How Much Success Selling On Loc

[Bluesman]

That's all well and good. Members can work out whether it is worth it for them. In my view, advertising on the forum should be free of charge. There are enough people including main dealers, insurance companies, Ebay, autotrader etc trying to get their hands in our pockets without being charged on our own forum. BMW, Jaguar, Audi forums et al can do it.Are they looking after their members better? How much revenue does it bring in? Make it free - less moderation as fewer inferior non Gold members will have the gall to mention they have a car for sale in the wrong forum, lot more ads in the for sale section, for cars and parts, lot more interest, lot more traffic from external visitors. Simple commercial sense. It would also reduce friction and the apparent sense of superiority felt be some Gold members (and tempting as it is, that is not a euphamysm). I may start a new thread on this, to open it out for discussion, as I am slightly off topic here.

I always assumed all those ads placed from the likes of BMW, Mercedes etc were paid for somewhere along the line as they dont get free advertising.

I would agree with you though that there shouldn't be a fee to get GM so you can sell a car as this is the main reason members get upset when we have these situations happen. Mike

[harrylime]

Can't seem to avoid the ads now on any website, they are beginning to spoil the internet experience, as they are taking it to excess. Youtube is ruined already. In the past 30 seconds I have ads for Bridgestone and BMW appearing on the Lexus forum - Adchoices? It's part of my original point really, the priority always seems to be making money and maximising profit now and everyone seems to have their hand out. There is more to life.

Glad you agree about the GM for advertising, it seems a no brainer to me.

[PhilipK]

Can I suggest another perspective?

On many/most of the other car forums I am on, you do not need to pay to advertise a car for sale. This means that there are lots of For Sale ads - which brings potential new owners who are interested in that car to the site, where they often start to browse other threads and,in time, to make a contribution to the forum. It also engenders a community spirit, whereby people prefer to buy/sell cars to other forum members.

I don't have a Lexus to sell - I'm looking to buy one. I'd rather buy privately than from a dealer, and ideally I'd rather buy from a real enthusiast (you know, the sort of person who loves his or her car enough to join a forum like this!). But there is no way to find one - the For Sale forum here is as moribund as Monty Python's dead parrot (which, in turn, is hardly likely to persude people to become Gold Members just to have access to it).