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Thread: Merchants are not allowed to advertise

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    Merchants are not allowed to advertise

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    "Merchants are not allowed to advertise their commercial goods or services in the Marketplace forums. (I.e. if they have personal items to buy/sell/trade/give, they may still post in the marketplace forums.)"

    Found the above rule in Merchant Advertisements and Announcements

    Pertaining to above rule, can a plant shop owner frequently offer 300+ species of plants in Marketplace forums when there is always a WTB thread started by hobbyst?

    The plant shop owner will always have plenty of office tanks and home fishroom tanks's plant ready fo sales. Even the post stated 10 downoi to sell, you ask for 50 downoi, he will be able to supply.

    How do we differentiate that is his fishroom's plants or his plant shop's plants?

    Does that mean plant shop/LFS (especially those who are previously a hobbyst and contributed to AQ) are encourage to start offering their shop's products to Marketplace? For example, selling 15 set of Eden 501 as bulk purchase that the LFS owner claim the EDEN 501 is not from his shops but personal bulk order?

    Thank you.

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    I'm a little confused by this part of your post.

    Quote Originally Posted by inspironD View Post
    ...

    Pertaining to above rule, can a plant shop owner frequently offer 300+ species of plants in Marketplace forums when there is always a WTB thread started by hobbyst?

    ...
    Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
    Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:
    A woman, without her man, is nothing.
    A woman: without her, man is nothing.

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    Ok, no confuse. Let me elaborate more:
    A plant shop owner claim he has over 300+ spiecies of plants in his shop. When there is a WTB thread started by any hobbyst to request for any plants, he will jump in to reply he has stock. He also always ask for the quantity the hobbyst want. Can the shop owner do so in the Marketplace?


    Quote Originally Posted by vinz View Post
    I'm a little confused by this part of your post.

    Quote Originally Posted by inspironD

    ...

    Pertaining to above rule, can a plant shop owner frequently offer 300+ species of plants in Marketplace forums when there is always a WTB thread started by hobbyst?

    ...

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    The rule is that Merchants are not allowed to advertise in the Marketplace forum. There is no rule stating that they are not allowed to respond to WTB threads.

    Quote Originally Posted by inspironD View Post
    ...

    Does that mean plant shop/LFS (especially those who are previously a hobbyst and contributed to AQ) are encourage to start offering their shop's products to Marketplace? For example, selling 15 set of Eden 501 as bulk purchase that the LFS owner claim the EDEN 501 is not from his shops but personal bulk order?

    Thank you.
    They are not encouraged, nor discouraged from responding to a clear WTB thread. When people advertise a WTB thread, they are usually expecting response, be it from hobbyists or merchants. We also do not see any reason a merchant would want to hide their merchant status to sell their stock in response to a WTB thread. Unless their stock is illegal, like stolen goods.

    He/she will be breaking AQ's rules if he/she is a known merchant and started a thread to sell those 15 Eden 501s in the Marketplace forum. But then, we don't see why a merchant would do that since AQ already provides a Merchant's Advertisement forum, and there is no disadvantage to them to post there.
    Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
    Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:
    A woman, without her man, is nothing.
    A woman: without her, man is nothing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by vinz View Post
    ..
    We also do not see any reason a merchant would want to hide their merchant status to sell their stock in response to a WTB thread. Unless their stock is illegal, like stolen goods.
    Agree. For the plant shop owner trying to hide, there must be something fishy going on. His stock could be illegal.

    Quote Originally Posted by vinz View Post
    He/she will be breaking AQ's rules if he/she is a known merchant and started a thread to sell those 15 Eden 501s in the Marketplace forum.
    ..
    Thank you for confirming a known merchant/plant shop owner is not allowed to advertise products available in his shop (including plants) in the Marketplace.

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    Quote Originally Posted by inspironD View Post
    ...

    Thank you for confirming a known merchant/plant shop owner is not allowed to advertise products available in his shop (including plants) in the Marketplace.
    InspironD,

    Don't try to trap me or AQ. If you have an axe to grind with a particular person, don't use AQ to do for you.

    [Deleted: Text about a former resolved case. The parties (except those already participating in this thread) in that case are not and need not be involved in this discussion.]

    To be fair, I can see that you've been contributing to AQ's discussions, but the way you've posted in this thread, I'm wondering what your real intentions are.

