I've been a member and become a huge fan of this site in the last couple of months.
My biggest dislike though is the lack of a rule forbidding people from promoting their own sites and businesses. If a deal is good enough, it will be submitted anyway… but the lack of any rule asking people not to promote their own site seems to mean a large number of lame deals by people simply trying to promote their own site.
Thoughts?
I'd suggest separating the two. To make it obvious which are the deals offered by Merchants. If it becomes obvious that a certain company or business is continually trying to promote themselves by using a normal user account instead of a merchant account, that domain could be permanently blocked… a pretty big deterrent. This would even give you the option to charge for merchant accounts down the track (because let's be honest… they're offering the deals because it makes them money!)
Thanks for the suggestion. I am working on setting up the merchant-representative status for users who post on behalf of their store and will mark those deals so they will be obvious.
Being able to spot dodgy merchants trying to do a bit of fake viral marketing can be difficult and time consuming though. I do have adequate data (IP address, cookies, etc) but it can still take time to analyse those data (before something fully-automated can be written).
As of charging merchants for submitting deals — I would hate to do that as I would rather they pass on their "marketing budget" as savings (or special promo code!) to consumers.
I support johnsee's suggestions including the domain/merchant ban deterrent against improper behaviour.
If there's anything the community can do to help with finding dodgy operators, I'll volunteer.
Thanks HueyData.
The "by domain" method obviously has a problem here as I don't want to ban the entire Exetel domain :) The code is already there though to ban domains (and we have already banned quite a few persisting spammers from China).
The “by domain” method obviously has a problem here as I don’t want to ban the entire Exetel domain :)
Bah, what have Exetelians done for us lately? :) (But anyhow, that was why I put "domain/merchant ban" rather than just "domain ban".)
The ShoppingSquare store page looks good and as long as the representatives and their posts are clearly identified I'm happy. It should be a positive for OzBargain.
I think Johnsee has a point about this (although nearly all deals have a goal to make someone money).
Maybe something like merchant deals needing higher votes before reaching front page, so that they don't clutter up site with deals that aren't in the opinion of ozbers "good".
Havent thought this thru so its just something that might stimulate other thoughts - over 2 you
But as OB grows then there will be more "lame" bargains listed both by OBers and merchants
Having a merchant tag would also add legitimacy to those vendors deals, as it would be a sign to user's that it's not a 2nd or 3rd hand deal with dodgy details… it's from the horse's mouth so to speak.
The "merchant representative" code is pretty much done. You can see it at the ShoppingSquare store page. After I have tidied up the code the next thing we need to do is to invite the merchants to sign up their reps status.
Dodgy merchants who pretend to be a customer and promote their own sites are still an issue though. I will have to update the guideline to ban fake viral marketing here when I get a chance.
Looks good!
It's a tremendous feeling to not only have you listen to our ideas but actually implement them as well :)
Maybe vendors have to offer a special deal to be here - when they list they must use the coupon and offer a code that gives some sort of discount or better deal that can't be found from them "normally"
By normally I mean - look at their site, or elsewhere where they are providing the product to the general public.
They can obviously offer better pricing to Loyal customers, other discount sites, buying groups (eg Entertainment) etc, So then their listing is not a general advert but a special promo - ie a bargain.
johnsee — thanks for raising this issue.
I know everyone hates spam, but running a bargain community site is really like walking on a fine line — deciding whether a post is a deal or a spam can be really subjective.
Moreover there are a few issues with blocking the merchants from posting here.
At the end it is still up to the individuals to decide whether a deal is good or bad, regardless who posted it, by voting FOR or AGAINST it.
I am happy to take any suggestion on how we can improve the quality of deals posted. I am just a lowly programmer so tell me how to make it work, and I'll get back to the "factory" to make it happen (when I have time and opportunity :).