Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

If it doesn't fit the topic in any of the other forums, and is firearm-related, put it here!
Gatsby
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#61

Post by Gatsby »

Makes perfect sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain.


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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#62

Post by h8pvmnt »

There may be more ads but a lot of it is not selling. Quite a few ads for ammo are the same seller that on the site would have posted multiples together. So IDK if its really more just different. I will say its saving me money as i am not looking at the new site much and when i do what i see is of no interest. I have not bought a gun in weeks now LOL. But i am sure most especially younger buyers and sellers will like it better. Just more complicated than i like and too much like Gun-broker which i hate. I do appreciate what your doing and change is always hard for some. Good luck with it.
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#63

Post by admin »

h8pvmnt wrote: November 21st, 2021, 11:26 am There may be more ads but a lot of it is not selling. Quite a few ads for ammo are the same seller that on the site would have posted multiples together. So IDK if its really more just different. I will say its saving me money as i am not looking at the new site much and when i do what i see is of no interest. I have not bought a gun in weeks now LOL. But i am sure most especially younger buyers and sellers will like it better. Just more complicated than i like and too much like Gun-broker which i hate. I do appreciate what your doing and change is always hard for some. Good luck with it.
Funny - feedback I've received is actually the opposite of that. Of course, it has more to do with price rather than the venue. Having more items that can be seen, attracts more potential buyers, which attracts more people wanting to sell to more buyers, etc...

Bottom line is that yep, people don't like change, as it's not comfortable. However, it's also progress. I'm experimenting with an RSS method to drop new listings as read-only posts into a read-only classified board here with links back to the items.
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#64

Post by Sobrbiker »

Any reason why the ads aren’t stable and the site flops listings around every time I try to look at it or scroll through?

Trying to like it, miss the regular classified...
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#65

Post by rockbronco »

I too am missing the old way of doing it. Yeah I admit I do not like change and but I also thought it was easier they old way. I definitely do not check into the new site near as often and I find it a less intuitive all together then posting here on the forum instead. It seems harder to sort to what Im after compared to the forums. I miss the feedback options as well since that was a really good way to see who you where dealing with. I primary only dealt with members here for years and a big part of that was based on feedback proving they are not some random scum bag from the internet. I hope admin can find a way to set that up on the new site for everyone again.
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#66

Post by admin »

Sobrbiker wrote: November 22nd, 2021, 9:03 am Any reason why the ads aren’t stable and the site flops listings around every time I try to look at it or scroll through?

Trying to like it, miss the regular classified...
Stable? Are you referring to the top part that scrolls 8 "featured" ads on the home page? That'll only show you the ones that a seller has listed as a "featured" ad anyway. Or if you click the "recent listings" or one of the others.

If you look in any specific topic, they don't scroll. For example, if you go into "Sporting Goods" main link, you get this:

https://www.azsauctions.com/v2/search/? ... ting-goods

Which shows the category featured ads (that don't scroll) and then below those, all the ads in that category and sub-categories.

If that's not what you're referring to about "stable", let me know.
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#67

Post by admin »

rockbronco wrote: November 22nd, 2021, 10:00 am I too am missing the old way of doing it. Yeah I admit I do not like change and but I also thought it was easier they old way. I definitely do not check into the new site near as often and I find it a less intuitive all together then posting here on the forum instead. It seems harder to sort to what Im after compared to the forums. I miss the feedback options as well since that was a really good way to see who you where dealing with. I primary only dealt with members here for years and a big part of that was based on feedback proving they are not some random scum bag from the internet. I hope admin can find a way to set that up on the new site for everyone again.
Of course I agree that it's "easier" as it isn't any different than a post. Unfortunately, it doesn't scale well without a lot of work and management.

The feedback is one I don't really know how to address well outside of eliminating the classifieds options and just making everything an "auction" on the site. But if you want feedback, just list items as auctions with a buy now price. It's essentially the same thing as a classified ad, but then links the buyer and seller via the site.
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#68

Post by deadshot556 »

rockbronco wrote: November 22nd, 2021, 10:00 am I too am missing the old way of doing it. Yeah I admit I do not like change and but I also thought it was easier they old way. I definitely do not check into the new site near as often and I find it a less intuitive all together then posting here on the forum instead. It seems harder to sort to what Im after compared to the forums. I miss the feedback options as well since that was a really good way to see who you where dealing with. I primary only dealt with members here for years and a big part of that was based on feedback proving they are not some random scum bag from the internet. I hope admin can find a way to set that up on the new site for everyone again.
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#69

Post by QuietM4 »

Since the main site basically killed the classifieds, unless you are a "supporter" of the site, e.g you pay money (kinda reminds me of ArmsList...odd), I find myself going elsewhere to post items for sale...and visiting this site less often. And, it's really unfair to the "supporters" who I would suspect gave money in order to bypass the access hoops that in place in order to view the classified sections...which are now nearly dead because nearly every person who posted there regularly has lost access. I would want my money back...

