Hi, I'm Cruzin and here are my thoughts on Forum Group Buys

[Cruizin]

 

Iv'e seen Group buys go really well and I've seen them actually go full on felony on other forums and groups. Luckily, I got in the forum hobby well, back when they were boards with no topics in the 90's. 

 

Forum and Group members think of group buys as a way of getting a miraculous low price.  When in reality, to run a business that actually can afford to offer good cust svc, a business can never sell items for less than they cost to buy/build/deliver plus some profit margin. Selling stuff at cost equals "where did that business website go" and a BK for someone. 

 

We also have some vendors who have dealers (outside companies who sell their parts under contract) and those dealers would be pretty pissed if their supplier sold to anyone lower than they can. And thats a very valid and strong argument. 

 

We have some Vendors who out of the goodness of their hearts lowered price for some killer group buys and made next to nothing. I bought stuff along with you guys and gals and really appreciated it. But thats the exception, not the rule. 

 

A good guide for Vendors is well, you have to be an approved by me as a Vendor to sell or talk about your motorcycle related company or it's parts on this forum.

 

A fair group buy often has contingents. Like, minimum amount of preorders.  A good group buy says to the buyers "Post below to commit to buying this product for this reduced price"  Once a minimum announced amount of members post their commits to the preorder, sale goes live taking preorders, when 25 have preordered and stays open for a few days for everyone to actually pay for their order. 

 

From now on, I'm requiring Vendors to announce how long it will take to ship once someone pays for their order, ahead of such order.  I think this just makes things clear for the buyer and provides re assurance to the Vendor that nobody will pull out and screw up the large order. 

 

I once sold one of a kind Cruise Control units for the FJ-09 Tracer precursor bike.  I announced that 

I was going to do the pre order. Got hundreds of replies. Then I launched a new thread asking for commits to the preorder, and got 134. Then the preorder went live and went mini viral on bike FB groups so we actually sold 230 units first two days.  I was up front that it would take one month and gave preorders one week to pull out/cancel.  Then we built wiring harnesses, assembled kits and shipped em all out on time. Posted install and programming videos to follow.  We posted updates twice a week throughout the process and then after that, it was talked about heavily on ADV rider and I started getting tons of emails from different model bike owners. 

 

It was the most successful preorder /Group buy I have seen on a forum and a good example of how to avoid problems. Emails to buyers are key and should be done with at least weekly updates while people are waiting for items to ship. 

 

 

Individual member to member sales happen in our classifieds section on the honor rule. I and our staff cannot be responsible in any way for third party sales. But we sure do kick violators "non shippers/non refund" off our servers and report any digital tracks to the police for any questionable fiscal activity. 

 

As a result, we don't get many/any issues besides international shipping times, but who has a fix for that? We have both north American and Euro vendor sections. 

 

Any Vendor who wants to do a group buy, get ahold of me via pm.