    Are you a merchant and worried about unfair competition? Seriously, there is not much advantage whether an ad is in the Merchant forum or Marketplace forum. More then anything else, AQ separates the 2 types of ads for organisational and administrative purposes.

    For goodness sake, this is a hobby site. Just chill and enjoy the hobby.
    Last edited by vinz; 21st Nov 2006 at 11:28.
    Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
    Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:
    A woman, without her man, is nothing.
    A woman: without her, man is nothing.

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    My intention is neither to trap you nor the forumer in AQ. My apologies if I make you feel so.

    I just wanted to understand what a merchant/plant shop owner can do in the Marketplace forum. It is a good guideline to the LFS, at least, the unfortunate recent closed down LFS might use this channel to carry on his business if he realize this rule much earlier. I believe most of the WTB items here can be found in the recently closed down LFS; If not, the shop can at least order from Oriental or QianHu to stock up since a FOC advertisement is allowed here.

    Yes, unfair competition is our concern if one makes use of hobbyist forum to bleed the industry by selling cut throat price.

    [Deleted by Vinz: Text about a former resolved case. The parties (except those already participating in this thread) in that case are not and need not be involved in this discussion.]
    Last edited by vinz; 21st Nov 2006 at 11:29.

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    [Deleted by Vinz: Text about a former resolved case. The parties (except those already participating in this thread) in that case are not and need not be involved in this discussion.]

    Quote Originally Posted by inspironD View Post
    My intention is neither to trap you nor the forumer in AQ. My apologies if I make you feel so.
    My apologies for reading your intentions wrongly.

    Quote Originally Posted by inspironD View Post
    Yes, unfair competition is our concern if one makes use of hobbyist forum to bleed the industry by selling cut throat price.
    For the sake of discussion, whatever prices any hobbyist or merchant sells at, it does not matter whether he/she or it advertises in the marketplace forum or the merchant forum. Both forums have equal exposure, are free of charge, and posts in both forums show up in 'New Posts' and other searches. The differences are mainly administrative. There is no unfair competition advertising in one forum or the other because there are negligible gains, if any. The root of the problem is the pricing, not the avenue of the advertisement nor the source of the product (i.e. hobbyist or merchant).

    AQ has offered the Merchants' forum as a free avenue to advertise for quite a while now. If a business fails to realise the oppourtunity here, it's going to lose out to those that did. If it did not know about it in the first place, well then, bad luck. If it limits itself because of a imagined rule, then again, it's going to lose out.

    AQ and many of it's forumers lament that many LFSes, especially the better ones, are being forced out of business. We do want to help them and the industry in general to do better, but we can only do so by helping to educate the hobbyists, advance the hobby to the next level and facilitating them within our means to do business (mainly advertise) in here.

    AQ is also concern about hobbyists being cheated by people who advertise their wares here. However, cut-throat pricing is not cheating. That's free-market economics.
    Last edited by vinz; 21st Nov 2006 at 11:29.
    Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
    Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:
    A woman, without her man, is nothing.
    A woman: without her, man is nothing.

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    Let this be a free marketplace. My strong stance on that: if this forum is also a source for advertising and making money, let the person do it within the rule as long as the buyer and seller are happy. competition is part of life, and you only outbeat it by doign better, coming up with better strategies and innnovations. You cannot put more rules to reduce competition, we are all benefiting in the process. Those who learn and react fast will gain, those who are slow will just be out of the market. Free market economy. Free knowledge.
    ~ Ā q u ã O b s έ Ş Ş i ŏ ŋ ~
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    Free market is also a weapon for big corps to forced smaller shops to close shop.
    Eg: big corp has distributorship for equipment, food etc, dumps market value for livestock and plants to lure people to buy equipment and food[from where they earn]
    News gets to forum...
    Forum members complain small lfs overcharging for same fish and plants, everybody reads about it. Forumers perceived that the small lfs is expensive and not visit there anymore.
    Close shop.
    Whoops! Who is to blame and who is part of the problem?

    The trend isn't going to change. The small lfs that survive are those that are experts in their field with niche markets. Location is also a big factor. The fact is small lfs has to move away from the big players and be experts in their field like in Japan. In KL, the mom and pop shops are winding up quickly too.

    It is my humble opinion forums are actually bad for business in the long run! Ironic, considering how much i love forums and going to the lfs!
    You can if you dare to fail - Stan Chung

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