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Starting a Paid Forum For People to Sell Services: Do you get the buyers or the sellers first??

by MarketingVet09
5 replies
Hello,

As the title stated...


Imagine when Craigslist was first created... People post ads for others to respond to... But the owner of the site, who did he market to first? The ad posters or the people responding?


Since both are dependent on one another to be valuable, I'm wondering from anyone who has ever started a site like this, where do you go for initial traffic?


Because why would a seller post an ad with no buyers? And why would a buyer visit the site if their are no ads??


And I especially wonder, since this would be a PAID forum where you have to paid to post an ad (think like WSO or Warrior Services)


Of course there is a sensible method to start up... I'd like to hear from anyone who has ever created a forum or site of this nature, how they did it. Would be appreciated.


ps.. It's one thing to have fake forum posters posting topics and replying just for discussion... But I'm talking buying / selling services here... So I'm assuming things would work a little different.
#buyers #forum #people #sell #sellers #services #starting
  • Profile picture of the author datingworld
    I think you need to bring both sellers and buyers at the same time.
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    • Profile picture of the author IMstarter
      Buyers and sellers should be brought in at the same time since neither can survive without the other. It might be easier to start out as free and then turn to paid once you have enough members. Having the forum as paid from the outset could result in slow growth.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alex Blades
        I think you would have to build it as a free membership first, till you have enough members. People won't sell if there is no buyers, and buyers wont buy if there's nothing to buy.

        Try as a limited time free membership, until you build a solid base.
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  • Profile picture of the author MarketingVet09
    Thanks guys....

    The free membership hit me in the face while I as brainstorming... Should've been obvious..


    1) - Recruit sellers and let them post for free for limited time
    2) - Recruit buyers
    3) - Start charging sellers monthly membership once have enough steady and frequent buyers, and the proceed with recruiting both full fledged.


    It's rocket science!


    But no, seriously thanks for the input guys.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by MarketingVet09 View Post

      Thanks guys....

      The free membership hit me in the face while I as brainstorming... Should've been obvious..


      1) - Recruit sellers and let them post for free for limited time
      2) - Recruit buyers
      3) - Start charging sellers monthly membership once have enough steady and frequent buyers, and the proceed with recruiting both full fledged.


      It's rocket science!


      But no, seriously thanks for the input guys.
      This is what I was going to tell you, but good job on figuring it out for yourself...
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