Free advertisement for hobbiests?

Originally Posted by 1Bob

Is it cheap for a whole year? Definately! I would say very cheap, as far as advertising goes. The cost prohibative part is more mental. As a hobbiest, not a professional, can I justify spending another $25 this month on my hobby when I'm already spending the most my wife will permit (wife part a joke) but you get the point.

thanks

I look at it this way.....all of the other "perks" of contributor membership aside, I can place ads on so-called "free" sites, which seem to have rather limited traffic, (other than those Nigerian scammers that seem to somewhat favor those sites) and perhaps sell an animal from those ads. Transaction done.

Or, I can spend the $25 here, and reach a much more specialized shopper and a good amount of traffic, and sell an animal. Once I sell an animal here, I can leave feedback for that buyer, get feedback from that buyer, and if they leave me a "Good Guy" note on the BOI, hey, that's just more advertising (at no extra expense or use of my time), and helps me to get my name out there and noticed, as well as speaking for the quality of my animals. If there is a problem with the animal or transaction, there are folks here to help myself, as well as the buyer, whether it be a health or husbandry issue with the animal, or if that buyer tries to rip me off in some way, I have the backup here to get things righted. Of course, that works both ways, I had better make sure I'm doing MY job as the seller as well, or the word WILL get around here.


$25 a year, $2.08 a month, however you want to divide it up, it's money very well spent IMO, even if you are only selling a few animals.

A reasonalbe per add charge to non-member could be another option, maybe $1. When you're looking at posting only a couple ads per year to help support a hobby it would be nice to be able to do this at a very low cost. I do not feel entitled to this but was wondering if such a place existed on the internet. Once you're taking in more money than you put out then it's a buisness not a hobby even if your not a proffesional herpetologist/breeder.

I remember when this was able to be done here. Was the operation of this site loosing money? If so then I completely understand. I don't want a free lunch by any means. But I probalby view enough banner ads in a week on this site to more than pay for the server space and bandwidth of a couple classifieds a year.

I suspect that most of the advertising here is by hobbiests...especially if we use your criteria of income vs outflow.

I apologize for the typos above. I ran my post through the spell check after I posted. I do not have the ability to edit my own post. Sorry.

Originally Posted by 1Bob

I apologize for the typos above. I ran my post through the spell check after I posted. I do not have the ability to edit my own post. Sorry.

it's too easy...I can't bring myself to say it

Originally Posted by hhmoore

I suspect that most of the advertising here is by hobbiests...especially if we use your criteria of income vs outflow.

Tell me about it lol..........................

To the origanal poster.

I am not sure if I am reading your post wrong but I think you are saying you selling animals is supporting the hobby. I do not agree with this. If you gave your animals away to people maybe but selling them means that you do make money on that animal. Maybe not a yearly profit but you are making money on that said animal. So what I am trying to say is you are looking for the hobby to support your hobby. And there is nothing wrong with that.

I do know where you can post free classifieds. But I do not want to advertise them in this thread to take away from fauna but a quick search will give you many places.

25 dollars............. I spend more then that on a night out. Just blowing it on nothing. Shoot that is a little more then a DVD. And in return paying the 25 makes you money. Helps you move your stock.

I do thank everyone for their replies. This is one of the better on-line communities regardless of topic that I have come across. I respect many of your opinions and advice. I guess I'm in the minority on this particular issue. No free classifieds has all but solved the little scam ad problem that may have existed. That's good. Most likely raised the over confidence someone who has never dealt with reptiles can have in purchasing an animal listed here, but the BOI took care of that if they only would check it. In addition to not being able to post, I find there is less diversity of sellers now. I do not have data to back my observational trend. So take it for whatever you think that's worth. This diversity helped me out as a buyer as well. If I took a chance on a less known source, I could get burned or I could get a super high quality animal either way for a much lower price and feedback could be posted to inform the community.

Originally Posted by 1Bob

A reasonalbe per add charge to non-member could be another option, maybe $1. When you're looking at posting only a couple ads per year to help support a hobby it would be nice to be able to do this at a very low cost. I do not feel entitled to this but was wondering if such a place existed on the internet. Once you're taking in more money than you put out then it's a buisness not a hobby even if your not a proffesional herpetologist/breeder.

I remember when this was able to be done here. Was the operation of this site loosing money? If so then I completely understand. I don't want a free lunch by any means. But I probalby view enough banner ads in a week on this site to more than pay for the server space and bandwidth of a couple classifieds a year.

I understand what you are saying here, but really....have you looked at how many registered members there actually are here? If each member thinks they should be given a couple of free classifieds per year, that is over 80,000 ads. Not that I would expect all of the members to post ads by any means, but for the sake of arguement, that's a whole lot of ads if they were to each want to share your view.

There are MANY hobbies that generate a bit more cash than you put in to them, if you are lucky and do things right. I think this year....for the FIRST time, I may bring in more than what I've spent. Does that make me a business? Or a hobbiest who made a meager profit? And what difference, really, does it make by defining what you want to call yourself?

But really, if you sell ONE animal from an ad here, you would recoup that $25, wouldn't you? Anything after that, you could probably classify as "free advertising", if you want to simplify it to that.

Originally Posted by 1Bob

I do thank everyone for their replies. This is one of the better on-line communities regardless of topic that I have come across. I respect many of your opinions and advice. I guess I'm in the minority on this particular issue. No free classifieds has all but solved the little scam ad problem that may have existed. That's good. Most likely raised the over confidence someone who has never dealt with reptiles can have in purchasing an animal listed here, but the BOI took care of that if they only would check it. In addition to not being able to post, I find there is less diversity of sellers now. I do not have data to back my observational trend. So take it for whatever you think that's worth. This diversity helped me out as a buyer as well. If I took a chance on a less known source, I could get burned or I could get a super high quality animal either way for a much lower price and feedback could be posted to inform the community.

Bob, you continue to debate the issues here even after several people have told you that what you seek is available elsewhere.
Why?

I am by no means trying to debate. Just discussing. Asking questions and answering questions asked. As this responce is just a reply to the question you asked. As I said, I value the opinions expressed. They are valid opinions in my opinion. I feel mine is valid as well.