Can I suggest an eBay Deals forum?

[milhaus]

I want this forum to recommend regular and good sellers for specific products who we can trust and provides excellent prices. One key examples is TonerKits (for toner refills). I also recently bought Blundstone shoes for 50% off the Canadian price from a regular seller with 800+ feedbacks, and a Braun Elec Toothbrush kit for about 50% off retails as well from a good seller.

I wouldn't suggest allowing just any eBay auction, just threads for people who sell the same items regularly and cheaply.

[dealforme]

You can talk about a seller in off topic and let the user community determine whether the auction is a deal or not.

We generally don't recommend anybody with the exception of our sponsors so we can support this site. But certain companies names has come up frequently by the user community discussions. We won't censor the name of the companies or condone(SP?) the discussion but we're not endorsing the company either. Just a neutral stance so our user can save some money.

[Carnage]

While it's a good idea in theory, it has one major problem.

If you setup an eBay forum, then you'll have all sorts of people going in their to spam about their eBay auctions.

How would you keep people from just self promoting?

[felix]

There are too many good sellers on eBay to mention. So I don't really see the point.

[milhaus]

The point would be to highlight certain sellers who provide specific goods at a discounted price. I would see the Subjects being:

eBay: Blundstone Boots cheap

Text might be:
Hey I just bought a pair of these for $89.99 usd total, including shipping direct from Australia. Total: $111.00CDN He is a regular seller with 800+ feedbacks. These sell in stores for $169.99+ tax Canadian (193.00)

These shoes never go on sale in Canada (boxing day they're $20 off). I would never have thought to go through eBay to get them so cheap. This seller provides all sizes, and gets stuff from the manufacturer direct.

The idea is to give people a heads up when someone offers a reliable product consistently at a good price, esp. things that most people wouldn't think to look on eBay for.

But I think this forum would be only good if people could follow the rules, which I doubt . . .

[airblade90]

I for one wouldn't mind a forum like this, I think it would be a good idea. I could recommend some fantastic sellers of classic video games. I know a few that are really good.

[Derek]

I don't think we'd add a forum like this generally speaking. I suspect that self-promotion problems would simply get out of hand. We already have do a lot of work removing that from existing posts and by having a forum like this we're sort of inviting more problems.

[milhaus]

Would you suggest that this kind of post would be appropriate for the *Hot deals* section? Esp. if their auction is a "buy it now" one?

[Derek]

Would you suggest that this kind of post would be appropriate for the *Hot deals* section? Esp. if their auction is a "buy it now" one?

I would say that depends on the circumstance, for one they would have to have large quantities, 1 of anything wouldn't do anyone any good, and it'd have to be buy it now. If it's a really good deal you could post it there and let readers decide if it's hot or not. I'm pretty sure it's been done in the past but the threshold for being a hot eBay deal in my opinion is a lot higher.

[MtX]

Well, if you spread the good news, it wouldnt be a good deal anymore, everyone's gonna bid and someone's gonna end up paying 20x more than the starting price

[mtevel]

There are too many good sellers on eBay to mention. So I don't really see the point.

agreed.. and everyone will be self-promoting .....

good idea ...... in theory ...... but so is communism ... haha