vBulletin classifieds mod from Panjo
 

As of September 2015, the Panjo marketplace mod for vBulletin has been completely rearchitected.

You can learn more about the latest version of the mod on Panjo's vBulletin partner page.

This mod enables you to launch a peer-to-peer community marketplace that is integrated into your vBulletin forum.

Here is how it works:
1) Install the plugin.
2) Customize the categories you want in your marketplace.
3) Contact Chad at Panjo: chad@panjo.com to activate your marketplace.
4) When a seller goes to a new or old subforum dedicated to buying/selling/trading, and clicks on the "post new thread" button, the mod will load a listing creation form.
5) The seller will create a listing. The listing will appear in the marketplace. A synchronized copy of the listing will appear in the appropriate buy/sell/trade subforum.

Is this plugin free?
Yes, this plugin is free.

Can you make money with this plugin?
Yes, you can optionally use this plugin to generate marketplace transaction revenue.

How is it with mobile?
The marketplace loads with layouts that are optimized for high res desktop, tablet, and mobile.

Examples:
Porsche Marketplace <syncs with> Porsche classifieds subforum
BMW Marketplace <syncs with> BMW classifieds subforums
Audi Marketplace <syncs with> Audi classifieds subforums
Belly dancing marketplace <syncs with> Belly dancing classifieds subforums

Gallery:
The marketplace home page
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/attachmen...1&d=1442438115
A listing detail page
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/attachmen...1&d=1442438115
The listing creation form for a seller
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/attachmen...1&d=1442438115

Do you have questions about Panjo? Contact the team at Panjo:
chad@panjo.com
1-424-272-0291

didn't Enthusify changed the name to panjo???

link to post > https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=285285

Apparently so. And somehow got the old 4.x thread deleted, and this new one started. Weird.

na its here https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=285283

What are the terms of revenue share? Are forums at the mercy of your servers being fast/reliable and up for years to come? How is the content presented to the browser -- as an iframe (bad for seo) or some other method?

Thanks for these great questions.

At present, the plugin supports a 'final value fee.' If you had a final value fee of 1% and a seller sold an item for $100, you would get $1. You can customize the final value fee on a usergroup by usergroup-basis. Support for optional listing fees and promotional fees is coming soon.

When a seller creates a listing using this vBulletin marketplace plugin, the plugin creates a thread post with the information. This has the following impacts:
1) Listings show up in today's posts
2) Search engines index the thread post
3) You have a local copy of the listing
4) The thread post is synchronized with the plugin. When the item sells, the listing updates to 'sold' status.
5) If you ever want to discontinue use of the plugin, you can do so while retaining the legacy content.

Screen shots?

You can find Panjo screen shots here:
http://panjo.com/Partners > click the 'Galley' tab

You can also find some videos of the vBulletin marketplace plugin in action on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeP3x69BcR0

Which currency can this plugin support?

How much does Panjo charge the seller for each transaction?

How much can the forum gain for each transaction?

Are this classified database and images (uploaded by members) hosted by Panjo's server?

How heavy is this plugin adding to the server load?

How trustable is Panjo in handling the money paid by buyers and give to sellers? What if Panjo takes the money and run away, will the forum has to be responsible for such incident?

Which currency can this plugin support?

> As of today, just US dollars. ($) Support for more currencies is coming soon.

How much does Panjo charge the seller for each transaction?

> If a seller optionally chooses to use Panjo to collect, verify, and transfer the buyer's payment, Panjo charges a flat 3%.

How much can the forum gain for each transaction?

> The forum can set its own final value fee for each transaction on top of the flat 3%. That rate is up to the forum. The forum can charge different rates to different user groups.

Are this classified database and images (uploaded by members) hosted by Panjo's server?

> Panjo posts a thread for each listing into your forum so you have a local copy of the content.

How heavy is this plugin adding to the server load?

> Due to the cloud hosted nature of the transactional aspects of the plugin, there is effectively no server load burden.

How trustable is Panjo in handling the money paid by buyers and give to sellers? What if Panjo takes the money and run away, will the forum has to be responsible for such incident?

> Panjo is venture backed, a PCI compliant payment processor, and insured. Feel free to email chad@panjo.com if you need proof or documentation for any of the aforementioned items.

We are very excited to introduce Panjo 4.2.2. The latest version of Panjo offers a self service setup dashboard. It also provides admins with more self service tools and reporting.