It suspect, as it is in my case, that the classifieds were what drew most users to this site to begin with, and the forum discussions were a bonus...not the other way around. I'm happy to participate in whatever Riddler-esque hoops you want us to jump through to get access to the classifieds, but I don't appreciate being forced into using another complicated website to post items for sale, when the exact same people who are members of AZS are the same people who are posting ads on the new site...all that has been accomplished is MORE work for the Admin and ANOTHER series of hoops for users.

The new site needs to loose all the extra categories...ONLY focus on firearms and firearms related item categories...I don't think someone selling a doll collection is ever going to find the new site. The extra categories simply waste space and ad confusion when trying to search or post items. The simple categories used on this site, AZS, work perfectly.

The main reason I like AZS is that I am familiar with many of the people here...I've sold or purchased multiple items from several people. I am comfortable with the people on this site...I don't know who I'm interacting with on the new site. Yes, I'm aware most of the users if not all at this point are from AZS...but that is not how it will be in the future if the Admin's plan works out.
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#70

Post by Boriqua »

Here is my feedback and worth .. .ZERO to anyone but here goes anyway

I will preface this with .. I have NO problem with the board owner trying to make a few bucks on something he devotes time and money to. Its America . if you can find a way to profit from your efforts then you should.

With that said. I signed up just to poke around a couple weeks ago and have tried to post a couple of things. Here are my thoughts

There are WAY to many categories and sub categories. I don't know if they are built into the software or can be modified but so many of the primary categories can either be eliminated or condensed into larger bites. I know there are a lot of lurkers but if you are here looking for office equipment .. "other" might be fine. The title still reads AZS Auctions so shooting is part of the title.

Case in point .. I just went in and pressed "sell" I put in "Cameras and Photography" from the enormous list. Then I get a sub menu with something like 20 choices. I didn't count. Click .. then I get a sub sub menu with even more choices. Its just to many steps. In this instance .. "cameras and photography" would have been enough if it were deemed necessary to have it be its own category at all.

Then I tried to post and it sent me back for not including state. Not sure the intention but .. is the new site looking to cater to out of staters and compete with Armslist ?? .. if not Remove some of the extraneous information needs.

I still have not figured out how to post pictures. People are doing it so it works but when I tried, I first get a "limit" size of about 500Kb which gets kicked back and last time I arrived at a message that said the pic could not exceed 24kb.

That is an awful small file and I am not computer illiterate but . I couldn't seem to create a file size the software liked or I was doing something incorrectly.

Me personally .. I am very cool with charging for "extras" on the listings and its a good feature and can make a few bucks for the owner but it is needlessly complicated to put up a listing.

I can post an ad on Gunsarizona and have the same access to listing upgrades but have an ad posted in less than a minute. For general non gun related junk .. I can post on offerup in less than a minute.

I have enjoyed this site for many years and all iterations but the new software is a bit unwieldy which means I will just post on other sites.

Its a shame because the value of a classified section on the board was that you had a sense of the people your were dealing with so it wasn't some blind encounter. I would love to help toss some funds to the owner for their efforts but .. ya have to make it easy.

I participated here for years
http://usualsuspect.net/forums/forum.php
When the forum owner decided to make a few bucks on a very robust classified section .. he just charged a fee to access the classifieds section but nothing else changed about how ads were posted or viewed.

Here is the plan for "basic" access which is $35 a year to participate in classifieds
"The Basic Plan gives you unlimited buying and selling in The Cove for an entire year. Includes large PM box (600) with Message Tracking, unlimited USN searches, Photo Album (400 images), Social Groups, Blogs, and Visitor Messages. This plan is ideal for the casual buyer/seller. It's everything you need and nothing that you don't. *NOT available to Trial Members and does not apply to Dealers. Dealers must inquire with Admin about a Dealer Forum Plan*"

Just my 2 cents and is worth even less.
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#71

Post by Sobrbiker »

The value of a the old classifieds was it was part of a community that many of us had been members of for going on 20yrs, through many iterations.
I guess I’ve been around long enough to just be in the cranky old reluctant to change guy category. Hell, I’ve got contacts on my phone from AZS trading from the days of dial up modems...
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#72

Post by samnev »

The site owner has the right to make money form this site. But after reading Boriqua's post it seems way to cumbersome. Between the original site AZShooting,com an the new iteration I've been around about 20 years. I really enjoyed the old site and had may dealings as buyer and a seller. The thing I don't like about this site is my inability to post an add on the classified even though I have over 500 post. I guess I haven't made the grade oh the post I've listed. :(
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#73

Post by admin »

Man, if you guys were running a web site for a community, it would still be running on a BBS system from the 90's because "change sucks".

