Is it a wind-up?

[rhodesianmilitaria]

Concept500 has 86 dealers with no selling prices left after an item has been reserved or sold, yet the items stay on the site. That's my biggest whinge.

[Old Smelly]

Originally Posted by rhodesianmilitaria

Concept500 has 86 dealers with no selling prices left after an item has been reserved or sold, yet the items stay on the site. That's my biggest whinge.

Concept 500 leaves it up to the individual dealers to police their own stock but they are supposed to remove sold items asap. Regimentals items disappear as soon as they are sold but most dealers leave it for a while as a 'look at what you could have won'
Lee

Originally Posted by 2747andy

When setting up Sell My Militaria, I canvased members on what functions they would like the site to have, one was to leave sold items on show with the selling price, so it could be used as a reference!

I suppose some people like them left and others don't!

Andy

Andy,

I agree with you it's down to individual preference, I can see the point about leaving items on site with the sold price but the majority of sites just leave the badge with sold on it.

Cheers,

Marcus

[John L]

Originally Posted by rhodesianmilitaria

I bought something from an Aussie website 5 years ago and it's still on the site. Can't see any reason why it would still be there other than laziness on the part of the webmaster to remove it.

I agree with that observation. I hate to go through sold items trying to find the good ones

John

[Deejayuu]

Originally Posted by 2747andy

When setting up Sell My Militaria, I canvased members on what functions they would like the site to have, one was to leave sold items on show with the selling price, so it could be used as a reference!

I suppose some people like them left and others don't!

Andy

Seeing the selling price is informative, especially on the rarer items. These sites however remove the selling price once the items has been marked ` sold`.

[talavera48]

Hi all,

My tuppenceworth as a "hobbyist dealer".

The Concept 500 sites (like mine) automatically have the price removed once an item is reserved/purchased - the seller has no say in this, although I've never felt it a particular issue to complain about to the website provider.

As for removing sold items, as mentioned above that is down to the individual seller. My own view is that I try to remove them relatively quickly, since I know it is frustrating trawling a bunch of things you cannot buy. However, I confess sometimes I'm more efficient than others (last year I moved house and my brother passed on, which meant removing sold items from my site was low down my list of priorities).

Since reputable sellers offer a refund option it does make sense not to remove things immediately. As an example, I recently listed the rare pattern RIF fur cap grenade (KK953) and it sold in a matter of hours. I didn't remove it immediately and a few days later someone else offered to buy it if the original purchaser didn't follow up with payment (sadly, it does happen occassionally). Aside from it doing no harm to show I had such a nice item for sale, it makes good practical business sense to leave it in place for a while.


Regards,


David.

[NEMO]

Originally Posted by talavera48

Hi all,

My tuppenceworth as a "hobbyist dealer".

The Concept 500 sites (like mine) automatically have the price removed once an item is reserved/purchased - the seller has no say in this, although I've never felt it a particular issue to complain about to the website provider.

As for removing sold items, as mentioned above that is down to the individual seller. My own view is that I try to remove them relatively quickly, since I know it is frustrating trawling a bunch of things you cannot buy. However, I confess sometimes I'm more efficient than others (last year I moved house and my brother passed on, which meant removing sold items from my site was low down my list of priorities).

Since reputable sellers offer a refund option it does make sense not to remove things immediately. As an example, I recently listed the rare pattern RIF fur cap grenade (KK953) and it sold in a matter of hours. I didn't remove it immediately and a few days later someone else offered to buy it if the original purchaser didn't follow up with payment (sadly, it does happen occassionally). Aside from it doing no harm to show I had such a nice item for sale, it makes good practical business sense to leave it in place for a while.


Regards,


David.

There is a strong Augument to leave items a few weeks to show what you have managed to pick up and offer for sale as Lee very rightly puts it

" cum an av a loook at wat ya cud of won "

The format for our websites such as mine grandads-kitbag is all run of the same format Concept 500 ,one of the options is to use a setting where if an item is purchased you mark it as ` Reserved `first then when the deal as gone through re set it as SOLD .

My own personal method is after a two week period of been sold and the buyer has his item inspected it and is happy with it I move it from its individual section say BADGES , UNIFORMS ,GERMAN , MEDALS to a SOLD ITEMS section but the sed item will be still visible in main items for a short while .

The only other option is to delete completely but by doing this especially if an item is rare and sells over night other collectors would have no idea what you have sold or be able to gauge the quailty or rarity of the stock you pick up ????

and as a foot note as a collector myself I think its good that items remain when I look at other websites as you can spot trends in what is popular what is selling and be able to get a genuine ` feel` if the dealer is honest or selling crap / fakes .............

just my thoughts ..

[popskipa]

I have been following my original post with interest. Michael's website is a good example that illustrates my frustration.

108 pages I reached page 20 then gave up, I was fed up looking at a page of items to find only one item actually for sale. I would estimate the 108 pages would be around 30 if sold items were extracted.

To be fair to Michael he is only doing what is the norm. But why not have a separate archive or items sold section then file the sold item there?

