Do we need a seperate page for WTB?
 

My P-brothers, my P-sisters,

Has the time come where we need a separate page for those folks wanting to purchase one of our cars? The Car for Sale page is a bit mess, let alone a misnomer.

Happy New Year! 2015 is going to be great.

J

I have often thought of this.
Seems these days there are more WTB ads than there are stuff for sale.

The WTB ads always make me wonder.....when I have sold cars here I never responded to a Wtb. I guess I assume the wtb guys are all flippers or not willing to pay the price for the ones in the market now. Also many of them are wtb the same stuff as everyone else... Big deal...wtb 87-89 low miles coupe no paint work no stores will pay up to $25k..... BFD

Yes. I find it particularly annoying and what really makes the WTB 's intentions obvious is when you see their ad right next to an ad for what they want FS. Obviously they WTB for lower than currant market price since the FS stuff does not meet their price point.

Oh by the way I WTB 911's between 65-89 and I will pay up to $20,000 for no rust long hood S's that are all original. Cash waiting for the right car. PM with what you have.

I think WTB may be useful for random parts. For cars? Pretty much useless.

WTB ads are often aimed at the passive sellers who won't run an ad.

I agree with Matt. Very useful for random parts because there are lots of guys who have a few boxes of parts in the garage that they have no interest in taking the time to sell and don't need the money. Especially since selling something on Pelican involves taking 100 photos and declaring your part sold, then back for sale, then sold again over and over while the "I'll-take-its" come out of the woodwork. Another rant, I know. But those same guys might see a WTB ad from a fellow enthusiast who is doing his own restoration and think, "Hey, I have one of those, why not sell it to somebody who needs it?"

The problem with a dedicated WTB section is the only people who actually read it and respond to the ads are guys like me who have 10,000 sq ft of parts they need to sell. The 911S Registry recently adopted this model and it's been a steady way for me to sell early parts to people, not because the WTB ads were hard to search out before, but because now I'm often the only person to respond to a WTB ad since no regular enthusiasts are seeing it. Great for me, but the WTB posters are losing out because they may have been able to buy their part from a regular guy for less than I sell it for. I love selling parts, but these forums are supposed to be more about enthusiasts and less about commercial operations.

So my answer is NO, we don't need a dedicated WTB section, for parts anyway. I agree that the WTB car ads seem to all placed by flippers ... er, ahem ... dealers.

- Matt

+1 It can work. I've seen Rennlisters have success by posting a "WTB: 964" ad in the 964 forum. Enthusiasts tend to help other enthusiasts so the poster may need a track record of not being a dealer/flipper.

I have a lovely 993 C4S in my garage thanks to a WTB ad I posted on my local classifieds (similar to Craigslist). The seller was a workaholic and had very little free time. He did not want to deal with a bunch of tire kickers and dealers. I was looking for a 964 or 993 and was a serious buyer ready to jump. We made a deal that satisfied both parties. :cool:

Exactly right. The 911SRegistry made WTB almost useless when they made this switch. WTB ads now have almost no visibility.

Such a rookie mistake and anyone with any Internet experience could have told them this would happen. Please don't make the same mistake here.

While I see your point that mixing the WTB with For Sale as it benefits the folks not inspired to actually post their items to sell, I would argue that the value of this For Sale page is greatly deminished. Perhaps if market conditions change, it will go back to being a resource for cars For Sale.

If the poster puts a WTB in the the classifieds it's pretty easy to skip over if you're looking.

A specific WTB category will never get looked at. As a seller, they're not going to look through all of the posts to find their potential buyer.

That said, a WTB may bring out a reluctant or non-active seller... I've bought a couple of cars that were not listed for sale by posting a WTB.

This may seem odd, but what about making the thread a different color. When creating a thread there would be a check box that say F/S or WTB. That way it would be easier to tell the difference between the two threads. Also another thought from left field , using a check box that could also distinguish the type of part. Lest say your looking for a body panel or selling a body panel, you could have a check box for body panels or engine parts etc. The word body panel or engine, etc would show up in the thread description. I do realize it may add a little clutter to the page. But its something I have been thinking about, when sifting through 20 pages that where updated this week. Getting a little farther off topic. It would also be a nice option in the search this forum feature that you could use the check box to only show the type of parts your looking for not just a key word. This would also help you filter through the threads you could check the F/S or WTB and it would only show you one or the other and you could also use it in a combo Like F/S engine and you would only see F/S engine parts etc.

Just some of my 2am thoughts.

why not try it for say 30 days then poll the group??
apsal