Vendors on GT40s.com

[Ron Earp]

Many good points on here. I'd like to respond or comment on a few, in no particular order:

• Free forums - yes, they exist but the software is generally poor, you have to put up with whims of the hosting company, targeted ads in the middle of posts, and you can't have the sort of customization and features you have on a forum like this. We started on a Network54 forum way back in the day and outgrew it quickly. If you want a dedicated server, dedicated software, photo hosting, and features like found here and on other sites it ain't free.

• T-shirts for members - great idea until it comes to shipping overseas, where half of us are at. It is easy and cheap for me to ship tshirts in the US but not overseas. Will have to do some thinking on this one. Plus, we'd need a GT40s.com design that wouldn't infringe upon various trademarks and most of all looks cool. I for one ain't an artist!

• I'm liking the tiered concepts brought forth. But I can see one potential pitfall in that it could be all the advertisers we have wish to move to the lower tier and thus income would drop precipitously. I do not think the presence of a website is a good indication of how large a company is. I have see comments on this thread about "a site like this" (meaning GT40s.com), when in reality GT40s.com is a tiny business, if it can even be called a business. Someone mentioned having a vendor for like $400 and banner adverts/forums extra. I like this idea. More discussion around that one would be nice.

• Moderated / controlled subforums - not sure about these. At least two members point out they don't like them and wouldn't allow them. Why not? If a company pays for a subforum and wishes to moderate it is it a problem? GT40s.com is open and you are free to post what you want. But if you go posting in a moderated subforum by XYZ about why XYZ's product stinks do you think the XYZ company should allow that? They pay for their subforum. Now the person can doing the posting can always post anywhere else on the forum, such as the Feedback Forum, and the post will not be removed or changed in any way. That said, I'm not a huge fan of moderated subforums just on general principles. It makes the admin job just that much more difficult for little gain. I offered moderated subforums to try and stop some of the vendor infighting that was occuring late in 2008. I think that has calmed down now and the moderated forums are no longer needed.

• Sponsored forums - same as above but in the unmoderated sense. These are a bit of a pain because sooner or later the company that sponsors them maybe doesn't want to do so any longer. What to do with the posts? If we have paying vendors I'm not up for leaving a vendor forum up for free advertising.

• Making the site fully accessible only if you pay - no, I don't like this suggestion. GT40s.com is 100% free and I want it to remain so. Anyone can register, log in, and post pictures, view threads, ask questions, etc and see all of the forum. I like that and I think most of our members do too. Yes, you need to have a valid email, confirm registration, and we'd prefer you use a real name but that is all it takes to use GT40s.com.

• Ebay forum - not sure I'm a fan of it. It is only a few people using that forum and I delete posts out of it all the time from folks putting their own wares there. If you want to sell it to a GT40s.com forum member then list it in the "Garage Sale" area, for forum members, with a price, and get on with it. If you want to sell it on Ebay list it there, but not here.

• Determination of vendor size...not sure I should worry about it. What we need is a scheme like Jac Mac and others have suggested that has enough benefits/restrictions that the levels will automatically sort out the vendors. If you are big and need a lot of exposure you'll use T1, the big one. If you are tiny and just need to be allowed to advertse then T9, the small one. The trick is there has to be enough difference in benefits that a company can't pick T9 and have 95% of the benefits of T1. That is sort of what we have now. The only difference between the old two tier system was the banner advertisement, otherwise the non-banner advert group could advertise as much, more more, than a banner advert company.

Discuss.

 

[JimmyMac]

I'd like to respond or comment on a few, in no particular order:

• Free forums - If you want a dedicated server, dedicated software, photo hosting, and features like found here and on other sites it ain't free.

• If we have paying vendors I'm not up for leaving a vendor forum up for free advertising.

• Making the site fully accessible only if you pay - no, I don't like this suggestion. GT40s.com is 100% free and I want it to remain so.
  
  Discuss.

Ron,
So are you saying that you want GT40s.com to be fully supported in some form by vendors with subscribers only buying Tee-shirts ?

 

[Ron Earp]

Ron,
So are you saying that you want GT40s.com to be fully supported in some form by vendors with subscribers only buying Tee-shirts ?

