[SamirDarji]

Originally Posted by KerryF

That's why we built this, we've been using forums and their classifieds for a very long time. We don't think they work well for classifieds. Forums were built for conversations and they're great at that, but they're really not built for buying or selling things.

Oh you don't have to convince me. It's the users that will need to be convinced. And unless they perceive it to be at least 50% better than what they're using, they'll dig their heels in.

Originally Posted by KerryF

Unfortunately there weren't many people that came through that link, and with the communication problem I mentioned above they might not have understood exactly what it was doing or why you were looking for feedback. It's not clear from that page that it will integrate nicely into a vBulletin forum. So I imagine they came and saw some classifieds site, clicked through to one of the listings and then left confused.

I didn't think many people would click on it, but I expected at least one or two 'yay or nay' type of comments. To be honest, I don't even know how it will integrate nicely, so I could see their confusion.

Originally Posted by KerryF

If you don't have a classifieds forum already, isn't that a perfect opportunity to use Styckyd as your classifieds system? I think your users are geographically focused though, so it may not be as useful until there is a network of communities involved (One of the main features is that we calculate shipping and include it in the price the buyer pays).

Starting out with styckyd would be a serious consideration if there was tight integration. But the CC barrier to posting will immediately turn off the users in this area who expect everything for free. There's other local forums with more active classifieds sections even though they have less traffic, and yet the postings primarily go there and craigslist because of 'free'. For my site, I would already be facing competitive pressures from the other traditionally-formatted classifieds sections, so adopting an unfamiliar format would probably work against me unless users had a choice on using styckyd or a forum and both were working concurrently.

Automatic shipping calculation is great, but Fedex is horrible in our area. So adding UPS will be important. Especially since UPS is the only shipping company in the US that guarantees their ground shipment times. I have a UPS daily account and used to do almost $2k a week with them in a previous business. I tried every company out there before I settled on UPS.

Originally Posted by KerryF

Yes, install Styckyd.

I could install styckyd, but frankly, it would be a tab on my navbar that wouldn't be clicked if there's a classifieds forum. This is why I need integration to make both systems simultaneously available to the users.

I'm currently in the process of a complete site re-design, so any classifieds implementation will come after that, and maybe not until the end of the year since the content producing season is basically here. During this season, I rarely have time to breathe moreless consider any infrastructure changes.