This is turning into a complaint thread, it appears. The fact is that in the past ~20 years of running an online forum, every single change I've made - from a little one to a larger one - was met with a "this sucks" chorus from a vocal group.

As for QuietM4 trying to stir up site supporters - the fact is that there are very few [much appreciated!] supporters who actually put their money where their mouth is and donate $2 to $10 per month (you can count them on your hands), and the majority of them already had access to the formerly locked-down classifieds. In fact, only two users joined as a patron to get access to the classifieds. All the others already had access. They supported the site with a few bucks because they appreciated it. You're acting as if two users paid a lump sum to 'get something' and I owe it to continue the status quo. The supporting members/patrons had access to the site several weeks prior to anyone else even being aware of it existing to test it, provide feedback, etc.

As for those who are providing constructive feedback over blindly complaining - thank you. The AZSAuctions.com site has been modified dozens of times over the last few weeks based on feedback I've received on it.

The name of the new site was meant to be a subtle reference to a commonly used acronym for this web forum - and not to overtly link the two. The idea is for AZSAuctions.com be a standalone site. If you didn't know about this web forums site, you would not be able to find it from just knowing about the AZSAuctions.com site. The logo also incorporates firearms, outdoors and Arizona.

As far as the categories - I've mentioned it multiple times in several other threads about the site. I started making the categories out of scratch, based on what people had listed in these classifieds over time. After spending a couple hours mapping it, decided that there were enough distinct categories people had used here on AZS that it would be easier to just find a list that someone had already created and import it into my database. So I did that. There are undoubtedly categories that will very likely never be used - but the only thing I've done to that list I found and imported, was to remove the adult categories and add more specific ones to the Sporting Goods "shooting" categories to add more specificity. I coded it in a manner so that when you browse categories, it won't show any that don't have at least one ad in them. The only time you will see the other categories is when listing an item - and even then, you still need to pick a top level category and sub-category for firearm stuff - so unless I am misunderstanding, the only complaint here is that you may have to scroll down a bit to select "Sporting Goods" as the initial category for a gun-related item. While I may eventually take the time to remove things like "Doll Collections" (didn't even know it was in there), it's low on the list to address because it doesn't really matter for the reasons I mentioned previously. It doesn't seem to be an inconvenience to have it there. Originally, I had FIVE nested categories, but moved it to three based on feedback. If I step back to two, I will eventually get complaints that it's not specific enough. While it would be easier early on with less traffic and users, it would take quite a bit of effort and fixing to add those later on.

As for requiring the "State" field - yes. I'm sure you would've been pissed early on when I originally required a full address to create an account. I scaled that back to just username, email and a password. Though if you list something for sale, yeah, you need to include your state. If you just add the City and State in you profile, it will auto-add those when you list something for sale. Why is city and state required? Because this caters to face-to-face transactions and it is much easier for a seller to just add a state and city so a potential buyer knows when he's looking at items and can see the location. Will we get many outside AZ? Probably not, but it's at least an option since sellers can also choose to ship stuff.

As for pictures - first off, I think you misread the site limit - it's 240 Kb, not 24 kb. Photo sizes on "free" sites has been a fight in almost all forums and classifieds. When you have several dozen users (much less hundreds of users) who are trying to upload a few raw 20 MB, 4000 x 6500 images from their phones to each of their ads, that gets expensive to host those for everyone and the size is ridiculous and un-necessary for a web site. You don't need anything even remotely that large. So my options would be to charge for picture hosting (didn't want to do), or force all pictures to be hosted externally (also, didn't want to do). At some point I will try to incorporate a function that auto-resizes it when you upload your raw, 20 MB 4000x6500 image - but that takes time and expense to do. Unfortunately, I'm a one-man-show when it comes to this, I don't have an army of developers like "OfferUp" does. So, I went with a middle-ground which is covered here: https://www.azsauctions.com/v2/faq

Read the FAQ and it explains your options with pictures pretty well.
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#74

Post by admin »

samnev wrote: November 24th, 2021, 8:54 am The site owner has the right to make money form this site. But after reading Boriqua's post it seems way to cumbersome. Between the original site AZShooting,com an the new iteration I've been around about 20 years. I really enjoyed the old site and had may dealings as buyer and a seller. The thing I don't like about this site is my inability to post an add on the classified even though I have over 500 post. I guess I haven't made the grade oh the post I've listed. :(
Has nothing to do with post counts. No one can post new ads to the classifieds sections here as of several weeks ago. I locked it down because the new site is where all new ads should go.
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Re: Discussion on AZSAuctions.com site - is now live - buy/sell/trade

#75

Post by h8pvmnt »

I was not aware that the classifieds here were locked down, i missed that fact. That seems counter intuitive. Why wouldn't they both be able to exist? Oh well Admins prerogative. It is what it is. Luckily i seldom sell anything and when i do it never sold well on here anyway. Happy Thanksgiving to All.
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