The Official 356Talk Forum

I posted an ad for a super nice chrome Lietz luggage rack. I find that the photos are changed to such a low pixel and small in size that there is no way the viewer can tell if it is nice, or not-so-nice. I assume this could be an issue for others trying to sell parts where the condition is important, perhaps especially true with trim parts. Can it be investigated as to a cost to improve the quality of the photos?

Paul

I opened the link, it zooms and the resolution looks ok on my iPad. And your right it’s a very nice rack.

I opened a thread about this problem, hopefully Mark Roth or Michael Branning will respond.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=54128

We know that the photo albums on the classifieds are very poor. Cliff didn’t want to spend any money to improve the module as he believed that the CE platform was satisfactory as is. Others disagree but we are tired of fighting with him for improvements.

Mark Roth wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 7:49 am We know that the photo albums on the classifieds are very poor. Cliff didn’t want to spend any money to improve the module as he believed that the CE platform was satisfactory as is. Others disagree but we are tired of fighting with him for improvements.

Delusional!

Maybe I should now reframe the question. Can the board tolerate each other enough to agree to get a quote to improve an area of the website that they acknowledge is in need?

I will pile on here if I may. If anything is going to be changed with the classifieds images can we also go to a simple forward or backwards arrow to look at the pictures? Right now it's a slideshow by default which is not ideal. You can in fact click through the images but you have to go through a lot of gymnastics to do it. You click on the "play" button to go to the next image, but then it turns into the "pause" bars which sit right in the middle of the image. I finally discovered that if you move your cursor below the image the bars disappear. If you want to go to the next picture you do all of that again. Simple arrows in both directions would be a huge improvement so you can quickly click through images. Also.... you have to go to 2 different places in the ad to look at pictures and read the item description. I've been using it for a while and I don't see this as something people will just get used to, it's terribly cumbersome.

Oh, and like Paul says, the images are way too small and are low resolution.

Paul Hatfield wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 8:37 pm Maybe I should now reframe the question. Can the board tolerate each other enough to agree to get a quote to improve an area of the website that they acknowledge is in need?

No comment.

I have been forbidden to talk to Club Express so I do not really have the answer. I did recently see correspondence between Michael Branning and the head of CE that showed some requests for changes and the CE answer. Being involved in a phone conversation would probably make things more clear but I get the basic situation.

Typically companies that sell a standardized software product do not do custom enhancements for individual customers. Typically they would acquire general feedback from many customers and when it became obvious that there was a need, for something like Classified photos, they would do an update to the software that every customer would benefit from. CE is somewhat unusual in so far as they will do special enhancements for individual customers for a fee. If those enhancements are adopted later as part of the software for all customers then you receive some of your money back.

The first decision that was made by the Board was whether to use "canned" software like CE or to build our website and business management from scratch. I was a strong proponent for canned software for a cost of $5800 total. The alternative would have been an unknown expense well into six figures and a long delay. Keep in mind that either route would require a lot of work by volunteers and hired professionals. There would be some unknown amount to be spent in addition to the software.

When the Board voted to go the CE route some members were adamant that enhancements were needed for the Classifieds, to deter scammers, for a quoted price of around $6000, to double the cost of the software. Most but not all of those were ordered. I was against that because it doubled the software price and I felt that we should start to use the Classifieds before contracting to change them. I also do not believe that software can stop scammers with my proof being that if software could stop scammers then there would be no scammers on eBay. They would have the means and desire to reduce scams but they still have a big problem. I voted against the $6000(ultimately a bit less) but others disagreed and that passed. Some of those Classifieds enhancements I am sure are useful to the monitors but we still have scammers. I still think that we should have had a little experience using the Classifieds before ordering any enhancements. Classifieds picture quality was not discussed. I am only one vote of seven so I am not in control.

I wrote this post trying to explain why we chose CE and why that causes limits to what we can do to improve our website. CE is very busy and can't make changes instantly. For the product that they sell for the price they charge you must make sure that it has the features that you want/need/demand before you buy it. Over time CE can improve it for a price or we can wait until they improve the software due to general demand for free like Microsoft or Apple does.

