Voted no. Whether or not it’s morally right, it’ll dry up liquidity and selection, offering less value to actual subscribers in the process.
My quick scan shows over the last month about 2-1 non-GC (ex business) to GC member postings. There have been about 75 CC posts (about 85+% are selling). Now I don’t know if the friction of becoming a GC member would be enough to reduce posts or by how much - I think an on-the-margin claim vs a “significant reduction” is quite a leap given what we know.
I think there are two reasons for wanting someone to be GC: 1) on the margin more trustworthy and 2) supporting the community financially as you are engaged in commerce. If the issue is trust, we should go after that problem directly (commerce stars, feedback tracking, etc) but I don’t think I really trust people more or less because they are GC (number of posts as others have mentioned is a better proxy).
I do think there is a difference between the exchange of ideas and the exchange of goods. I think this platform allows for more efficient exchange of goods than other means so I personally think it’s worthwhile to contribute to its continued existence. I prefer the nominal flat rate over something variable, so I support the idea of required GC status to engage on CC.
Now to address the one-time user: of course this is the most at-risk user (repeat buyers/sellers are probably stickier). I don’t think we want to lose these people as they might become repeat users in the future.
So my solution would be to make this a moderator decision: consistent users would be asked to join GC. That way everyone knows the intent of the board and the required contribution would only be those who use it often.
if the person is in the business of selling wine, then yes GC status should be required. if it’s an ad hoc sale, then no.
seems that non-business type commerce corner is as much a benefit for buyer as the seller, perhaps more so as the clearing price must inherently be below retail (mostly). wouldn’t that argue to charge the buyers and not the sellers? i’m not advocating this, per se, but it’s the other side of the market which you’ve already decided you want here. charing to post will reduce the number of posts, by how much? no one knows.
to my mind, this is a premium site and it should all be behind a paywall that covers the cost of the site and, ideally, net some additional money to the site owners.
anything other than that will be a perpetual give and take on advertising and other ideas on how to raise money because the freemium model doesn’t work (probably) for this market/segment.
edit to add: abstaining from voting as i think i’m biased given the above.
Make money lol.
I have sold probably 10-15 cases of wine over the past 10 years on CC, and I’ll bet I made money on less than 25%, and lost money on more than 50%. But I usually priced to sell and when I didn’t, I took low offers.
I see the logic but agree with Chris and Andrew that it risks drying up the CC.
I like this idea…
Yes, of course. You have to give value, in order to get value. If its free, it’s worthless.
I personally think it would be best to make the CC like politics. I wouldn’t limit it to GCC, but hide it from non members.
Whatever Todd wants seems like the right answer, honestly.
Seems very simple to me.
If you desire the marketing to a sophisticated wine group who are willing to pay for premium wines then you can afford to pay $25.
Buyers should be exempted as they are helping the sellers who are supporters of the site.
I wouldn’t be opposed. Sellers, yes. Buyers, no. I scanned the posts and it looks more weighted towards those that are not, and some folks post more frequently to it than others. As someone else noted, if a subscriber is benefiting in any way financially then they should at least contribute. Its only 25 bucks a year.
I think a more reasonable approach would be to require GCC for offers above a certain total amount. Whether that’s $500, $1,000 or another value can be discussed. But sometimes someone just wants to sell the odd sixer of $50 wines and $25 may skew the math, but if someone is selling $5k of wine, then I think asking them to pay $25 is reasonable.
I voted no. While I wish people who are actually making a substantial profit on CC would donate to the site, I think enforcing it is a bad idea. Ultimately if it reduces the volume of wine changing hands, it hurts both the people who were targeted and those who were not, including a lot of people who are Grand Cru. Plus I think there are lots of small time sellers who are just rebalancing their cellar. There’s no reason at all to target them.
If you want to increase paid membership, I would choose another way, for example introduce another tier which removes ads but limits posting (for the whole site, not CC). Or provide more positive incentives to GCC members, for example access to Zoom calls with wine influencers.
100%.
Excellent point.
Completely agree with the thought of paying to play (sell). If your selling via K & L and similar sites you pay to play. Why not here?
Ultimately there is no reason applaud the amount of wine changing hands.
For people just rebalancing their cellars who are small time sellers they should pay a small time annual fee of $25.
No target…just fair!
I have no horse in this race. I have never bought in commerce corner and the only time I ever posted in commerce corner was to try to trade cult wine to get a fancy lens for my new camera. However, I have an idea. I do not know if this is possible, but I think that viewing commerce corner should be available to everyone, but buying or selling in commerce corner should be limited to contributors. That reduces the amount of freeloaders who are trying to make a profit for free but would not discourage lurkers who might decide to contribute when they see something they like.
The OP basically is requesting just that. To post a topic (one would assume posting a topic is a ‘for sale’ topic, for the most part), one must be GCC, as per what is suggested/polled