Businesses monopolising Loupe Troop good or bad?

[hathalove]

So funny! Not funny. I was going to start a thread on this but asking who that particular group is?! lol. It's super annoying when they go overboard.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I contacted them ages ago because there would be so many colored stone posts that I had to sift through to find the actually second hand jewelry listings. They don't care. Somebody's husband started it and all they really care about is the advertising money, apparently. Too bad, because it could have been a really good site.

 

[arkieb1]

I contacted them ages ago because there would be so many colored stone posts that I had to sift through to find the actually second hand jewelry listings. They don't care. Somebody's husband started it and all they really care about is the advertising money, apparently. Too bad, because it could have been a really good site.

I have an email from LT mods and it appears they are open to suggestions and when few of us complained the 50+ listings from Parksfinegroup were all deleted and their account is currently suspended. They have suggested to me that want a find a balance so everyone is happy, so DS, please do write to them or list on here suggestions you have and I will ask them to read them.

 

[mrs-b]

It's an easy solution, @arkieb1 - they do a 'trade' section. Problem solved. They could also charge trade listings a small fee - a dollar a listing, say, so it's not prohibitive - but it just gives the site owners a few extra bucks to put in their pocket.

ETA I just emailed them that suggestion. It's an easy fix and could just be a sub-section for each category - like - "Rings - diamond centers, colored stone centers, Trade only" - and so on.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Arkie, I really don't like trade on there at all, personally. We can all look at their things on IG or their websites. I wish LT was individuals only. It's hard to sell anything on there unless you repost every few days because of the vendors posting too much. The site owners just ignored my requests before, so I am not optimistic that they will really seriously moderate the site. The site was never meant to be of primary value to us, obviously. They could make more money, however, if they were charging vendors to post and it likely would reduce all the spam.

I like the idea of separating trade items, but I'd like them to be filtered into their category and not posted on the main page. This may involve daily monitoring, and I don't think the site owner cares to do that. As long as they go on the main page, individual sellers will still have their things disappear from the main page in a day.

 

[minousbijoux]

Arkie, I really don't like trade on there at all, personally. We can all look at their things on IG or their websites. I wish LT was individuals only. It's hard to sell anything on there unless you repost every few days because of the vendors posting too much. The site owners just ignored my requests before, so I am not optimistic that they will really seriously moderate the site. The site was never meant to be of primary value to us, obviously. They could make more money, however, if they were charging vendors to post and it likely would reduce all the spam.

I like the idea of separating trade items, but I'd like them to be filtered into their category and not posted on the main page. This may involve daily monitoring, and I don't think the site owner cares to do that. As long as they go on the main page, individual sellers will still have their things disappear from the main page in a day.

I agree with everything you wrote ds, as the same thing happened to me - I contacted them repeatedly over the course of a few years and nothing came of it.

 

[lilmosun]

In small doses, I don't mind trade vendors who occasionally post especially those who use LT to post a special or discount meant for the PS/LT community. In fact I like it as it's allowed me to do business with some I wouldn't have approached on my own (either because I wasn't aware of them or thought they weren't so easily approachable or in my budget).

But those who flood the boards or use it to regularly post their inventory do a disservice to individuals trying to sell their preloved items and the original intent of the board. I personally dislike it when someone posts on PS that they are looking for a particular stone only to see a vendor put theirs up on LT (often enough to be more than a coincidence). I have often wished there was a filter between trade and individual sellers much like CraigsList has.

Perhaps there should be a limit on how many new listings can be posted in a week/day. Whether it be an individual or trade member, I think its discourteous to put up too many posts at one time.

 

[arkieb1]

I think that if they don't want to have to create and maintain a new sub-section for trade only which might indeed be the case then limiting how many listings either trade members or all members can list at any one time, per day or week or indeed overall would be the next best thing.