If I want to see the quality of the items the dealer has had then I will take a look at his Archive. However is that the real reason why the sold item is left in stock? Is it not an ego thing, the dealer wanting to boast he has a website containing 100 pages of stock rather than just 30?

[ncc]

Originally Posted by popskipa

I have been following my original post with interest. Michael's website is a good example that illustrates my frustration.

108 pages I reached page 20 then gave up, I was fed up looking at a page of items to find only one item actually for sale. I would estimate the 108 pages would be around 30 if sold items were extracted.

To be fair to Michael he is only doing what is the norm. But why not have a separate archive or items sold section then file the sold item there?

If I want to see the quality of the items the dealer has had then I will take a look at his Archive. However is that the real reason why the sold item is left in stock? Is it not an ego thing, the dealer wanting to boast he has a website containing 100 pages of stock rather than just 30?

as a dealer who actually makes a living by dealing.
i would like to say .
1) its my site.
2) i pay the £500 a year to run it.
3) i pay for the £100's of petrol looking for stuff to sell.
4) i spent hours loading the site,answering inane questions and packing and posting items.
5) i will do what ever i b*****well like with it.
life is a lot better if you stop moaning and get on with it!
if you don't buy anything from me i am sure the bentley will still get filled and the race horses will still get fed.
Bob

[popskipa]

I understand your argument about it being your website etc. But you have missed my point which is asking for the websites to be tidied up in a way that would make them more friendly to the buyer, and this should help improve the dealers sales.

I probably speak for many collectors, we know what we want, we have the money to buy, we just want to find what we are looking for without too much hassle.

[ASR142]

Hi Chaps
Julie and I both have webs sites (Britton at war & Brittons Badges )
Now when I ran both sites 2 years ago I used to print the sold pages and promptly delete the sold items as i got used to the sites i realized that if i left sold items up it would create a bigger goggle hit for the web site as these would pull customers in to find the site I / we don't do it to show off or to annoy customers its there to create traffic for the web site with around 700 people a day looking at both sites its about statistics only in the hope that as potential customers look through the site they see something they want we get quite a few wanted lists from sold items so we decided to leave them up regards steve

[ubervamp]

Hi all

Personally I have no problem with sold items still being shown as long as the price it sold for is listed. It provides a benchmark of what certain badges are selling for, something I find useful. And also, as others have commented, it gives me an idea of the sort of trade a site is doing. And serves as a reminder to be more vigilant

Cheers

Colin

[rhodesianmilitaria]

Originally Posted by ncc

as a dealer who actually makes a living by dealing.
i would like to say .
1) its my site.
2) i pay the £500 a year to run it.
3) i pay for the £100's of petrol looking for stuff to sell.
4) i spent hours loading the site,answering inane questions and packing and posting items.
5) i will do what ever i b*****well like with it.
life is a lot better if you stop moaning and get on with it!
if you don't buy anything from me i am sure the bentley will still get filled and the race horses will still get fed.
Bob

ROFL you must be selling a lot because it looks like you don't have the energy to use the shift button to put in capital letters. That's on the left hand side of your keyboard.

[NEMO]

Originally Posted by popskipa

I have been following my original post with interest. Michael's website is a good example that illustrates my frustration.

108 pages I reached page 20 then gave up, I was fed up looking at a page of items to find only one item actually for sale. I would estimate the 108 pages would be around 30 if sold items were extracted.

To be fair to Michael he is only doing what is the norm. But why not have a separate archive or items sold section then file the sold item there?

If I want to see the quality of the items the dealer has had then I will take a look at his Archive. However is that the real reason why the sold item is left in stock? Is it not an ego thing, the dealer wanting to boast he has a website containing 100 pages of stock rather than just 30?

You have made some genuine fair comments that I have taken on board including the suggestion to put the price of what items sold for ,
but with respect sir I feel you missed my point ,
when the item is sold it can be moved out of stock in to a SOLD ITEMS section but they still show up in main stock for a while the rest of the sold items Ive just not got around to moving bad practise on my part ......

However to say sold items are left on show because of ego could be taken as unfair or down right offensive ?? ego NO - pride perhaps yes, I think the comment that its done to ` pretend ` you have far more pages of items of stock for sale than actually sold is unfair and a bit cruel.

I genuine welcome your comments that is why I am not offended I could say the same for any one who shows their collection in the albums section ??

My website is small and perhaps quite `run o the mill` Im a collector first and a lot of good items go straight in to my own collection but I believe one glance would show my site to be honest genuine no nonsence items , I sell very few capbadges every one I find I save - thats my pension fund but I will keep maintaining by leaving sold items up for a while people will get the ` feel` of your site , both the style of what you sell and if the stuff is fake or reproduction .......

What I mean by style is this , If I want an item of hard to come by british kit I would go to Britton at war , if rare cloth signs it would be Geoff Newman , Hi end rare items would be W,D Militaria etc ?

I hope this reply is taken in the spirit it is meant .

[2747andy]

Items on SMM auto delete after 30 days sold or otherwise! I have left the sold items from my own sales on view as a guide!

I get most of the points brought out above, but more use of the search functions on both SMM and the concept based sites can save time, it is worth having a play to see what some of the functions are, rather than scroll through page after page of everything!

Andy