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Sad News
15 years ago
Unfortunately things are not going so well for FurBuy right now. Despite about 50 subscriptions expiring a couple months ago, only half a dozen or so renewed their subscriptions and outside of that we've maybe only had one or two in the last couple months. Several thousands of dollars of items and services are sold each month on FurBuy and only a fraction of that would pay the $400 per month server fees, however the vast majority of users are not subscribing or contributing to keeping the system running. So we are having to tighten down even harder on the amount of free features that non-members will receive on the site.
We are also not selling banner ad spots as well as we had hoped or needed, so we'd like some feedback from folks about the banner system to see how you think we could get more banners on the site. Lower prices? Easier submission system? What would get you to purchase an ad banner on FurBuy, or purchase a spot more frequently? So far we have no banners for December yet, and only a couple for November. So if you want to ensure a lot of views and clicks, sign-up for a banner right away! We're still offering "the rest of this month free" with all banner ads at the moment.
So how are we going to tighten things down? Well, if subscriptions don't pick up in the next month or two, we are going to reduce the number of concurrent free auctions to 3 per user (down from 5 right now) and we are also considering a limit of 6 free auctions per month and possibly also limiting free sales to $400 per year. We really hate having to make things harder for folks, and we're trying to be fair such that only the people who are really making a lot of money or posting a lot of auctions have to pay, but right now we're really hurting badly to pay for things and we need more folks to contribute and become members or purchase ad banners.
As always, your feedback is welcome and encouraged. We really don't hear from users enough (esp when there's not a problem with the site) so if you ever have a thought or a comment or a complaint about the site - or even praise, compliments keep our spirits high - please don't hesitate to let us know!
Thanks again for using FurBuy,
~ Jurann, FurBuy Community Lead Pro-Tem
P.S. - We're still looking for a new Community Lead, if you might be interested please PM me or send e-mail or contact me on IMs.
We are also not selling banner ad spots as well as we had hoped or needed, so we'd like some feedback from folks about the banner system to see how you think we could get more banners on the site. Lower prices? Easier submission system? What would get you to purchase an ad banner on FurBuy, or purchase a spot more frequently? So far we have no banners for December yet, and only a couple for November. So if you want to ensure a lot of views and clicks, sign-up for a banner right away! We're still offering "the rest of this month free" with all banner ads at the moment.
So how are we going to tighten things down? Well, if subscriptions don't pick up in the next month or two, we are going to reduce the number of concurrent free auctions to 3 per user (down from 5 right now) and we are also considering a limit of 6 free auctions per month and possibly also limiting free sales to $400 per year. We really hate having to make things harder for folks, and we're trying to be fair such that only the people who are really making a lot of money or posting a lot of auctions have to pay, but right now we're really hurting badly to pay for things and we need more folks to contribute and become members or purchase ad banners.
As always, your feedback is welcome and encouraged. We really don't hear from users enough (esp when there's not a problem with the site) so if you ever have a thought or a comment or a complaint about the site - or even praise, compliments keep our spirits high - please don't hesitate to let us know!
Thanks again for using FurBuy,
~ Jurann, FurBuy Community Lead Pro-Tem
P.S. - We're still looking for a new Community Lead, if you might be interested please PM me or send e-mail or contact me on IMs.
I'm approving of cutting down on free features. although limiting by price might deter fursuit makers. Maybe take a small cut of anything that sells over a certain price?
I was thinking of doing an auction to earn money for the site, like I donate 80% of the winning bid to FurBuy or something similar. Might be time to put that plan into action. =]
As for taking a small cut on auctions over a certain final bid price, we've considered that as well, but it's a very inconsistent amount of additional income and it's not voluntary - plus as our friends at Furbid have learned, it's almost impossible to collect auction commission fees from sellers. We really believe that the subscription and ad banner model should be able to fully support FurBuy. It would only take 200 subscribers per year and 8 ad banners per month to completely pay for FurBuy for one year. Considering that there are over 3,000 active users on the site, that should be fairly trivial to get.
Thanks for your comment and feedback. =)