Mr/Ms Administrator,
I did, ultimately, find the marketplace as you have listed in your first link. I clicked your second link and got a blank page.
The fragmented design of the new marketplace forces reading all postings when most of them have little or nothing to with the needs of the reader. The catagorized design of the previous marketplace lent itself to more compartmentalized requirements of the reader so they didn't have to read about all the first gens or the originals when they wanted second gen info et cetra. I think that is the main crux of the "push back" you are getting. Change is not always good just for the sake of change. There needs to be an upgrade. Ultimately you are cognizant over the design and execution of the site. If your readers like then they'll participate and you are a hero. If the readers don't like it they go away and you are not a hero.
Best of luck to you.

 

I've looked at it a bit, and I have to agree, the old way was better. Maybe a poll?

The search is nice, but most of the time, I'm just browsing--sometimes I'll find something I wouldn't have necessarily thought of, and buy it. I suspect I'm not the only one...

The new format pretty much kills that. What was hands down the best marketplace setup is now just like all the others.

The search function would be nice, if it actually worked. Incorporate the new search function with the old layout, once the bugs are worked out, and you have a winner. As it stands now, I'll still use it, I'll still sell stuff on it, but I will no longer just "browse." The irony is that while the changes may have been put into place to increase traffic, I suspect the end result will be exactly the opposite.

BTW--if I wanted to shop ebay, I'd just go there directly....

 

^I'd say that sums it up exactly. The ability to just browse and stumble upon something you want to buy that you hadn't set out to specifically search for is now not possible.
My last purchase was the result of browsing the Marketplace and just stumbling upon the item.

 

X104

I tried to find an ad I posted and for the life of me... couldn’t.

The new format is HORRIBLE! It was actually very user friendly before, not so much now.

I don’t even look in there anymore, it’s too painful. (not that I need anything anyways...lol)

Put it back... like my granpappy use to say... if it ain’t broken, give it to Mark, he’ll break it... ah, never mind, wrong saying but you got my point.


:D


Mark

 

I don't like the marketplace. Ease of use was a huge benefit before.

If it was organized just like the old one, had images just like the old one, I would probably not care about any changes. This one for me is not user friendly in that it takes more than 30 seconds to see if you are interested in anything, and even then, you have to click on an ad and wait (slow) then read to find out if it even fits your car.

Not as useful if it takes more time. Buyers often are not looking for anything, don't need anything, but find things to buy because they stumble onto something. Sellers are going to lose most impulse buyers.

Any redirect/referral to another site is a total non-starter. frowned on since the last millennium.

 

Was actually going to recommend modelling it after the vwvortex classifieds as well. Theirs is logically broken down, easy to navigate, and is very user-friendly overall.

 

Personally, I'd love to see NAM adopt similar format of vBulletin 4.0.3 to their boards.
Cleaner layout, excellent organization and very easy to navigate.

- Erik

 

This smells of yet another commercialization of this forum that doesn't benefit the end user. It's laughable that you are trying to sell it as an improvement despite overwhelmingly bad feedback from so many posters at this point. I suppose it is just another in a long line of changes to this site over the last few years that have taken it from an enthusiast driven community, to a strictly revenue generating venture.

Enjoy watching that site traffic slow to a trickle by choking off the one reason many of us long time members still stop by here.

 

It's amazing how willingly such blatantly false information is posted, being the second post in this thread to make the accusation that this was about money not helping users. This decision had to do with commercialization to the extent of, if there was a drop in traffic it would be removed. The numbers have shown the new marketplace to be just as active as the photopost marketplace was.

Complaints about the ability to post, edit and control mark sold have dropped to none for the new marketplace, since the search button has been fixed usability complaints have stopped. I no longer spend hours per day explaining how to list and ad or why an ad listed didn't display or why ads are being automatically marked sold despite the item still in fact being for sale, or where the marketplace is, or removing threads from discussion forums and explaining the user must re-enter all that information, or why an ad was automatically deleted the information not saved and all that information must be re-entered and there is nothing I can do to help that. Just last week a request to address some of the formatting and organization complaints was filed and within the next 1-2weeks I expect to see some of those changes made. There are still fewer posts in this thread than emails I was receiving per month about the photopost system. Over the past 90 days there are 460 ads in the photopost system, in under 30days there are 210 items in the new marketplace

Since changing from photopost

• We've gone from "it doesn't work" to "I don't like how it looks/is organized/is formatted"
• The volume of user complaints has decreased
• Site traffic has increased, marketplace traffic has not decreased
• Efforts are in motion to adjust the formatting to be more friendly

