New FTT forum Store

[FmGrowit]

During my time off, I've been designing the FTT store. The plan is for you guys to sell whatever you want to other members and visitors to the site.. I'd like your input on this though. Do you think the store should only sell tobacco and tobacco related items or should things like Ishi's honey and IndianJoe's pecans be included

I'm hoping to have some Cafe' Press links to encourage sales for FTT shirts and such.

Rather than accepting outright donations for operating the site, your purchase will not only help support the site, but give you something you can use at the same time.

The store will not be the single cure to keeping the forum operating, but it can help. I have to find a way to increase traffic on a regular basis and I'm sure that's going to cost a good chunk of change to have someone figure out how to do it or what needs to be done. I've been talking about the sites numbers and all of the information here for quite a while. I can not find anyone who is will to look at the site to figure out why it isn't ranking higher in searches. There are plenty of people who will charge to look at the site, but nobody can explain the problem. I'd bet my last dollar it is an easy fix, but I'm probably going to have to go back to school and take some computer classes before I'll be able to figure it out myself.

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and offers for support, but I really don't feel right about accepting donations...,but if you want to buy some tobacco, that wouldn't hurt

 

[COLIN]

I feel that a membership fee could also help with some off the financial aspect with running a forum like this one.Buy allowing people to buy and sell there product's on this site for no fee distract's the hole purpose off running a store.I feel only financial member's may trade there product's here to other financial member's no visitor's.I prepose a fee off 25 dollar's per member i also wish to be the first member to purchase some cig tobacco from your new store could u please advise me witch would be the best blend to purchase.Regard's Colin NZ.

 

[BigBonner]

I think the sales should be limited some what .
Like Ishi's Honey , indianjoes pecans , home made knives , pipes or any items made as a hobby should be great .
All non processed tobacco is legal .
Tobacco supplies for growing would be ok .
Most if not all chemicals should not be allowed .It takes a certification to purchase chemicals at the farm stores .
Cars ,trucks , guns , illegal items should not be allowed .Big ticket items draws scammers .
If someone has a item that could be questionable then it should be approved by Admin first before listing .

Now how much is fair for the commission ? %10 of sell plus sales tax ?

Maybe a sellers only membership fee on top of the % of sells . This way everyone who joins the site does not have to pay a membership fee .They could search the site for free with no strings attached .

 

[SmokesAhoy]

Hey FM? I'm in for the tobacco sampler of the month offer you should come up with

 

[Ishi]

10% of sales sounds good to me. I do not understand the sales tax but honey is food so I do not have to collect it in Ca.

Dan

 

[skychaser]

I have to find a way to increase traffic on a regular basis and I'm sure that's going to cost a good chunk of change to have someone figure out how to do it or what needs to be done. I've been talking about the sites numbers and all of the information here for quite a while. I can not find anyone who is will to look at the site to figure out why it isn't ranking higher in searches. There are plenty of people who will charge to look at the site, but nobody can explain the problem. I'd bet my last dollar it is an easy fix, but I'm probably going to have to go back to school and take some computer classes before I'll be able to figure it out myself.

Getting a site noticed by search engine bots is tougher than it used to be. First off you need use metatags, and secondly keywords. The metatags and keywords are only for the bots to find and are not seen by site visitors. There is a way to enter them but I can't tell you specifically how to do it unless you are using Frontpage, which I'm sure you are not. Also, it helps greatly if you submit your website to the search engines directly. Forget these companies that tell you they can get your site listed on 500 search engines. Its BS. There are about 30 that matter at all. And you can do it yourself for free.

Bots also crawl through every page on a site looking for certain words and phrases which they log. I often find references to posts here and on that other site in my tobacco searches. There are a few tricks to getting them to take notice of your pages as well. They will often take the first few lines of a paragraph and look for notable words. You can trick them by entering certain keywords at the top of pages that other visitors can't see by setting the font size to 0 or setting the text color the same as the background.

Bots also look for links to and from your site. The more you have the better. Or rather, the more sites you can get to post a link to yours, the better. Exchanging links with other website helps up your ratings too.

