Hey folks...
I have designed a few websites for medium-large size vendors in the eBike world, but the economics of setting up a website for the small guy often doesn't make business sense.. and if a small guy is only selling a custom part or two on here, people are going to forget about his website, or his 'for sale' thread here will eventually drop down to the bottom, etc. It's unfortunate because lots of people on this forum have all sorts of little cool bits and pieces they have made or sourced for sale. For example, icecube's harnesses, methods' Lipo protection units, kiwi's dropout adapters etc.
I've been thinking about a solution for about a year. I want to encourage innovation in the ebike world. I want something better than what the forum software provides.
Participation would be voluntary. There would be no transaction fees. It would be a separate entity, not ran by the owners of the endless sphere site, but me, and maybe one other person from the forum of my choosing as a backup in case one of us dies in an ebike accident or something :lol:. All the site would be is a shell - it accepts no transactions, but displays prices, info on your product, pictures, etc. It essentially acts as the sales person for a small vendor - sending an email to you with the order details - and you act as the cashier, where you negotiate shipping costs and handle the transaction via paypal or whatever else.
The kind of vendors i would want are folks who are selling unique items that they have sourced or created themselves. For example, icecube's harness business would qualify for membership in the marketplace, but maxwell65's hub motor sales would not. I would want vendors that fill a niche for needed parts.
There would be a small fee for each vendor on a yearly basis - which would be the $125/year it costs to host the site, divided by however many vendors we have, plus 10 dollars to gradually pay for all the programming and design work i will need to do to get this running.
So if we have 20 members, the hosting fee is $6.25 + $10 = $16.25 per year.
The site design and function would be similar to what BMSBattery's site ( http://www.bmsbattery.com/ ).
Except each category would be a little mini-store for each vendor.
Each vendor would have a login that allowed them to edit/add/remove products.
What will it be called? i am not sure. I don't have a name in my head yet. That will come later. Though i am up for suggestions. I would call it 'endless sphere marketplace', but it is a separate entity. I would like to get people on EV car and EV motorcycle forums to participate as well, later on.
But first - i am wondering if any vendors here would be interested in participating. If i can get a significant amount of hands raised, then the project is worth my time to do. I have 3 vendors already interested, but i need more folks interested before i proceed.
Anyone interested?
I have designed a few websites for medium-large size vendors in the eBike world, but the economics of setting up a website for the small guy often doesn't make business sense.. and if a small guy is only selling a custom part or two on here, people are going to forget about his website, or his 'for sale' thread here will eventually drop down to the bottom, etc. It's unfortunate because lots of people on this forum have all sorts of little cool bits and pieces they have made or sourced for sale. For example, icecube's harnesses, methods' Lipo protection units, kiwi's dropout adapters etc.
I've been thinking about a solution for about a year. I want to encourage innovation in the ebike world. I want something better than what the forum software provides.
Participation would be voluntary. There would be no transaction fees. It would be a separate entity, not ran by the owners of the endless sphere site, but me, and maybe one other person from the forum of my choosing as a backup in case one of us dies in an ebike accident or something :lol:. All the site would be is a shell - it accepts no transactions, but displays prices, info on your product, pictures, etc. It essentially acts as the sales person for a small vendor - sending an email to you with the order details - and you act as the cashier, where you negotiate shipping costs and handle the transaction via paypal or whatever else.
The kind of vendors i would want are folks who are selling unique items that they have sourced or created themselves. For example, icecube's harness business would qualify for membership in the marketplace, but maxwell65's hub motor sales would not. I would want vendors that fill a niche for needed parts.
There would be a small fee for each vendor on a yearly basis - which would be the $125/year it costs to host the site, divided by however many vendors we have, plus 10 dollars to gradually pay for all the programming and design work i will need to do to get this running.
So if we have 20 members, the hosting fee is $6.25 + $10 = $16.25 per year.
The site design and function would be similar to what BMSBattery's site ( http://www.bmsbattery.com/ ).
Except each category would be a little mini-store for each vendor.
Each vendor would have a login that allowed them to edit/add/remove products.
What will it be called? i am not sure. I don't have a name in my head yet. That will come later. Though i am up for suggestions. I would call it 'endless sphere marketplace', but it is a separate entity. I would like to get people on EV car and EV motorcycle forums to participate as well, later on.
But first - i am wondering if any vendors here would be interested in participating. If i can get a significant amount of hands raised, then the project is worth my time to do. I have 3 vendors already interested, but i need more folks interested before i proceed.
Anyone interested?
