I've launched a gun classified site and I'm giving away free gear.

[streaker69]

I know this is minor, but I'd rather not have to sign up for yet another website just to use my own avatar.

[bluedog46]

would put a clothing section on it for thinks like t shirts. Seems lots of gun people would buy dont tread on me and anti-obama shirts.

[plaid37]

Site looks good, I will now have to find time to dedicate to yet another site....one small pet peeve of mine is the lack of photos for items for sale. My feelings are, if you wanna sell it, do all that "hard work" and learn how to put a pic on the ad. I would love to see armsdealer have a PHOTO MANDATORY policy, no photo, no add. Good luck with the site, I'll be on it almost daily.

[danp]

Hey Dan, looks like blog.armsdealer.net is down. Main website works, but the sub-domain isn't responding.

The blog is hosted on Tumblr which is unfortunately out of my control. It looks like something weird is going on over there so I'll have to check it out tomorrow. The main site is hosted on my own infrastructure at Amazon.

UPDATE: It appears Tumblr has stopped being stupid.

Do all listings have the 'Make an Offer' option? Are they limited to only less-than the 'Asking Price'?

You might want to create a 'Buy It Now' option....

Perhaps you could make the Asking Price into a Button that equates to: 'I'll Definitely Take It At The Asking Price' - - - - This would be a binding offer/agreement between the Seller & Buyer as the actual offer... And it should be understood in the rules of the site that the 1st one to do so should be offered the chance to complete the transaction with the seller for THAT PRICE....

The idea behind the asking price/offer model is that there are other factors beyond price that a seller may take into account. If person A with very low feedback is willing to pay $500 but person B with very high feedback is only willing to pay $475, a seller may opt for less money but more assurance that the buyer isn't going to screw around. The idea is that you should offer what you are willing to pay.

Time will ultimately tell if this model works, and if it doesn't, I'll see what it takes to change it. It was however the easiest model to program initially which is absolutely one driving factor.

Interesting. in making an offer, you can make them with interesting numbers. Like $20.005, and if you punch in 2000 and hit make offer, where I might have forgot to do a decimal, it punches in 2000.00 for you.

The system will accept most any input but they get multiplied into cents when stored in the database and rounded back out to dollars when displayed. People can put in odd numbers but it should work out in the end.

If there are bugs let me know and I'll fix them, but at a certain point people have to be sure they are putting in what they mean.

Is there somewhere you can view all the items you have bid on that has your bid info, status etc.? I did not see it in the account sections.

This will be a feature that comes in in the next release most likely.

I know this is minor, but I'd rather not have to sign up for yet another website just to use my own avatar.

It's understandable, but gravatar is pretty globally used at this point and it allowed me to program one less feature which allows me to launch quicker.

Site looks good, I will now have to find time to dedicate to yet another site....one small pet peeve of mine is the lack of photos for items for sale. My feelings are, if you wanna sell it, do all that "hard work" and learn how to put a pic on the ad. I would love to see armsdealer have a PHOTO MANDATORY policy, no photo, no add. Good luck with the site, I'll be on it almost daily.

I agree that ideally all classifieds should have a picture, but I do want to take into account that some people just don't own cameras. I figure ultimately the market will resolve this since people who post classifieds with a picture will have an easier time selling than people who don't.

As I work on expanding/improving search algorithms I will probably also favor items with images in the sorting.

[D10]

Dan....just visited the site but I have one question. Does "Armsdealer" support BB and IMG codes? Just noticed a 1911 post up there and pictures (linked the right way) were not visible.

[danp]

Dan....just visited the site but I have one question. Does "Armsdealer" support BB and IMG codes? Just noticed a 1911 post up there and pictures (linked the right way) were not visible.

At this time the descriptions do not support any form of markup. I hope to pick one and implement it sometime in the near future.

I was originally leaning towards markdown, but bbcode may be better since so many forum users will already be familiar.

Ultimately it will come down to what languages have ruby libraries and the necessary security/control over the input that I need.

Also, for anyone looking to keep track of updates on these kinds of things I suggest doing at least one of three things:

1. Make sure you are opt-in and confirmed on our mailing list in your profile section
2. Follow @ArmsDealerNET on Twitter
3. Subscribe to our blog's RSS feed

Pretty much anytime I make any updates that you guys would find useful/interesting I publish that information to each of those 3 places.

[mauser]

I just posted my second ad and would like to offer a suggestion. (Or ask if there's something I'm overlooking). The photo to go along with the initial post is a great idea, I don't think it should be mandatory but should be strongly encouraged.
I tried to embed a picture from Photobucket into the ad and couldn't do it. I did it the same way I always do on PAFOA but I just saw the text with the tags.
If there would be a way to put a picture from a remote server into the ad it would allow multiple views, close-ups, etc. with a larger view and without taking up nearly as much of your available resources.
Maybe I'm overlooking something and if I am I'd appreciate advice, if not I'd like to see the ability to do that.
Thanks.

Jim

[danp]

I just posted my second ad and would like to offer a suggestion. (Or ask if there's something I'm overlooking). The photo to go along with the initial post is a great idea, I don't think it should be mandatory but should be strongly encouraged.
I tried to embed a picture from Photobucket into the ad and couldn't do it. I did it the same way I always do on PAFOA but I just saw the text with the tags.
If there would be a way to put a picture from a remote server into the ad it would allow multiple views, close-ups, etc. with a larger view and without taking up nearly as much of your available resources.
Maybe I'm overlooking something and if I am I'd appreciate advice, if not I'd like to see the ability to do that.
Thanks.

Jim

As mentioned, there is currently no support for special formatting in classified descriptions, it's just straight text. I plan on adding it in the near future but haven't yet decided how it will work.

I also need to figure out what to do about pictures. The reality is that the storage and transfer costs for pictures can be fairly significant so I need to see how people use it, calculate the costs and figure out whether it is economically feasible to offer more than one picture within the "free" model.

Like anything, I'm learning this as I go by paying attention to what people do, tracking various metrics and adjusting accordingly.

[mauser]

As mentioned, there is currently no support for special formatting in classified descriptions, it's just straight text. I plan on adding it in the near future but haven't yet decided how it will work.

I also need to figure out what to do about pictures. The reality is that the storage and transfer costs for pictures can be fairly significant so I need to see how people use it, calculate the costs and figure out whether it is economically feasible to offer more than one picture within the "free" model.

Like anything, I'm learning this as I go by paying attention to what people do, tracking various metrics and adjusting accordingly.

I knew that hosting pictures would have to be an extra cost to you. I like to use pictures because as they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words". In some cases it really isn't necessary, anyone who wants to buy a brick of primers should know what it looks like, but a higher res picture could give a good hint as to the age, storage conditions or other details that may have been overlooked in the description. (No guarantee, but a possible hint). The ability to post multiples from Photobucket (that's the one I use) makes it pretty easy for me and I know I'm not hogging your resources by doing so.

[ByblosHex]

Anyone have any good/bad experience to share from using this site to buy/sell anything?