Jerry Forsyth
Well-known member
AZBilliards has a request for those of you who are active in the Wanted/For Sale Forum. Like most every other pool-related business in America our costs of doing business continue to rise while our revenues do not. As any other business we have to examine and discuss all possible revenue streams.
One item that has come up repeatedly over the least few years is somehow monetizing the W/FS Forum. Other sites that allow sales monetize these sales by charging a percentage or fee for the sale.
But the idea of charging our forum users a mandatory fee just is not something that sits well with us. We like folks being able to sell anything from a tie clip shaped like a pool cue to a multi-thousand dollar collectible cue without having to go through a lot of hassle to pay a middleman.
And neither do we wish to try and make a profit off of the W/FS forum. We are aware that we could alienate some folks and lose readers and that would be worse for us as the more readers we have the more folks wish to advertise with us and in the end it is the advertising that will wind up making or breaking AZB.
So we found ourselves between a rock and a hard place. We need to generate more revenue as costs are going to continue to escalate. But we do not want to ruffle any feathers in our audience as we really do both need and want you folks to keep coming around.
We now think we have finally come up with a happy medium. How about this:
AZBilliards is requesting that those of you who sell an ‘appreciable’ amount of merchandise on our forums please sign up as Gold Members. And we leave it up to you as to how you define ‘appreciable'. We are not going to chase anyone down, track anyone’s sales, anything like that. This is totally voluntary. We don’t think that those of you who generate a decent percentage of your income off of AZB will have a problem donating less than $4 a month to help keep the forum you are selling on up, running, and in business.
We think this will succeed because of the fact that we know many of you and you are all honest and forthright folks who don’t give us problems or cheat folks with bad sales or bring negative behavior into the house. The vast majority of you are good people with big hearts and we trust you to give our request due consideration.
Thanks! If you wish to become Gold, just go HERE.
By the way, it will also make you eligible for over $20,000 a year in giveaway merchandise. Our advertisers LOVE our Gold members as they are seen as being the prime consumer audience.
One item that has come up repeatedly over the least few years is somehow monetizing the W/FS Forum. Other sites that allow sales monetize these sales by charging a percentage or fee for the sale.
But the idea of charging our forum users a mandatory fee just is not something that sits well with us. We like folks being able to sell anything from a tie clip shaped like a pool cue to a multi-thousand dollar collectible cue without having to go through a lot of hassle to pay a middleman.
And neither do we wish to try and make a profit off of the W/FS forum. We are aware that we could alienate some folks and lose readers and that would be worse for us as the more readers we have the more folks wish to advertise with us and in the end it is the advertising that will wind up making or breaking AZB.
So we found ourselves between a rock and a hard place. We need to generate more revenue as costs are going to continue to escalate. But we do not want to ruffle any feathers in our audience as we really do both need and want you folks to keep coming around.
We now think we have finally come up with a happy medium. How about this:
AZBilliards is requesting that those of you who sell an ‘appreciable’ amount of merchandise on our forums please sign up as Gold Members. And we leave it up to you as to how you define ‘appreciable'. We are not going to chase anyone down, track anyone’s sales, anything like that. This is totally voluntary. We don’t think that those of you who generate a decent percentage of your income off of AZB will have a problem donating less than $4 a month to help keep the forum you are selling on up, running, and in business.
We think this will succeed because of the fact that we know many of you and you are all honest and forthright folks who don’t give us problems or cheat folks with bad sales or bring negative behavior into the house. The vast majority of you are good people with big hearts and we trust you to give our request due consideration.
Thanks! If you wish to become Gold, just go HERE.
By the way, it will also make you eligible for over $20,000 a year in giveaway merchandise. Our advertisers LOVE our Gold members as they are seen as being the prime consumer audience.