You still haven't answered the Enthusify question, above. For an entity that wants to enter into a financial relationship with forum owners, transparency in this regard is vital to earn the trust needed to do so. Are you the same company? Have you changed your name; if so why, and why does your post not make that clear? If not, is this a copy of the Enthusify software, and how are you able to replicate it?

You're asking for royalty based financial arrangement. Secrecy cannot be a part of that. It worries me that you evaded questions as basic as your identity.

How about some screenshots as is common when posting a mod.......

Morrus - in response to your question, we added a section to the description above referencing the history of the brand. Here it is for your reference, "Panjo was previously known as Enthusify. The old Enthusify plugin download pages at vBulletin.org have lots of outdated information. Panjo ditched the name Enthusify because it was too much of a mouthful and too hard to pronounce."

There is tons of info about us at Panjo.com. You can find the LinkedIn profiles of the team at Panjo.com too. http://panjo.com/Contact You can call us by phone or skype with us via video chat. We are highly transparent. Thanks for your interest in our work.

Via the links above, you can visit lots of live examples of Panjo. You can visit a gallery of screenshots here: http://panjo.com/Partners (click the gallery tab)

Great answer. Thank you!

Hello, what happens if this is used and then it is decided for whatever reason to delete it? The items that were for sale (and now posts) remain but the rest of the addon uninstalls clearly?
(request for testing has been emailed)
Thanks!
Andrew

If you use this plugin and later decide to delete it, you retain the legacy listings in 'thread post' format.

Yes, the items that were for sale remain as thread posts and the rest of the addon uninstalls cleanly.

I did not get answers my questions (above) from months ago. I have viewed the html source code for your demo sites, and the classifieds system unfortunately uses iframes for practically everything. While I think you have excellent software, this makes the classifieds section invisible to search engines. I understand it creates a thread in the forum, which is a good idea, but it is not a replacement for a user being able to search google and go directly to the classifieds system. With your setup, all users searching google for an item would always end up at the duplicate forum thread instead of the actual classified ad. I wish the system let our servers grab the data off your servers and throw up the html directly, rather than using iframes.

More questions from above: What happens if someone posting an ad edits their ad or chagnes a price/etc? Does the duplicate forum thread get updated or does it become out of sync with the ad? What about when it sells, does the thread created have [SOLD] or something added to the title?

So apparently this mod got included as part of the vB4.2.2 update. Why is that? Will IB get a cut of sales now?

Can anyone here report their experience with this plug-in?

I didn't vote for this..and will probably never use it. Uninstall in fact.

I'd like to hear vbulletin.org user feedback on this plugin too. It only has 7 installs prior to being included in vb4.2.2
It certainly seems promising.

I googled up an interesting article about Panjo getting some venture capital last July. I imagine they just hired a lot of new sales people to help hit up all the forum and blog people, IB included.

The article says Panjo takes a cut of sales, but I take it that's an error? If I use this on my local forum and members pay each other directly, there is no fee to anyone.?

If so, there's really no downside and god knows we can really use an updated Classifieds section on our forum.

I'm having trouble with one of my other mods while trying to upgrade to vB4.2.2. Can I install the Panjo plugin on vB4.2.1 and then upgrade to 4.2.2 later (with the other mods are sorted) without any issues?

Doug - We spoke by phone yesterday. For the sake of the group I'll answer here too. Yes, you can install the Panjo plugin on vB4.2.1 and upgrade to 4.2.2 later. BUT - if you do that... there is a Panjo 'exporter' and 'importer' to bridge you from any earlier version of vB with Panjo to vB 4.2.2 with Panjo.

We don't agree with your SEO assessment... Most Panjo partners have a legacy subforum or subforums dedicated to items for sale. Google is accustomed to crawling and indexing those legacy subforums. Panjo creates thread posts for listings in those legacy subforum(s) so that Google can efficiently find, index, and credit them. The thread versions of the listings automatically update when listing information charges or when the item sells.

Example:
Here is the iFrame version of one of our partners, Planet-9 Porsche Marketplace.
Here is the corresponding subforum. By design, google indexes the subforum.

The master listing is synchronized with the thread post version of the listing. When a listing sells, the thread gets a [SOLD] designation.

Thanks for these great questions.

