Should we combine the Dealer & Individual for sale forums?

Spark

Spark

HPIC - Hatas gonna Hate
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Had this brought up to me today. What do you guys think?
 
Don't think its a good idea it would probably make it harder on both individuals and dealers to sell if they were both thrown into the same pool. I have no dog in this fight but clarifying Liu Kang's status and keeping him in the dealer area might resolve it without combining the sales areas.
 
Can dealers post items in the individual sale area now, or are they banned? I wouldn't want to see the individual area flooded with store sales, but an occasional item here and there wouldn't bother me. I guess I'd be for vendors selling customs or limited items in the individual area, but not mass quantities of production run stuff.
 
No. I think dealers should be confined to the "Dealers Exchange" private sellers in the "Individual Exchange". However, there is one dealer in particular in which that rule doesn't seem to apply...:confused:
oldschool45 said:
Don't think its a good idea it would probably make it harder on both individuals and dealers to sell if they were both thrown into the same pool. I have no dog in this fight but clarifying Liu Kang's status and keeping him in the dealer area might resolve it without combining the sales areas.
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Agreed...
 
I do a little buying and selling here, and I would much rather prefer that the two were kept separate. It makes for a much more enjoyable (for me) shopping experience.
 
Spark, I think they should remain separate...(speaking as a member and not as a moderator)
 
Liu Kang was specifically exempted for the Busse forums per request of the Busse staff.
 
I may be in the minority, but I'd like to see them combined. I usually head straight to the For Sale by Individual forum & rarely think to check what the dealers are listing. Combining them might keep me from missing out on something.
 
I think they're two different forums.

I also agree with the above in that Liu Kang blurs the boundaries. While he purports to be a "collector," it remains to be seen how he collects other than with an eye toward sales. Many of his posts in the Busse forum appear to be text veiled with sales in sight. He's been called on this phenomenon repeatedly to the point that at least one member has pleaded for a cease fire. Liu Kang lowball-offers members here, jacks prices on his sale knives, and has even requested (in at least one case) that a member remove a price on a knife he'd bought, which he then promptly priced nearly 50% higher and listed for sale. I've seen him repeatedly state that he's in it for the money, and I have wondered repeatedly just how this community counts for him beyond potential sales.
 
Tough question. Personally I prefer them the way they are, but the dealer forum does not get the traffic that the individual forum does so I see another side of this. Gonna have to think about it for a couple of days before I have a solid opinion.
 
Doesn't matter to me, because the vast majority of my Bladeforums usage occurs by using the New Posts link. Which I hit countless times every day. I rarely go to the individual forums. Thats just the way I use Bladeforums.
 
I would prefer they remain separate. Also my opinion a dealer is a dealer, can't be both places (no offense to Mr. Kang and certainly not Busse or their kin).
 
I also think that they should remain separate.

If someone wants to buy from a dealer, they know where the forum for that is located.
Combining them would only serve to make the individual forum even harder to moderate for the staff responsible.

As for Liu Kang... i think he should be restricted to the dealer forum. Anything else does an injustice to the other dealers who've already paid for their memberships. His selling in the individual forum also does an injustice to those wishing to sell in the that forum, IMNSHO. Busse staff request or not, everyone should be held to the same standard and rules. If he were restricted to the dealer forum...perhaps that forum might get more traffic than it has been getting.
 
It is clear to me that the “For Sale By Individuals” section gets a lot more traffic than the “For Sale By Dealers” section. For example, I took a screenshot of the Exchange section about 5:30 PM Eastern this afternoon (Thumbnail below). At that time, there were 134 people viewing the “For Sale: Production Knives (Individual)” forum while only 13 were viewing the “For Sale: Production Knives (Dealer)” forum. That’s over 10 to 1. This shows up even more when you look at the custom knives, where it was running 49 to 1 (Individual vs. Dealer). The gear was even worse, at 20 to 0. It seems to me that it would be better for everyone if all sales posts were in the same thread. Buyers wouldn’t have to go to two places, and the dealers (who have to pay larger fees to sell here) would get more views & traffic. There’s already a distinction made by the color of the username, so I don’t think people would have any trouble telling who is a dealer and who isn’t.

I noticed that some people above brought up the idea that dealers would clog up the threads. I just now went back and looked at the past week. Looking just at threads that been created or bumped in the last week, there were 263 in the “Production Knives (Individual)” forum and 29 in the “Production Knives (Dealer)” forum. Additionally, there were 172 in the Custom (Individual) forum and 1 in the “Custom & Semi Production Knives (Dealer)” forum. At that rate you’d only see about 2 dealer threads per page in the production section (about 1 of every 10 posts). On the custom side it would be 1 in the first 7 pages (1 of every 173 posts).

It seems to me that the forum would draw more dealers willing to pay additional fees if they were allowed to post in a one common sales forum with everyone else. Dealers are clearly identifiable by the color of their username, so telling them apart wouldn’t be a problem. Lastly, I’m not a moderator, but I don’t see how a combined sales forum would be harder to moderate than two separate forums.

 
I'm not familiar with Liu Kang, but anyone who admits to buying for the purpose of reselling is not a collector, but a dealer. Double standards stink. :D
 
The difference as I see it between the individual & dealer exchange. Individuals might accept a lower offer, not to be confused with a lowball offer, or "I will buy w,x,&y off you for $z instead of your listed price". Or entertain trades. Dealers not so much and you don't find used or discontinued models often in the dealer section. But I know right where to go for a factory blem Kershaw or ZT:D
 
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