if it sells or not and 'auction' where a fixed fee or % of the sale price is charged only if the item sells are valid 'models', pre dating the internet and continuing to exist post the internet.

Not for cars on eBay Erol.

So Erol what is the answer in this case for Soner?

Lets have positive suggestions and solutions not negativity from the contributers.

erol wrote:

turtle wrote: Correct me if I am wrong but there is potential to sell over £100k of ad space a year,.....does it cost that much to run this site ?

Your 'estimate' would seem to be grossly out to me. A quick rough estimated calculation of what the current advertising income on the board is currently would be in the region of £4500 per year. I do not think there is 'unsold space' that represents 20 times more than what is currently on the site ? Please do correct me if I am wrong.

As for what it costs to run a site like this there are costs but one factor is how much Soner's time is worth. I have friends who 'build websites' as freelance contractors, typically for large corporations and have been doing so for over 20 years now. I think you would be surprised at how much they can earn as an hourly rate for such work. I would imagine that Soner could contract out his skills at considerable hourly rate to third parties. So would that kind of hourly rate for Soner's time spent building and maintaining this site be included in 'what it costs to run this site' do you think ? Or do you think that is not a 'real' cost in running this site ?

erol wrote:

turtle wrote: Correct me if I am wrong but there is potential to sell over £100k of ad space a year,.....does it cost that much to run this site ?

Erol
I based my figures on a very quick calculation of the board sections at the top... in total 33 sections along with header banners and the prices that Soner put up for these sections for rent and if all ( not very likely I know) were to be sold then a very good income could be earned from this revenue,... and good luck to him if this could happen.
I think you may have just totted up what is sold at the moment,... maybe ?
I do know how much IT/web builders can earn (our company employs a few) so Yes I do know the costs of this sort of thing but I wasn't digging into that side of the business.
Just looking back on the original posts on this thread it has been suggested that paying for personal ads would help,.. and I agree however its administering this function which would cause Soner a bigger headache in collecting his dues.
I do agree with Soner's suggestion that sellers should make a donation but has already been said most sellers do not do this so shame on them really but I suppose the only other way would be to sell more ad space there lies the problem.

tomsteel wrote:Turtle, I was trying, politely, to indicate that Soner's financial affairs are not the subject of a public forum. Ergo, if you wanted to know, you should ask him directly. I am sorry if my intention was misunderstood.

Tom
I have no interest in Soner's financial well being and don't wish to pry into this either, it was just a rough calculation of possible revenue that could be earned.
I am also not against an annual subscription or donation to the boards upkeep but if the people selling items refuse to drop a few bob into the coffers then anything that is proposed will be met with hard work ?
No need to apologise Tom,...we all have differing views on things

silverfox1 wrote:Yes Keith, it is 'simple' despite your simplistic contradictions.

Look at a few small websites like eBay, Amazon, Autotrader, 101Evler, KKTCarabam and Rightmove.
All these sites charge an upfront fee to sell and there is NO guarantee of a sale and a seller may well sell an item through a different outlet and there will be no refund.

I've now had time to look at this claim, and it doesn't appear to be entirely accurate - I don't know if you researched it thoroughly before you made the claim, but I looked at the two sites which seem most relevant to us here in TRNC, and found that KKTCArabam offers free membership, and the ability for private owners of vehicles to place advertisements Free of Charge.

101Evler does charge 60 TL for a six month advertisement, although of course it offers the facility to search by property type, area, number of bedrooms, bathrooms etc, so I don't think that charging 150TL for a simple advert on this forum would attract any takers at all! - The idea is to maximise the advertising revenue, and to do that, the terms and/or features have to be at least as attractive (or more so) than other sites offering similar services.

This, coupled with the information that you can advertise smaller items for free on ebay, and only pay a fee when they sell, rather takes the edge of your assertations about other websites...

Whatever charges are introduced, I think that they either need to be at a lower rate than you envisage, or be on a 'pay-on-successful-sale basis' , with the main issue there being how to collect the payment after the event, as the vast majority of advertisers appear to be shysters who have no intention of paying if they can get away with it - so on balance, I think that your idea of 'Pay up Front' is the only workable one.

But how much to charge? That's the question!

Is this not a community forum which exists to help fellow members of the community and does not the size of the membership attract businesses to advertise on here ,for which they pay a fee.
there are other sites who's reason d'etre is sales which dont charge I quess the people who wouldn't mind a fee would already have purchased a sticky to keep the advertisement on top.
I would like to say well done to Soner and the other mods for the work they do on the forum.

Kerry, indeed this forum is just that. However, Soner should not be expected to cover all the costs in running the site. The 'easy' route for him is to withdraw all for sale possibilities. However, he merely asks for sales via this medium to contribute to his running costs. A number of forums in the TRNC have folded over the past few years for various reasons, let us hope Soner doesn't follow suit.

Personally the sale's section is a small part of the forum the mine of information thats on here is priceless.

