Soaring Community Consumer Warning

On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 8:25:18 PM UTC-4, Don Johnstone wrote:

I have been waiting for sometime for someone else to deduce why an
exclusive policy is not only bad but can never ever work on the internet.
Let us assume that there is some rsole who decides that he wants a real pop
at a site that has an exclusive policy.
He sets up a new "free ad" site. He then cuts and pastes all the ads from
the exclusive site onto his own site, which being in Cuba is not accessible
to US Law. The ads are now posted on two sites. The eclusive site contacts
the owners of the ads instructing them to remove the ad from the other
site, which of course they cannot do as they do not control the site. All
the ads are removed from the exclusive site which now has no ads. Any new
ad is cut and pasted and gets removed.
A site with free ads is not going to get many visitors if it has no ads.

QED you have to think these things through.


Actually, Don, we no longer have to *assume* there are people such as you describe.

In any case, when your hypothetical Sailplanes of Cuba (SCUBA) launches, it’s Tim's problem. He doesn't need experts on RAS telling him how to run his business and trying to protect him from himself because his business model "can never ever work on the Internet". [You don’t work for the government, by any chance? ]

And the scenario you describe where Tim blindly cancels every ad that pops up on SCUBA until he has none left ignores behavioral response to change. It's why politicians are surprised when they boost tax rates dramatically and tax revenues don't go up proportionately. People or companies move out of the state or country, they shift income to other sources, or they take advantage of tax loopholes. [Same question about your line of work. ]

But let's say Tim behaves as you predict and blindly deletes all his ads because they're also displayed on SCUBA. That site is going to have a problem once those first sailplanes are sold. Where to get new ads? Oh, and that assumes SCUBA knows when to take down an ad when the sailplane is sold.

OK, presumably sellers have shifted to the other free ad sites. SCUBA can scrape those sites, too. Only now, unlike on Wings & Wheels, there's not just one ad. Many sellers have listed on several sites. And the listings aren't always identical. Sellers can (and will) update the price or the details or text anytime they want trying to appeal. So pretty soon SCUBA has 2 or 3 or 10 times as many ads as there are actual sailplanes for sale.

For that matter, Tim doesn't have to behave as predicted and cancel out all his sellers. He could keep his current ads and simply edit them every few weeks (or days) to change the price by $5 or the description (ASW-24 to ASW 24 or SGS 2-33 to Schweizer 2-33) or reformat/rearrange/add/delete words in the text or put some of the headers in images rather than text, or any of the things that are done in the real world to discourage screen scraping.

Same result: SCUBA would soon be a mess of duplicate and obsolete listings. Sure, you could configure a rules engine to analyze the ads to determine which ones are (probably) dupes. Or just pick up the most current ones from Tim’s site and delete the ones that don’t exist anywhere. But how much time is this hypothetical person willing to devote to destroying Tim’s free service? Will he keep going day after day, doing and saying the same things trying to slam Tim? That’s hard to believe.

As you said, Don, you have to think these things through!

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

I have dealt with many customers in the past thirty years. I learned long ago that there is more than one side to a story. We haven't heard Tim's side. Maybe Tim did hang up on Bob. From what I've read, it would't surprise me.

On Thursday, April 11, 2013 1:23:01 PM UTC-7, chipsoars wrote:
And I thought some of the threads with Lenny the Lurker were entertaining, although this now seems to be going sideways....

It is very obvious at this point that we are dealing with a degenerate mental case. A sociopath perhaps?
No one goes to this extent with a normal mine set. Not even if one is a so called well known racer.......)
6PK

Well - if someone is wasting your time and making unreasonable demands
it can be expected that the level of courtesy may be reciprocated...

Running a small business - there are valuable customers, people who
think they are valuable customers or might become valuable customers or
at least friends - and then there are the takers who are convinced that
they are entitled to tell you how to run your business, and waste your
time because they fall into that magical category of "might one day
spend money with you"...

The last category need to be avoided if you are to hope to maintain
sanity and profit.