I am to blame for my vote to choose Club Express. I stand by that vote. I have bought similar products for my business over the past 25years(websites) and 35 years(business management) and I already knew that some features would not be perfect with the CE system. I agree about the Classifieds pictures and I do think that a change there would be more beneficial than some of the changes that we have already paid for. This specific change would be a benefit to all 2500 CE customers and I would encourage CE to make that improvement for all of their customers and avoid our club paying for the enhancement.

CJ-
Thanks for taking the time to fully respond- it's appreciated.

Certainly some Classified items warrant higher resolution photos, but many don't. (A $400 luggage rack or an $8500 steering wheel - yea, probably; a $20 restoration book - probably not) Understanding what we now know about the CE software and the potential costs of enhancements, a short-term solution would be to simply add a line in your classified text like: "...interested parties may contact me via Email Seller for high resolution photos...". You could also post an unlimited number of photos to Google Photos, Dropbox or other photo application, and include a link in the text - a bit more front-end effort, but avoids a bunch of emails from window-shoppers.

Very good suggestions from Spencer.

Spencer Harris wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 2:51 pm Certainly some Classified items warrant higher resolution photos, but many don't. (A $400 luggage rack or an $8500 steering wheel - yea, probably; a $20 restoration book - probably not) Understanding what we now know about the CE software and the potential costs of enhancements, a short-term solution would be to simply add a line in your classified text like: "...interested parties may contact me via Email Seller for high resolution photos...". You could also post an unlimited number of photos to Google Photos, Dropbox or other photo application, and include a link in the text - a bit more front-end effort, but avoids a bunch of emails from window-shoppers.
Email Seller.JPG

Spencer,

I appreciate you coming up with a work around and I don't mean this as criticism, but as a buyer and seller this is very cumbersome on both sides and would actually add to the number of people with picture requests (window shoppers as you so aptly call them). A site with a robust classifieds section is a big draw to many people. If there weren't hundreds of existing sites with the capability to post multiple high resolution images (not an awkward slide show) along with the item description in the same screen, you would not hear a word from me.

I also fully understand the massive undertaking it was to migrate to this new site and my statements are really just requests that if anything were to change, here is my vote on what to change.

What I find "funny" is that our prior classified system worked just fine. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Remind me why we went to this new inferior system. What we have now leaves much to be desired, and I am surprised that "Club Express" leaves out many of the features found in a most, if not all, of the automobile-related websites. Here is another issue I discovered that I have brought to the attention of the powers-that-be. I can no longer embed a related ad in one of my ads as a hyperlink. For example, if I want to cross-reference in my ad for gray speaker cloth my ad for tan/beige speaker cloth I can no longer create a workable hyperlink. The only way I can "create" a link is to tell the reader to search my last name and the word speaker. Hopefully, some of these problems can/will be fixed in the near future.

There were good reasons to ditch the old website and many people lobbied for a change for at least 10 years that I can remember. That is not to say that the new site is where it needs to be functionally. I have some other complaints that we could fix but not everybody agrees. I am only 1 of 7 and I can't advocate here because that has not worked. A tremendous amount of work was done by volunteers and some paid talent. There is a gigantic amount of information on the website whereas the past site was really just Classifieds and a Forum. I think we could make the information easier to find but please look around to see what is there. it is impressive and I had nothing to do with getting that data entered. I did create the Chassis Number History that tracks the data and history of individual cars. If you want to comment, pro or con, on that then direct that to me. I won't be offended. Speak your mind and we can make improvements on any aspect of the site if there is a consensus that a change is needed.

I see that the pictures in the photo albums open looking at first glance just like the Classifieds pictures but the Classifieds pictures do not have the full screen option. I will investigate why pictures in Classifieds do not have the features of the photo albums.

I definitely agree that a huge amount of information is now on our site, it’s actually fairly amazing. I haven’t used much yet but I like it.