A Request From AZB for Active Sellers

Jerry Forsyth

Well-known member
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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.
 

mmedford

AzB Silver Member
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Hey Jerry;

I know on some of the car forums I belong too; they have whats known as a Vendor membership...

Might be something to consider for our dealers... give them an upgrade of title, a much larger PM box and some other thrills? (AZB official email?)

-Mark
 

Joqpub4

AZB GOLD
Silver Member
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Jerry , that was exactly the reason I went gold when I saw it last year... I appreciate what you do and wanted to support it in at least a small way. :)

Joe


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

TheCueHunter

Banned
Rating - 99.2%
127   1   0
I think that its a great idea. BUT and it s a big BUT, a few things have kept me away from doing this. No 1, it seems as though no matter how many times some SELLERS are reported for over bumping, it is overlooked. Yes, they are THE SAME guys who do it, and NO, nothing ever happens to their threads.

Good forbid and new seller, or I (proverbial I), post twice within 48 hours, (even to had pics once) and we are reprimnanded like a 4th grader.

The 2nd thing, and probably the BIGGEST one that keeps me from giving this site a dime, is the mystery of the dissapearing threads. Just because a cuemaker knows people or a seller knows people, doesnt mean they havent screwed someone over. UNLESS it can be PROVEN that they didnt, all that info should stay on the site.

Multiple VARNEY, WHEAT, ***SHOWMAN***, LAMBROS and many many others (those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head) dissapear? Magically:eek:

No mention of what happened or anything. If it gets harsh, or heated or people are cussing....DELETE THOSE POSTS. Dont erase the whole thread. Makes no sense and there is ZEROOOOOOOOOOO Legal reason for that to happen (believe me I know:cool:)

I am not saying there arent cases of bitter customers, or the normal trolls that try to get a response or rise, but WHY do the powers that be, automaticaly believe the cuemaker, or the cue dealer or however.

There are guys who sold fake cues in the past (buskas or botis), sold stolen cues, lied to customers, stole money from people, and many other bad things......YET these guys buy a membership or know the owners or mods and they get free rain on everything.


ALSO, I have no Problem giving money to be a "SELLER" or paying some fee, but when certain pyschos are allowed to be banned multiple times, be rude, be cray cray, always argue and cry and complain like a 3 yr old I will have a hard time donating to that medium. And there are MANY others in the same boat
Other than that, Im all for it:grin:

JMO, and its probably wrong :)

I do think the fees are ultimtely a good idea because alot of people, including me, have made money from this site and used it to sell goods when really we had no other way to do it. I will be the first to pay if I get some reasonable explanations to my concerns.
 
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gunderjj

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
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81   0   1
count me in.

Without this place I would not have had the chance to try out half the cues I have gotten to. Thanks.
 

Quesports

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Rating - 100%
18   0   0
Hey Jerry, Do you think there will ever be another system for payment other then Paypal? Not one of my favorite companies....
 

dawgcpa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
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Other Donations

Hey Jerry,

If we have already done that, can we make donations through the same link?

Thanks!

Lonnie
 

Badbeat13

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Rating - 100%
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Jerry, I'm already a Gold Member, but I'm not much of a seller....lol.


Do I need to do anything else to post items in the Wanted/For Sale section?


Thanks in advance, Jerry 2
 

JIMMY L

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
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I'm not a big fan of having to pay a % of the sales price of the sold item. I would be OK with paying a set amount per thread started and think that would work great to raise funds from the wanted for sale section. I just sold a cue on eBay for $390 and it cost $54 between eBay & PayPal...its just the cost of doing business.
 

tonyboy59

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
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120   0   0
I agree...there are plenty of folks that perform numerous transactions on this site on a regular basis and a membership purchase is not much to ask. Keep up the good work!
 

cueaddicts

AzB Gold Member
Silver Member
Rating - 100%
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Sensible approach. I think everyone that frequents and cares about the success of this place should pony up a little for a Gold membership. Thanks, Jerry, for all you guys do !!
 
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