I’ve not had a need to look at the ads for a long time.

Am I operating it wrongly or was the last ad really placed 3 days ago?

There used to be new stuff popping up all the time. I need bits to finish off 2 bikes.

Nothing being listed. If the new ads aren’t working is it not worth going back to the old style?

Last Ad was 2 hours ago?

The top listings are boosted ads. Scroll down past those to see the newer adverts.

Well I just scrolled down, there were 6 pages unless I need to take a training course.

Definitely not Dracs iPad, there are a few ads a day.

That’s all I’m saying on the matter, last time this topic came up I got a 3 month holiday.

Zip, you’re not alone in wishing for the old classifieds to return – but it won’t happen.
Can one of the owners or mods tell us if the new classifieds are ‘better’ than the old ones – specifically, are more items being sold through the new than the old; that’s a simple metric to assess relative success.

I like the  pictures.

and the categories.

The ones with the tiny,tiny bit bluer text areas below the pics are the boosted ads, scroll to the plain white ones below that for the new stuff.

The Boosted ads don’t seem to change much and tend to be the high value items so I generally scroll past them by default as I’m pretty skint much of the time. 😁

It’s definitely very light on new bits coming up. I’m actively looking, even set up a couple of saved searches to bypass the ponderous navigation.

Everyone knows that the user experience is different with the new classified.

Regards the ‘better’ stats – everyone can find a statistic to confirm their preferences so that’s what will happen. I’d guess the new system is making the business more money e.g. boosted ad prices, advertising etc.

the user experience is different

If you’re not already in Marketing, that’s your obvious career path young man. Get thee there 😉

Wasn’t aware of the boosted ads . Glad I asked .

Can one of the owners or mods tell us if the new classifieds are ‘better’ than the old ones – specifically, are more items being sold through the new than the old; that’s a simple metric to assess relative success.

id say thats not the measure of success here….it’ll be money brought in.

id guess theres far less items being bought/sold, but more money in the coffers. before it was reliant on contributions, of which there were very few. now, some pay for the boosted ads, hence its a better business model. i think.

Pretty much Sadex. We’ve provided the data before some believed it others accused us of lying but it’s helping generate some income where once it never did.

I emailed the tech bloke about expired ads not disappearing.
He’s on a jolly somewhere!
But that damn Jeffsy advert just won’t go away!

Neither will the 6 month old Trance ad

You can keep hitting refresh on your old adverts, keeps them there but they still appear at the bottom of the list (i.e. you cant bump them).

It’s unusable.

How is it unusable?

i dont use it anymore, its a PITA

I find it fine.

Its not unusable, but its not the ‘STW classifieds’ anymore either.

Which is a shame as that was unique, in that 90% of it was bike jumble stuff that was worth selling, but not worth 10 minutes of box ticking and advert writing.

Could we perhapse have a comprimise of a classified forum (i.e. the old one), with a value cap of £25? STW still gets a few quid when people list their T5, and the users get a way to buy/sell/swap their tat? Or restrict starting threads to subscribers if you want to drive revenue.

in that 90% of it was bike jumble stuff that was worth selling, but not worth 10 minutes of box ticking and advert writing.

Pretty much this. Takes so long to post anything that I don’t bother with low-value/free-to-collect items, used to be a 30 second job to say does anyone out there want two sheets of plasterboard, 9mm 6×3, free to collect from Galashiels whereas now it would take ages.
.
Does anyone want them?

It’s obviously not unusable as people have used it but it does look like something knocked up in half an hour in someone’s bedroom. I heard all the feedback when it was launched (ahem) and hadn’t looked until yesterday. Certainly there are ads there but it looks like a club page that has ‘News’ from 1978…

It’s dead – my bike is on here, pink bike, ebay and Facebook, I’ve had enquiries from all places bar here.
I’ll have some more bits to sell soon, they’ll be going on pinkbike and if they don’t seem on there, to ebay.

New classifieds are great (not actually great) I’ve saved a fortune as I rarely even look at them any more, where as before it was my first port of call.

I actually find it ok to use having placed a few ads recently and sold some stuff.

What’s not working is that there is no longer the critical mass of people looking that there were before so I’m having more luck on facebook.

I’ve got a box of stuff to shift. Not expecting to make much money from it, more a case of finding it a better home rather than the bin. Not worth ebaying because of the fees.

Does anyone want them?

Pics please!

(not really) 😆

Is there a way to browse all the stuff in one go or do you have to go through each category individually?

I sold some lights really quickly on the classifieds, but then couldn’t find my own advert to say they were sold. When I did actually find it I could’nt see how to mark as sold so just deleted it instead.
Success!

No worries, I’ve worked it out, I was actually being really stoooooooopiiid

People don’t like change, especially when you don’t think it’s an improvement. I didn’t like the new setup but it’s not going to change.

We just need to embrace it and start using it again. The more you use it, the easier it will be and the better it will get.

I think too many of us, including me, have just ignored it and gone elsewhere.

Well that’s just another way of being dismissive isn’t it. I don’t really care about the change in itself so long as we end up with something that’s useful. I don’t think we have. Had ‘they’ taken the same stance after the really poor forum implementation, we’d still have the dog sh!t that was masquerading as a finished product back then.

the classifieds is what got me started reading STW forums… still mainly a lurker, but rarely use the classifieds, no where near the range and amount of stuff there anymore.

Could we perhapse have a comprimise of a classified forum (i.e. the old one), with a value cap of £25? STW still gets a few quid when people list their T5, and the users get a way to buy/sell/swap their tat?

I like this idea a lot

Could we perhapse have a comprimise of a classified forum (i.e. the old one), with a value cap of £25? STW still gets a few quid when people list their T5, and the users get a way to buy/sell/swap their tat?

i skipped over this at first, but the more i think about it the more i like it. rather than rely on contributions, the seller HAS to pay a percentage of the sale price or set fee to stw, and yes, £25 seems a reasonable cut-off point for free sales.

and if it was the original format, then thered be more traffic too.

yes please mark? 🙂

Do you use Google analytics or similar? If you had stats for old Vs new classifieds page hits that would prove visitor numbers and journeys either way…

do you ‘really’ want the stats? the answer provided above seems like a good enough one. ‘the old ones never paid, these ones do’ seems pretty reasonable. probably drives traffic elsewhere mind. i certainly look at pinkbike and a few other sites a lot more than i used to.

I think too many of us, including me, have just ignored it and gone elsewhere.

We all make judgments about how we want to be spending our time. After a couple of attempts when they were first brought in I never look at the classifieds any more. I completely understand the “we make money now, we didn’t before” rationale but I still think they’re a sos to browse and navigate.*

*when I last looked, many months ago.

It doesn’t really matter what the revenue numbers are if ‘success’ is being measured against zero. Traffic is everything and what you can’t know is what the dividend was generated from classifieds activity for the rest of the site. That’s the key not generating small amounts of identifiable revenue from vanishingly small levels of activity.

Do you use Google analytics or similar? If you had stats for old Vs new classifieds page hits that would prove visitor numbers and journeys either way…

We do and, oddly enough, it does.

Yup but like I said up there we were accused of lying when we pointed out the last time the numbers haven’t dropped.