Absolutely. However, sales contributions by vendors would help Soner's costs and that is the thrust of this topic, surely?

kerry 6138 wrote:Personally the sale's section is a small part of the forum the mine of information thats on here is priceless.

I agree that for me, at any rate, the sales section has little interest, I mainly try to help posters on the General Forum.

However, if you compare the number of threads which have been started in the sales section (7142) compared with the number of threads in the General Forum (11792) you realise that a considerable proportion of the cost of Bandwidth etc is incurred by the Sales section, and since the posters that start those threads are doing it (on the whole) to make money, it is only fair that they should contribute.

7142 threads (not even taking account of the ones which advertise multiple items) even at a modest 10TL an advert, is over 70,000 TL.

You can understand why Soner is getting P1ssed off!

Apart from recognised bona-fide businesses, the facility to advertise items for sale is generally intended to be for the benefit of people selling their own, personal items.

However, the same posters appear time and again, selling multiple items - and sometimes multiple quantities of the same items - and according to Soner, they contribute nothing to the running of the Forum. They are simply leeches.

turtle wrote: Erol
I based my figures on a very quick calculation of the board sections at the top... in total 33 sections along with header banners and the prices that Soner put up for these sections for rent and if all ( not very likely I know) were to be sold then a very good income could be earned from this revenue,... and good luck to him if this could happen.

Not sure I agree with the 33 but let's say that is in the right ball park. I see the cost per space as being £150 or £200 pa for the lower 'spaces' but even if you say the average is £400 per space per year , then I make that a total potential yearly income of £13,200 vs your original suggested 'over £100,000 per year' ?

Erol
We are obviously looking at this in totally different ways,..take the page "View active topics" there are 11 ads down each side 22 in total plus a banner at the top I would average out that 22 ads would return £3300 and a banner another say £400 so £3700 on that page alone and there are 33 pages ?.
Bear in mind this page has room for another 11 ads so potentially another £1200 ish making £4900 on that page alone.
I think you are estimating what the revenue is now...not what potential the site holds.
I know the likelyhood of filling it is remote however the potential is still there,... your estimate of £13200 only equates to 33 ads at say avg £400?.. I can't understand your maths Erol ?

I think that we can all agree on 4 counts...

1) Erol and turtle are looking at things from different viewpoints

2) They are unlikely ever to agree

3) The liklehood of the forum ever maximising it's 'potential' income is remote

4) At least 4 posters will disagree with me on the first 3 counts!

tomsteel wrote:Absolutely. However, sales contributions by vendors would help Soner's costs and that is the thrust of this topic, surely?

Well no - that's what it has turned into - but it's actually meant to be about the annoying habit of some sellers not disclosing the price they want for their items - hoping they can keep it all secret whilst using the site to sell by some sort of secret auction...

It would be interesting to know how such a tactic helps as most potential buyers would I believe be put off by such a ruse... Statistically I'd guess it's a poor selling technique.

I do agree that people should refrain from making sarcastic comments on the price set by the seller - if you think it's too much just don't bother no need to post "you must be joking - you'll never get that - you can get a new one for....." Maybe it's these sorts of quite rude posts that possibly put some sellers off from declaring a price.... just a guess.

I was really annoyed when I asked for £500 for an ancient Ming vase and a poster told me they could get new one for less... (joke)

turtle wrote:Erol
We are obviously looking at this in totally different ways,..take the page "View active topics" there are 11 ads down each side 22 in total plus a banner at the top I would average out that 22 ads would return £3300 and a banner another say £400 so £3700 on that page alone and there are 33 pages ?.
Bear in mind this page has room for another 11 ads so potentially another £1200 ish making £4900 on that page alone.
I think you are estimating what the revenue is now...not what potential the site holds.
I know the likelyhood of filling it is remote however the potential is still there,... your estimate of £13200 only equates to 33 ads at say avg £400?.. I can't understand your maths Erol ?

The side adds are priced for '5 pages' - I take that to be main page, this forum section we are on now and the three next most viewed sections. Sections less viewed than that appear to not have the side adds. Basically as far as I can tell the ad price in not really 'per page', as you are suggesting but is for the site as a whole. If you take a side ad then it is displayed on every forum page that display sides ads. Banner ads are less clear if they are for a specific page or forum section or per the site generally with a rotating 'timed slot'. That is the basis of my calculations.

The issue is that the majority advertising items for sale have no intention of making a donation.

Perosnally, I think that things must be kept as simple and as easy as possible for those wishing to sell items so I would suggest a modest flat fee of say 10TL for each posting of an item/s for sale. With some mechanism in place to ensure the advert does not go live until payment received.

You could list one item for sale, a whole load of items, a car or a clothes peg but the charge remains the same.

I understand that this may put off some people, however when you consider the amount of hits this forum receives it is clear it reaches many people in North Cyprus and overseas so is a good place to advertise and sell.