Crybabies....

Kevin,
It may have had nothing to do with the competition getting mad...if it was at the place I think it was, they are pretty strict about those policies. Even though you didn't name anybody, it cast a negative light on other advertisers. (Personally, I don't think it is so much about protecting other advertisers as it is protecting the site's own income.)


An example, from the forums there - a person asked for opinions about cages made by a particular manufacturer. There was one reply, from an admitted friend of the manufacturer, stating how great they were. I posted a very non biased statement about my experience with the cages, explaining the both good and bad aspects...and my post was removed because it contained negative information about an advertiser. I have not posted in those forums since.
My personal feeling is that if they are only going to allow one side of the story to be told, they shouldn't allow those types of posts.

I agree with you there Harald.... that really throws a slanted view on things If you cant provide information to the contrairy.

I actually emailed the person back that sent me the email... asking how I should go about wording my ad since I didnt name any businesses. Just showed how mine was possibly different from theirs.

Originally Posted by navigator1998

I would not change anything! I just love it how some people think they can tell other what to do, and can't even control there own messes! lol Leave it the way it is

That's good advice. Just because you disagree with someone telling you how to advertise on their site you advise ignoring the warning and risk getting kicked off. Not too smart if you ask me. And they can tell others what to do because its their site and they make the rules. They view it as knocking the competition so you have to live with it.

Others have said, there is a way of promoting what you do without mentioning your competitors. A simple "we offer individual photos of the exact animals available for purchase" does the same thing without bringing your competitors into the picture. This should pass their standards. It also has the advantage of not alienating customers who do not like mudslinging (trust me,you may see it as a competitive advantage but others may see it as bad mouthing your competitors and be turned off by it) If individual pictures are important to a potential buyer a simple statement is all that is needed to sway them. They will find out soon enough that your competitors don't offer it.

Just a simple question though. Do you think that offering individual pictures is a positive thing that you offer. If you answer yes (and you should) then in a way it is looking negatively on those who don't therefore it does violate their TOS.

It sucks to have to go back and change all your ads but IMO they will be better for it. I think they did you a favor even though it will cost you a bit more work.

Originally Posted by RidgeTop Reptiles

I just deleted 3 days worth of work over there. I dont need any other nasty grams becuase that is in ALL my ads. Apparently you cant run "Special Offers" over there and have folks come to your site for the price either. Those got removed because of TOS violations.

Well if we are talking about the website I think we're talking about, you have to list a specific price or price range, it's against their TOS to do otherwise.

Believe me, when I got a 3mo. account over there last year to try it out, I read and re-read their TOS to make sure I was fuly in-line, they're pretty strict about it.

edit - oh, and I have purchased a snake sight-unseen from one of the big corn snake breeders, individual pics weren't offered, I wasn't thrilled about it but I was happy with what I got. However, if it wasn't a well known person, I wouldn't have taken that chance. I always prefer individual pics.

I also offer individual pics, and never considered that it could be viewed as "knocking" the competition. However, I dislike anyone trying to tell me how much I should charge for an animal.

Well, since my name was mentioned here, I guess I can respond to this topic, but in the sense of individual pics of animals you are selling.

I did that one year, and quite frankly it was a royal pain in the ass.

First off, I don't know how many animals you are producing, but taking individual photos of 3,000 animals (in a bad year) is really not an easy task. I don't remember how many I actually had when I started that project, but certainly at least half of that number. Figure on taking at least two pics, sometimes three, of each and every animal. Figure on making multiple passes, because a percentage of the babies will always be opaque at any given time. Then having to review them all, crop them when necessary, resize them, rename them, copy them all up to the server, then put the code into your webpage to make them available to be displayed as well as ordered online and handled by your inventory program. Piece of cake, eh? Well it took me three months start to finish, all the while selling some of those animals and having to make note of the sales so I didn't offer something that was already sold and gone.

Some observations I made at the time:

• Most of the sales were done without referencing those photos. People preferred me to pick out the best ones anyway.
• Many people wanted additional pics showing some particular details, like belly pattern, or closeups of the eyes...
• Some potential sales were contingent upon me holding back several examples while the customer tried to make up their mind about which one they really wanted.
• I was highly restricted at times, because sometimes an animal that was ordered by photo might have regurgitated one of the last three meals, or perhaps didn't look really as pretty as other examples.
• The later in the season it got, the more people who wanted up-to-date photos, basically requesting me to do the entire process all over again.
• Generally speaking, trying to sell animals in this manner just generated many more questions about specific individuals, and really didn't generate more sales.

Consequently, I never tried that again, and had I stayed in business, I would not have considered it in the future. Maybe it works for some people, but from my perspective, it was a complete waste of time and effort.

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Well, since my name was mentioned here, I guess I can respond to this topic, but in the sense of individual pics of animals you are selling.

I did that one year, and quite frankly it was a royal pain in the ass.

First off, I don't know how many animals you are producing, but taking individual photos of 3,000 animals (in a bad year) is really not an easy task. I don't remember how many I actually had when I started that project, but certainly at least half of that number. Figure on taking at least two pics, sometimes three, of each and every animal. Figure on making multiple passes, because a percentage of the babies will always be opaque at any given time. Then having to review them all, crop them when necessary, resize them, rename them, copy them all up to the server, then put the code into your webpage to make them available to be displayed as well as ordered online and handled by your inventory program. Piece of cake, eh? Well it took me three months start to finish, all the while selling some of those animals and having to make note of the sales so I didn't offer something that was already sold and gone.

Some observations I made at the time:

• Most of the sales were done without referencing those photos. People preferred me to pick out the best ones anyway.
• Many people wanted additional pics showing some particular details, like belly pattern, or closeups of the eyes...
• Some potential sales were contingent upon me holding back several examples while the customer tried to make up their mind about which one they really wanted.
• I was highly restricted at times, because sometimes an animal that was ordered by photo might have regurgitated one of the last three meals, or perhaps didn't look really as pretty as other examples.
• The later in the season it got, the more people who wanted up-to-date photos, basically requesting me to do the entire process all over again.
• Generally speaking, trying to sell animals in this manner just generated many more questions about specific individuals, and really didn't generate more sales.

Consequently, I never tried that again, and had I stayed in business, I would not have considered it in the future. Maybe it works for some people, but from my perspective, it was a complete waste of time and effort.

wow... Rich dusted off the Rich Z account I apprecaite you posting here and giving me some of your insite.

Your right Rich... it can be a royal pain in the butt, and it is most definitely time consuming. I have however worked out a system (I hope) to help ease the pain.

Currently Im not producing nowhere near what you were... my day will come when I am... but I will grow those numbers as I grow my business rep. No need and producing 2000 babies when I can only sell 400. Better to build it slowly so I can sell what I produce.

My current way of doing is to fire off a couple shots on burst and move to the next one. (I can photograph 10 in under 10 mins). I have a macro set up in photoshop that resizes, adds the border, sharpens the photo. I add the logo and save. Once I get a rythem going... it takes about 3 mins per baby to have the photos taken, processed, and ready for upload. Having the macro in photoshop is a HUGE time saver.

As to the coding.... I cheat. Its a simple copy / paste and change one number in the id code for the baby... and I have a new one listed.

Yes it does take me some time... and sometimes it takes me ALOT of time... especially if I am trying or designing something new. And actually this year I scrapped one of my projects on my site because I felt my time was better used on another one.

My current inventory control is a multicolored spreadsheet. Orange highlighter denotes on the website.... green denotes sold... blue denotes holdback. As high tech as I am... I find myself going back to oldschool methods of pen and paper on alot of things.

Thanks again for your response.