Bruce

On 2013/04/12 3:40 AM, j gilbert OY wrote:
I have dealt with many customers in the past thirty years. I learned long ago that there is more than one side to a story. We haven't heard Tim's side. Maybe Tim did hang up on Bob. From what I've read, it would't surprise me.


--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771

Apparently they feel entitled as potential customers of a free service
to dictate the terms of service, and then be vocal in abusing the
service provider.

And I know this was supposedly triggered by Tim putting the phone down
on the person presuming to do this. The more I see and hear the more I
sympathise with that decision.

On 2013/04/11 5:51 PM, robertsmits wrote:

If it's important for you to have your ad on Tim's site - comply with
what he offers. It's free, it's his site. You don't like it - go
somewhere else. Simple.
But obviously you see the value of having your glider advertised for
sale on his site, otherwise you wouldn't make such a fuss...



BobD;835471 Wrote:
The other's a just posers. W&W is where the gliders get sold.-

UH-

WOW UH. "The others are just posers"... what an unhealthy position that
is for our sport. In case you haven't noticed, this is the United
States, where free enterprise competition exists for the benefit of the
end-user. Me: I'm just trying to sell my glider and stay vibrant in this
sport. What's stupid is Tim asked me when I placed my ad what I was
getting. I told him a Jonker JS-1C. 3 months later he comes back to
bully me into pulling my "for sale" ad off SoaringCafe instead of saying
"Hey Bob, hope your ad on my site is getting you prospects. Keep me in
mind for your new glider needs such as panel instruments, waxes etc."
Now that won't happen, will it?

Nope--that wasn't the message I got. I got the Soviet Union instead--my
way or the highway. Again: Is this how YOU would treat past, loyal
customers? Is this how you help the sport prosper? I understand the
issue of competition as with my business.

Read the previous post: he does this to others. How detrimental to the
sport.





--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771

On Friday, April 12, 2013 8:58:39 AM UTC-6, BruceGreeff wrote:
The more I see and hear the more I

sympathise with that decision.



Bruce Greeff

T59D #1771
Hey Bruce, What have you seen and heard? Ive seen and heard an individual who lives half way around the globe and has "no pony in this race" provide some totally unbased comments. Kill-file anyone?
It is important to note that these sellers draw traffic to a commercial site. Would this not dictate some common courtesy?

I also think you're plain wrong.
At this point, Tim's business is more
helped by Sean's incessant *******ry towards
him than harmed by my mild support.
GC

Don't be so sure - old customers have indeed made up their minds, but new ones (like me, just getting into sailplanes) are using this information to decide purchasing patterns.

Now, I'll stipulate this. Sean's behaving like a di**. Not so much in his content or point, but in his tone and clear badgering. Sean has issues (that I believe have nothing to do with this) but I only care about the content as his tone matters not a whit to my wallet.

My concern as an (extremely near) future customer is this: While in this case he is likely legally entitled to do so, Tim is INTENTIONALLY hiding an important policy from his customers. There is no other way around this - it is willful. This shows a lack of concern for his customers desire and need to make informed decisions. My question is what *other* policies will he go to great lengths to avoid talking about that may have a real significant impact on my purchase?

Currently I have moved my purchasing focus to a competing outfit (not named to avoid being called a shill in my first post) simply because of this thread. Had Tim previously posted the policy this thread would not exist. If Tim had used the common sense approach and conceded to Bob that it wasn't posted and probably should be and give him a bit of leeway, this thread would not exist. Had he manned up and posted it after this thread started, this potential customer purchase of this week (mine) would still exist. Intentionally hiding policy and then going backwards to enforce it is not just plain bad business, it speaks volumes about business mindset.

I don't know Tim (and I'm pretty sure I don't care to know Sean), but I just wanted some of his defenders (some rather blind IMHO) to know that HIS actions (not Sean's) in this case have already cost him money from his own pocket.

BTW, there are people on this forum who have known me for many years and can vouch that I'm a pretty damn good and reasonable paying customer.

JB

Bravo Bill!!!

http://glidersource.com/cgi-bin/post.cgi?id=288