Hi, i own this domain f o r u m b i d .com and keeping it lying around with no development on it doesn't make sense and cents. so i'm thinking of setting up a forum to allow people to buy and sell. if i'm doing this, i've got a budget of less then $500 for this project. Would it work? What do you all think?
I think if you had unique software, as well as an alright level of security it would work. Main problem is getting enough buyers and sellers for buyers/sellers to get successful results and to stay, So you need a big marketing fund
thanks for the reply. could you elaborate a bit more on the unique software? - do you mean if my forum is unique in the way the process of buying and selling is handled? and for security -what are the probable security functions i would have to take note of. because i would not be in fact handling the buying and selling but the buyers and sellers would be doing it.
As in each thread in the forums would have to have bid software installed, etc i think you should get custom software made for the forum section, since peope have to trust money security, as in You'd need regulations, maybe you could act as an "escrow" for members?
I see, thanks for your comments. I guess you're talking about something similar to DP BST Section Would anyone know how much would a forum like this cost to set up? Would it be fair if I left payment for the buyers and sellers between themselves?
yah id should work get vbulitien and a simple custom theme - and use rest on google adwords this should work
The price of vb forum is depend on which plan you buy. IMO,you should offer middle man service at your forum to facilitate a more safer trade to prevent scam.
u can look bido.com once to get a idea (1 hour auctions ) sedo.com ( offer , auction , brokerage ) and try to integrate all those features in one site this is a best idea
nice suggestions. thanks everyone, really appreciate it. i understand being some sort of an escrow would be good. but being a middle man would be easy if i do not have many forum users but what if the forum grows? should i limit my buying selling and trading to services and non physical products?
you can restrict number of active threads on based on some criteria. like one person can sell one domain at a time if the price goes above some limit then verification need to be done etc rules u can place
I do not thing that you can market your site well with the limited budget of $500. But there is scope to achieve success if you handle this project well with some solid, good features. 1. A custom theme works even if you use a free forum software like MyBB. 2. I really suggest you to act like a midleman by implementing the feature escrow. Only then the buyers can trust a new website. 3. If the site grow, you can limit yourself as an escrow only for transaction that include more than $50 or $100 as per your choice. 4. You can appoint trustworthy moderators to take care of the escrow thing if the site grows. Let them keep that extra fee you charge for being the middlemen. All the best.
To act as an escrow, you could make it like $5 per transaction, or have a premium service where its free a nice $5 just for receiving money, and sending it on again
In a way, though adding physical products is a easy procedure, i'd reccomend keeping physical and non physical parts of the site seperate.
I am not selling only non physical products. I think it would be good idea of separating the physical and non physical sections. I am just wondering if there is any must knows if I'm going to set this up.
That's more than enough to actually get the site running, but I personally think you're gonna need so much more for advertising. It's gonna be hard getting enough users who are gonna stick around a fairly new forum with not as much activity as the already established ones.
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Hi there , I am doing the same sort of thing with my = forum wholesale dropshipping forums.co.uk and people can have there ebay shop products bulk uploaded onto the site. There is not many forums offering this. Keep up the good work it will work out for you in the end