Here is a link to a site I found most helpful. It tells you many of the tricks to getting your website noticed and how to submit it to the search engines. They even have a software you can use to submit to all the search engines at once. Hope it helps you some. It helped me a lot.
http://selfpromotion.com/
http://selfpromotion.com/search-engine-optimization.t

Sky

 

[notcrack]

I think BigBonner is on the right track with 10%. It's a fair enough number, but you will really need to keep on an eye on self promotion etc. You don't want someone, let's call him me, selling to Joe Bloggs and then saying "Hey, I run my own site have a look at what I can offer there". The only way I think you could do that is cut the ability of the seller to contact the buyer, but then you can't stop any kind of communication inside the actual brought tobacco (ie cards or postcards etc)

I used to work for a large locksmith company and what we had to do to make sure no-one was cherry picking work was a nightmare. You are also going to have to have an airtight disclaimer on the product. You don't want someone, let's call him me, sending out an inferior product and then you getting the hit from the customer.
I'm looking forward to it.
Don I can't find any FTT merchandise anywhere. Let me know when it's available and I'll throw a few orders your way to help out.

 

[Michibacy]

Don,

It's extra work but my suggestion is:

-make a form the seller fills out
-make an account something like "market" (or use your own) where you are the only one that lists under it
-Under the market forum, thread with tobacco type, information, location etc is listed along with price
-Somehow charge the seller after a purchase is made, give them the shipping address, get them to ship it and get your money.


I don't know how you feel about being the middle man, but where my full time job is we make money by reselling product. You can sometimes buys from the manufacturer, but not for the same price as ourselves.

I think if you could work off this design you would limit how much contact the buy-seller has with each other.

Granted they could always use their own website etc but limit the marketing of those websites on FTT (or delete completely)

 

[johnlee1933]

You might consider the PayPal design. The customer orders thru and pays you (as the Store), the supplier drop ships the item(s). You get your percentage and PayPal the supplier or write him a check whichever is easier/cheaper.

J

 

[oldsouth]

This sounds great to me - I hope to be growing all sorts of heirloom vegetables and such on my farm (as well as tobacco, of course) soon. Also, since some items can't be legally sold (game for instance - I like to make sausages and cured meats, or home-made wines) perhaps a trade could be worked out where geographically practical, with terms that would also benefit the forum.

 

[Chicken]

i guess it would be good if members could sell thier speciality items thru the store,


hey> does this also go for WORKHORSE 01 bottle of '' giggly juice''..??????

 

[FmGrowit]

i guess it would be good if members could sell thier speciality items thru the store,


hey> does this also go for WORKHORSE 01 bottle of '' giggly juice''..??????

Sure, but we'll have to give it a special code name like....Oh, I don't know...maybe....Giggly Juice?

 

[Ltngstrike]

Don, over on Cast Boolits we have an area for members to buy and sell from each other. Here are the rules for that section on their site:

"A Place to Buy and Sell Our GUN STUFF! "NO EBAY LINKS,PLUGS or NOTICES" If the item is not for sale here exclusively ,do not list it here. DO NOT list the same goods you have on other forums. NO LONG LAUNDRY LISTS. This area is subject to thread deletion without notice if the same stuff is posted elsewhere. DO CHECK THE WTB FORUM IF SELLING ! Sales, trades and auction style sales are OK. Rules: NO spamming ,no degrading posts on sales threads, Newer members must be here 30 days and have 25 relevant posts (+1 and me too don't count). Privileges to post here can be revoked for abusing the above terms. Listings will be deleted after 30 days. This area is meant for casual sales only, if you have a "commercial" or "volume" based business venture contact 45nut. to sign on as a vendor sponsor. Thanks!"

You'll notice the requirements for membership before you can use the site to sell. Also notice a different category for non-casual sellers, they pay the site owner for the vendor sponser privilege. There is also a disclaimer stating that neither the website nor the staff are responsible for any actions between buyer and seller. I'm not sure if any of this is helpful for your store idea but I thought it might offer some ideas.