Minimum price for offers (all offer forums)

Originally Posted by MaxS Well, how is it deteriorating? I think it's doing fairly well for a Talkfreelance marketplace. How can you expect there to be hundred & thousand dollar sales on Talkfreelance. It's not Sitepoint or Digitalpoint.

Why not? What makes us different from SP or DP? The fact members there look for the time and effort put into a design than members here looking for a quick bargain. I don't think it's fair.

Just my opinion.

Some guy in the marketplace, is offering 5$ coding. I think that's outragous. And should have atleast a 25$ starting.

Originally Posted by Garrett Some guy in the marketplace, is offering 5$ coding. I think that's outragous. And should have atleast a 25$ starting.

Well, let's not forget you run you're own coding service. If you can't compete with a $5 coder, you're in the wrong business!

The same goes to anyone who has the same views.

Originally Posted by Garrett Some guy in the marketplace, is offering 5$ coding. I think that's outragous. And should have atleast a 25$ starting.

$5 an hour, two, three, four? - How long will it take to code? This is freelancing and fair enough we set our prices but $5 and $10 templates/programming jobs really make me feel for those members. They could earn much more if we had some sort of foundation.

Bryan Le i agree with what you're saying but my main thoughts overall were that the marketplace is becomming somewhere to get some really cheap stuff, and the marketplace is becomming the most active forum.

TalkFreelance - Lets talk freelance! Let's do what the title states, i think the idea (read earlier previously) is the suggestion of charging to post a job. That may decrease activity but it will also stop the constant posts of $10 jobs/templates that really they could think again after looking at the post fee and making a more reasonable price for their work/jobs. I've probably contridicted myself here as i have a million thoughts running through my head now.. heh

I really just think staff and us members need to see how to improve the Marketplace and how to get focus back on the actual forum and not just the MPlace all the time, during the past week it hasn't been so bad because theres been competitions running and interesting posts and helpme topics been made..Which is what i think TFL needs more of..More discussion of freelancing.

Anyways i just wanted to raise my opinion if you agree or not. I do think something needs to be done about the Marketplace, maybe a seperate job listings page? Selling page? Away from the forum so it doesn't count towards member posts or show up in new posts, a reputation system or a proper bidding system for TFL MarketPlace.

Originally Posted by MaxS Well, let's not forget you run you're own coding service. If you can't compete with a $5 coder, you're in the wrong business! The same goes to anyone who has the same views.

Shooting myself in the foot here but i got an email this morning from someone asking me to code their site for $50+ (Usually my min price now because i used to code for a lot less but it's not worth it in the end). There were coding offers on here for $5, what's the bet that $5 coder coded, give the end product and took the money, and didn't give any after support or offered to support the customer or keep a relationship. I think a bit of professionalism needs to be brought in because if theres less chance i think of people buying these services as mentioned by Bryan Le (i think it was Bryan) because i wouldn't buy a programming service for $5 because it makes me feel unsafe about it, the fact i might not receive any support, this isn't professional and i think that a min price could make more activity in a way in the MarketPlace if it was introduced right..It's just an idea/thought i had, it's not like it's going to happen.

Originally Posted by MaxS Well, how is it deteriorating? I think it's doing fairly well for a Talkfreelance marketplace. How can you expect there to be hundred & thousand dollar sales on Talkfreelance. It's not Sitepoint or Digitalpoint.

For some reason it sounds like you avoided my question by turning it around and asking me, so therefore I will answer.

The atmosphere of the market place is horrible. People know they aren't suppose to bump threads, but they do. People know that there opinion on the product for sale isn't allowed in the marketplace, but they still do it. Lately I've seen the staff start to get really strict on these guys, and I really appreciate that. There are tons of guys running around with horrible grammar and with no discipline that in my honest opinion is dragging down the marketplace.

I'll attempt to elaborate.

Originally Posted by JamesH The atmosphere of the market place is horrible. People know they aren't suppose to bump threads, but they do.

That's not an issue that's exclusive to the marketplace. Price restrictions would have no effect on that problem. That's something the staff has to work on.

Originally Posted by JamesH People know that there opinion on the product for sale isn't allowed in the marketplace, but they still do it.

Once again, that problem stems from the lack of moderation.

Originally Posted by JamesH There are tons of guys running around with horrible grammar and with no discipline that in my honest opinion is dragging down the marketplace.

First of all, I don't agree with this point. I don't know how much more blunt I have to be. This is TalkFreelance, where the average age of the members falls somewhere between 14-18.

Price flooring is not going to attract more serious freelancers or buyers. It's going to have the opposite effect.

If you want to attract a more serious audience, you need to have content that rivals the content and discussion of forums such as Sitepoint. Again, this problem isn't exclusive to the marketplace.

Come on Max... I don't want to start an argument, but you made me look like an idiot. Me and you sort of hijacked the thread. I originally said that I felt the marketplace was deteriorating and you disagreed. I asked you why and you flipped it around on me. I gave you my opinion on why I felt it was deteriorating. Therefore your latest post makes perfect sense, but I feel like you're trying to prove something else (that has nothing to do with the topic of this thread).

BRHJamie, your heart is in the right area. I totally understand what you want to do, and I believe its definitely the right thing to do. However, I'm having a hard time really coming up with a solution. I feel we can fix something, but then there is a new negative.

James, forgive me, that was not my intent.

I'm only trying to prove that imposing some sort of a price floor would have a negative effect.

Don't mean to be harsh but the average design on here is worth no more than $20.

Anyone can copy some styles on other websites and mangle them together with no idea about colour palettes etc, making the design not worth very much, however many hours someone poured into it.

Putting a minimum price would not be wise at all, it would just cause more templates to be unsold (and this is currently a high percent of templates).