Online trading sugestion

[cheese]

can we add some sub directories to teh online trading? I just find that there is so much stuff for sale I can't get through it all to find what I'm looking for.

It would be great if it could get split into

Bikes -

Dirt
Road - maybe sub split road into 0 - 250 250 -600 600 + ?? (this may not be required)

then bike parts

Bike gear

and a not bikes - for people selling all there other shit

I think people would sell more stuff like this cause you can see what has been added without looking through 10 pages of new listings.

[Deviant Esq]

At the risk of that forum becoming messy with several categories, I agree with you. A lot of stuff goes up for sale in there, threads wind up all over the place. I try to keep an eye on online trading because I'm thinking of upgrading at some stage, but it can be difficult sifting through the variety of threads in it. Something like this maybe:

• Online Trading
  • Bikes and Parts
    • Road Bikes (Maybe split into Up to 250cc, and Over 250cc)
    • Dirt and Multipurpose Bikes
    • Parts, Spares etc
  • Riding Gear
  • Non Bike Related

The only problem is now as it stands Online Trading comes under General Bike Ravings (GBR), and as is moderated as such - stuff for sale at the moment has to come under GBR as well, so selling a van or tiddlywinks would have to go under Rant and Rave (RR).
Interesting idea though, will be interested to hear what others thoughts are.

[SpankMe]

The bike trader has search options.

[cheese]

Mint! thanks for that.

[SpankMe]

And we have a special section for non bike related stuff.

[Deviant Esq]

Ooo, didn't know about that, thanks for the link (the first one I mean. The special section? Well. ). Search Trader box looks almost exactly the same as the TradeMe interface as well - I'm sure most people are comfortable using that if they're halfway serious about buying themselves a new bike.
Little bit OT, but would anyone recommend another good place to search for a used bike at a reasonable price?

[SpankMe]

How could anyone not know about the bike trader?? It's under quick links, on the homepage and the online forum has the latest bike trader pictures along the top.

[Deviant Esq]

I'm not often on the homepage - my FireFox homepage is set to the forums link. Sure, the pictures along the top of the Online Trading forum I see all the time and click on them regularly, but didn't know they were part of Bike Trader. Didn't see the link in the Quick Links drop box, but that's been fixed and I know it's there now. Err, thanks. As you were...

[SpankMe]

One option is to remove the online trading forum and replace it with vBClassified.

[Pumba]

vBClassified, man we could have our own little trade me on KB

[The Pastor]

i think just a few more cats wpuld do the trick, "bikes" "bike parts" "bike accessoreis and other suff"



SORTED

[SpankMe]

yeah, but it'd be easier buying/installing vBClassifieds than spending time developing the trader code to add more stuff. And looking at your avatar it looks like I also need to look at the Flame Warrior code as your avatar should have changed back by now.

Would there be any need to keep the online forum if I got vBClassifieds? As you can make comments under someones ad.

[Deviant Esq]

vBClassifieds looks like a pretty good setup... but is it worth the $US50?
FWIW I reckon the way it's set up now isn't too bad. It isn't the busiest trading forum in the world anyway, so if you reckon there's nothing wrong with it the way it is now, depending whether you think the vBC software is worth it or not, it's probably alright the way it is. This thread hasn't exactly attracted a lot of attention with people crying out for it to be fixed... I'd take that as an apathy vote for status quo. If people wanted it changed I'm sure we'd know by now...

[scracha]

yeah, but it'd be easier buying/installing vBClassifieds

I suggested this a few months ago Spankme. I reckon there should be a token listing charge to stop the site getting filled up with the speculative drivel for sale that is the current TradeMe state of affairs. Maybe the token charge chould go towards Google adwords and/or bandwidth fees.

I HATE using TradeMe and I honestly think you could overtake it WRT bike listings.

I've not heard good things about VBAuction. Mind you, I've not heard good things about many of the freeware or auction packages under $400USD

If you're spending a little cash then http://www.phpauction.net/gpl.php might be the better bet.

For a freebie then I've been playing around with the S-Project fork of
http://www.phpbb-auction.com/ (did an osCommerce site for a customer and now they're talking about auctions). Doesn't look like there's much support for it though.

Can't imagine it being major brain surgery to link up the mySQL user database between the above and vBulletin. Is the forum on a dedicated IP (as opposed to shared hosting) as SSL certificates are pretty cheap these days too.

I'd be more than happy to invest some of my time assisting.

[SpankMe]

I brought vBClassifieds and had a play with it. It still needs some development before I would use it to replace the trader. Before using any other software, it would need to have plugins to vB so it can use member logins.