IB does not get a cut of sales. As stated in the announcement about the Panjo-vBulletin partnership: "Panjo is a unique platform that unlocks a new premium revenue stream for site owners," says John McGanty, General Manager at Internet Brands, the parent company of vBulletin. "By integrating Panjo into vBulletin, our customers can monetize their sites through commerce. The members who visit those sites benefit from newfound convenience and improved security."

If you need us to make intros to any current Panjo users, ping me, chad@panjo.com and I'll make some intros. If you scroll down this page, there are links to sites using Panjo.

Thanks for the kind words. I am not sure how active current Panjo partners are on vBulletin.org. Prior to the 4.2.2 partnership, Panjo was live on ~40 sites. Now, ~24 hours later, Panjo is live on ~80 sites.

Here are some examples:
Snowboarding marketplace
BMW marketplace
Porsche marketplace
Belly dancing marketplace
Men's fashion marketplace

We aren't spending the money on sales people. We are spending it on developers and support. We now have two backend developers, a visual designer/front end dev, a mobile developer, and three support people. Here is a picture of us:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2013/10/21.jpg

You are correct. If members pay each other directly, and you don't charge any fees, then members won't incur fees. We agree, "there's really no downside and god knows [sites] can really use an updated Classifieds section...."

The plugin is great now. We look forward to continuing to ship new features. You can find a history of updates and improvements on the Panjo blog.

Before I install the mod, i just have a few questions --

If I understand your business model correctly, the module is free to install and use, but you take a % out of the transactions that close through the platform?

What if I have some classifieds that don't have monetary value -- free stuff that site members are giving away?

What if we have a listing where people don't want to close the transaction with a credit card? (ie, like a piece of equipment that's $90,000 -- it ain't going on their Visa. :) )

How do you handle those types of listings?

thanks!

anyone?

I think he already answered you. I know my previous question dealt directly with fees, and he said there are no fees except those incurred when using their credit card service.

I guess i'm trying to understand their business model -- conceivably one could use this module and never pay a cent, as long as you didn't use them to process the transaction?

Ya,... another mod needing support.

This does seem pretty cool. I don't know if my users will use it when eBay is just a click away and has a much larger userbase, but if it's included in 4.2.2 I might activate it for a while and see.

Here's a question - does the system handle delivery (download) of digital products (PDFs, or the like)? Having users sell digital products to each other for real money sounds pretty awesome.

Yeah, I actually think it looks pretty interesting and I'd like to try it out. Maybe those using it now can let me know if it's possible to try out on a live site in a way that will be invisible to normal users? (It didn't seem to want to register properly on my dev server.)

Anyone go through the details of the privacy policy or terms of service? I'm curious how much information Panjo collects and keeps. For example, does Panjo keep all buyer and seller contact info? Would Panjo ever try to sell that info to a 3rd party or directly try to advertise to my members via email or otherwise?

I've activated it in 4.2.2 - though my test listing is the only one there right now.

Panjo asked for my email address when I first went to list an item (it didn't when I started to list a second item) and has a note saying it will only be used to notify you of activity on your listing, and will not be sold. It didn't ask for other info - address or anything - though it asked for a shipping country. So all it's got is an email addy and a description of an item, which seems fairly OK to me. If they start directly emailing my members other than that, I'll be surprised (and very pissed!)

(Oh, it asked for my PayPal account, too).

Not much else to report. Most folks selling stuff on my site simply link to eBay auctions, so I don't know if it'll get used.

One thing I don't like about it is that the page title is "Panjo Marketplace", not your own site's.

As far as I can see, listings don't get mirrored in the associated forum (using the 4.2.2 included installation).

These questions are best answered with some context around the business model:

Panjo provides its classifieds plugin to you for free. You choose whether you want to monetize your classifieds. If you want to monetize your classifieds, you can charge final value fees (transactional fees). Support for listing fees and paid promotional options are coming soon. If you charge a final value fee, Panjo retains a portion of that fee.

Example: A seller lists an item for $100. A buyer purchases the item for $100. You charge a 1% final value fee. The seller will receive ~$96. There is a ~$3 (3%) payment processing fee, which is consistent with industry averages for credit card interchange fees. You will get $1.

If a buyer and seller don't want to close the transaction with a credit card, at present, they can do so for free.

If a seller wants to trade an item or list an item for $0, at present, he/she can do so without incurring an fees.

True. Thus, it behoves us to make sure we are continually providing value and security to the buyer and seller that spurs use of the system.