Wanted ads are they the new "is this still available" movement

[RobertWhitehead]

So I am confused, I have noticed a trend lately where by someone actually goes through the trouble of creating a wanted ad with kiekies and all only to remain mum if and when you answer or provide a solution. This is very weird, I mean if I go through the effort to post a wanted ad I have exhausted all other options and am very close to buying new. Maybe these wanted ads are just bots trying to prop up activities . 

[Zebra]

Whoops, I am due to contact you about an old -school handlebar; just getting visiting family and 1000 Festive-season duties out the way, then will be back in touch.

cheers

Chris

[BaGearA]

The average person is A moron Robert..

 

#lifeadvice

[Eddy Gordo]

I have a few wanted ads, but very few and far between for what I am looking for. And then the price is also not what I want to pay, so instead of lowballing I ignore the ad. I am patient for when the right item comes along. Mainly because I have a few bikes to ride, and I am trying to scratch an itch but also holding restraint.

[RobertWhitehead]

52 minutes ago, Zebra said:

Whoops, I am due to contact you about an old -school handlebar; just getting visiting family and 1000 Festive-season duties out the way, then will be back in touch.

cheers

Chris

This wasn't pointed at you Chris 👍. 

[RobertWhitehead]

3 minutes ago, Eddy Gordo said:

I have a few wanted ads, but very few and far between for what I am looking for. And then the price is also not what I want to pay, so instead of lowballing I ignore the ad. I am patient for when the right item comes along. Mainly because I have a few bikes to ride, and I am trying to scratch an itch but also holding restraint.

Let me see what you're looking for, maybe I can help, or you can ignore me 

[Nick]

It's not an ideal situation but the reality is that people have different priorities, especially at this time of year. It may be beneficial to let it go.

Also, if they were bots to boost activity, we'd do a hell of a lot better than 74 of 5,400 ads 😉

[Eddy Gordo]

LOL, just realised, I dont have wanted ads, but have alerts for what I am interested in.🙈

[Sid the Sloth]

3 hours ago, RobertWhitehead said:

This wasn't pointed at you Chris 👍. 

i feel attacked 😜

[RobertWhitehead]

3 hours ago, Nick said:

It's not an ideal situation but the reality is that people have different priorities, especially at this time of year. It may be beneficial to let it go.

Also, if they were bots to boost activity, we'd do a hell of a lot better than 74 of 5,400 ads 😉

 

2 minutes ago, Sid the Sloth said:

i feel attacked 😜

Sho, I did not want to attack anyone, or ruffle any feathers. It was merely an observation. I make contact with a lot of folks all of the time so I just wanted to find out if anyone else had the same experience 😁.

[Me rida my bicycle]

5 hours ago, BaGearA said:

The average person is A moron Robert..

 

#lifeadvice

Hey hey hey who you calling average?... 🤣 

[Steady Spin]

Jeez... people will complain about just about everything these days. 

[babse]

1 minute ago, Steady Spin said:

Jeez... people will complain about just about everything these days. 

Lol thought the same...

Maybe start a separate thread about all the complaining 

 

 

 

[Steady Spin]

10 minutes ago, babse said:

Lol thought the same...

Maybe start a separate thread about all the complaining 

 

 

 

[Nick]

None response for all advert types is an issue we've puzzled over a lot. It's a terrible experience wanting something and then receiving silence back.

We would like Bike Hub to be better. BUT it's never going to completely solved and the solutions we've considered are cumbersome without any certainty they'll improve things.

Our top candidate is recording response times and displaying that to prospective buyers so they can have an expectation upfront. This only really gives an accurate picture for frequent sellers though. They are usually good at responding already.

The majority of sellers on Bike Hub are infrequent sellers who sell a bike every 3 to 5 years. Which means there is very little data to work with (if any), making the system inaccurate.

Measuring response time also only works with the chat feature on Bike Hub. Phone or WhatsApp conversations are beyond our reach.

Some sort of demotion or punishment for not responding is also tricky. People often have very valid reasons that they can't respond immediately and we don't have the capacity or patience to be making judgement calls on that either. And whether this mechanism is based on automation or user reports is another question not easily answered.

We've tried to remind sellers via email to remove their adverts when the item is sold and will be doing more around this in 2023. The item being sold is often a reason for not responding (or they are in the processing of selling and waiting for that to complete and then never reply).