Not really, as mentioned, I simply responded to some thoughts in no particular order.

Voluntary contributions are always welcome on GT40s.com and I know some folks would be interested in getting something like a tshirt for contributions. I know the tshirt deal certainly helped with my contributions to couple of forums although a very minor role. I wear tshirts all the time, I like the various forums I support, so a good deal for me personally.

Vendors have a lot to gain on a forum like this so certainly I think a good bit of the bill should be paid for by those profiting from its existance. We've countless threads on newbies coming here looking for information about cars. This forum conects those people with vendors in an efficient manner. Ditto with parts suppliers and so on.

R

 

[Ian K]

My take:

1) I do not like the criterion of having a website to determine what kind of vendor you are.
There is a big difference between deployment of websites between vendors, even here.
Wealden Engineering's site, vs. Tornado vs. Cushman Comp. Some vendors will play almost
nothing to develop a site, and just provide static minimal information, and will look for the
lowest cost hosting. Others will go with full-fledged online sales, and have more expensive
hosting services to accommodate that. So, it is not a one size fits all solution.

2) Like Ron, I totally disagree with required "subscriptions" for members. Yes, right now I am
not a paid member, but in the past I was. My situation has changed, and right now, for the
next 4 months or so, even $25 is hard to send out. That may change if some consulting gigs
come through, but until then ... But, when things come around, I will be a paying sponsor again.

3) My thoughts on paid sponsorship - have a set price for all vendors, and then allow extras.
For example, say $250/yr allows posting of wares/advertising in posts and announcements,
i.e. normal vendor status. For an additional $200/yr, a banner ad. For an additional
$200/yr, an unmoderated subforum. For an additional $300/yr, a moderated subforum.
These numbers are just examples, but it allows the vendors to choose how much they
want to spend vs. how much of a presence. And, they can get itemized bills. Obviously the
numbers would need some working.

4) T- shirt sponsorship - count me in (eventually). I might even cough up for two when I can,
my son would love a GT40 t-shirt.

Ian

 

[Ron Earp]

I've been thinking about the tiered system and costs.

What should the smallest type of vendor pay on the forum? Some have complained that $300/year is too high, yet I've seen some of them advertising in magazines that cost at least that much and more.

I mean at some point the cost of an individual supporter status and a vendor are going to be so close together that everybody will just be vendors....

 

[Johann]

Ron,

IMHO the advertising rates on this forum are very good. I advertise in 4 different motor sport and kit car magazines and it is costing me $486 to $850 per placing. We get very good exposure on this forum and can advertise with a banner ad (includes animated ads!) and can also advertise in our postings as many times that we want to do so. I think that it is a "top value" medium and package.

 

[Ron Martel]

I agree with Johann. My Yellow Pages advertising used to cost me $700/month for a 1/16 page display ad, so I consider the rates here very reasonable. While GT40s.com reaches a much narrower audience than many advertising media, every member/viewer is a potential buyer. In the marketing world, that's an ideal situation. Having to pay a membership fee just to belong to the site would only decrease the membership and give advertisers a smaller pool of potential buyers, making their advertising more expensive per potential customer. They would then be less willing to pay for ads with a smaller audience, and the snowball gains momentum...

 

[Ron Earp]

Ron,

IMHO the advertising rates on this forum are very good. I advertise in 4 different motor sport and kit car magazines and it is costing me $486 to $850 per placing. We get very good exposure on this forum and can advertise with a banner ad (includes animated ads!) and can also advertise in our postings as many times that we want to do so. I think that it is a "top value" medium and package.

Hi Johann,

I'm glad you feel GT40s.com is a good venue for you. If you know of any other related companies that might be interested in advertising on GT40s.com please let me know or point them in my direction. I have attempted to recruit new vendors but thus far have failed. We're down to about eight vendors now:

GT40s.com -

And I know that one or two of those will not continue when their contracts expire in a couple of months. We're sort of in a Catch-22 situation - it is hard to propose a new vendor structure until you have a rough idea of how many vendors you have and you can't get new vendors until you know how much it'll cost them. It is a far cry from 2005 or so when we had plenty of vendors and thus income to cover costs. In fact, we had surplus funds in those days that were dumped back into the forum to have the look at feel it has today.