Re: Sue Miller's Catalog
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 10:14 am
jcocking wrote:We have heard from Phil's and Simon's perspective. What do other members think?
Actually I don't think I have expressed an opinion on the issue yet, but I will now.
Firstly god bless Jeff for funding the site himself! Funding could be by:
1. membership dues, but that infers member benefits such as increased capability ( membership required to search or post for example) or member discounts from sponsors. It also requires administration of the membership
2. Sponsorship by Suppliers who then get banner ads etc on the site, maybe do mailings to membership etc As an observation the Sponsors section has been open for a while, but I do not see any entries. Suppliers is not limited to Lotus Elan Parts, it could be car insurance, tires, etc etc I think the elephant in the room is "would our posters object to commercial postings?" I would say no if they were limited to the one forum & banner ads.
Or by any combination of the two; I belong to a couple of other automotive forums for my other cars Rennlist.com (Porsche) & M3Forum.net (BMW), both sites are sponsored by suppliers but only Rennlist has a membership charge ($30/yr.)
rgh0 wrote:There is a section for commercial suppliers and the catalogue post should probably go there I believe. All suppliers have the opportunity to put their ads / catalogues etc there and it should be encouraged.
cheers
Rohan
I thought about that before I posted & came to the conclusion that the "And now a word from our sponsors" should be reserved for "our sponsors" where they could post blatant marketing postings. If I object to marketing postings then I could decide to never visit that forum section.
Please remember that the web capabilities of our limited number of Lotus parts suppliers vary greatly. RD Enterprises, Paul Matty & SJSportscars have reasonable websites (only SJS let's you order online) while Sue Miller's & Miles Wilkin's (Fibreglass Services) offer nothing more than contact information. When I offered to scan & convert Sue's price list she was delighted saying that she struggled with e-mail. Yes you in the UK can get a price list mailed & have it in 2 days, it took me a week to get through, 10 days for mail & the first copy had a missing page! I would rather have Sue spending her time re-introducing obsolete parts than worrying about her lack of e-commerce skills.