As far as choking off reasons that long time members still stop by here, we've also moved off topic back off the bottom of the forum list so that there is more community here than just technical info, added the NAMLive so that it's easier to see and respond to threads so there can be more of a discussion feel, promote club events on our homepage and with site announcements, we've spent more than a year addressing complaints about the photopost marketplace, trying multiple solutions and avenues and are waiting until we've finalized the new marketplace system before moving on to other projects to help reinforce the community and usability. And for someone that's been on the site since 2004, you should notice the marketplace being in a forum based system as more like the way the marketplace was when you joined, and less like the commercial product added a few short months before Internet Brands purchased the site, with a few minor changes made so that information is added automatically, instead of having a moderator chase down the user every time someone was extremely vague about product information. One of the main goals was to make the interface of the system as close to the act of posting as possible (making it as user friendly as the forums to both new and long standing users alike) without loosing the ability to search by specific criteria, such as model, or category of part. I've been placed in hot water several times because my concern for IB's bottom line stops as the servers being able to stay on; my focus and the only reason I've done moderation since 2008 is for the community here on NAM, so yes I will admit I do take it personally when lies to the contrary are thrown around.

 

Drew,

At the expense of sounding like a kiss azz....


Though I don't like the new marketplace setup, I personally think you are a kickazz mod and if it weren't for people like you, we wouldn't have such a great place to be at.

Thanks for effort and time you put into this place. I have spent many, MANY hours of my life here and if it weren't for mini, I'd be driving an abarth! LOL.

Thanks,

Mark

 

Might want to at least have the ebay results show things for a mini. Results for audi, ford, honda probably are not going to be anything but spam to most users looking for something. Since the results seem totally unrelated to the query, having it at least be the same vehicle will probably help make it appear related.

 

Ditto. Why are the ebay ads even there? A cynic would say there is a tie in financially, but then you just said this wasn't about money, so that can't be the case. Right?

All I read is negative comments here. Where are all the positive ones, it people like this so much? Sorry to be so critical, but making the marketplace like a regular posted thread is a mistake. The comments in this thread bear that out. Maybe start a poll?



One thing I'm confused by--you state that site traffic is up, the markeplace traffic is the same. Shouldn't marketplace traffic be up then too? If marketplace traffic hasn't gone up, but site traffic has, this is actually a negative. Both should go up.

One of my pet peeves for NAM justifying everything is the same old "site traffic is up, so it's good, the site is better than ever."

OF COURSE SITE TRAFFIC IS UP!! AND IT WILL BE HIGHER AGAIN NEXT YEAR!!!!

And it has nothing to do with the site getting "better."

How many MINIs were sold last year, compared to 3 years ago? How many more MINI owners are there now than there were 3 years ago?

Of course site traffic is up--there are MORE MINI OWNERS than ever before!!

Now, the REAL question is has there been a corresponding increase in traffic that mirrors MINI's record year in sales last year? ie has forum traffic kept up with MINI sales? If not, then while you are gaining traffic, you aren't necessarily keeping pace.

Food for thought.

 

I certainly never thought there were bad intentions or some kind of conspiracy behind the reasoning for changing the marketplace. I'm still here every day enjoying the MINI community, exchanging knowledge, and lots of other cool mods to spend my money on! I still like the layout of the old one but completely understand the problems it obviously presented after seeing your replies.

A suggestion regarding the new one: I do like how a new item for sale is listed amongst the general postings, but it would be helpful to know at a glance what generation the part is for. I find myself clicking on parts for the R53 which I normally wouldn't look at since I have a R56.

Here's an example:

FS:: Girodisc/AP Racing Big Brake Kit
Mike@Girodisc

Without clicking on the link and looking at the ad there's no way to tell it happens to be for the R53.

 

Maybe I'm alone on this one, but I really liked the old layout, a grid of photos linked to ads with the ability to go into sub-forums.

 

I never look at the new market place. I use to monitor the old market place to see if there was anything I needed that I didn't know I needed. No fun to look at new one without pictures.

 

Yes the old one was easier and cleaner

 

It's still alive and well....

Use link at top left of home page.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.com/marketplace/

 

I'm sure you've heard the old addage"IF it ain't broke ,don't fix it".this could not be more true of the "marketplace" forum.It is difficult at best to find a topic such as wheels and be able to look at adds from people that are just selling wheels.Why couldn't you have just left the %$#@& thing alone???-Goose

 

I also like the "old" marketplace better. However, I really think that we should do away with one or the other, just so there aren't two places to look for things (and two places to post the same ad to make sure it's got the widest possible audience). Of course, my preference is to keep the "old" one, both because I find that it's better organized and I like the thumbnails (when they're working).

 

yes.

 

like the old version better

 

I miss the old market place also. I found it was faster to shop by looking at the pictures than reading the text.

 

Can we delete a listing?

 

What the hell happend to the old SOLD button?

I tried to follow the directions for marking it sold but I cannot lock the thread in thread tools. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!

 

Dave,
It may still be alive but it is not well. Look at the ads in the old marketplace and look at the ads in the new one. There are tons more in the new one that do not show in the old one. What's up with that????