Any thoughts on the new Reptile Report Marketplace?

[Mr. Misha]

So I guess today was the official launch day for the Reptile Report Marketplace (I must have missed the memo). The only reason I actually found this place is because JLC mentioned it in a conversation on another thread. It seems to be a response to Reptile Ring but is a bit friendlier towards hobby/small time sellers. I'm definitely interested to see this marketplace progress.

Anyways, check it out and tell me what you think.

http://marketplace.thereptilereport.com/


Edit: I guess it was announced today on the general forum. Lol. I need to stop cruising only the BP section.

[JLC]

LOL...it's not a response to the Reptile Ring. TRRM has been in the works for about eighteen months, and was conceived of even earlier than that. Trust me, that site didn't go together overnight. TRRM is a vision of Chad and Robyn who wanted to create a way to market reptiles that didn't involve long-term contracts that could be broken by overbearing/overcontrolling admins. They also wanted awesome searchability, and a huge userbase that makes it a super-valuable tool for both sellers and buyers.

Maybe a future Editor's Desk article at TRR will be about the journey of The Marketplace. It's been a long and challenging one, for sure. And I, for one, am thrilled to see it finally coming to fruition!

[Bluebonnet Herp]

Well, it seems to be down because I cannot access it.
TBH I wasn't aware of many other reptile classifieds beyond kingsnake.com.

[Mr. Misha]

Well, it seems to be down because I cannot access it.
TBH I wasn't aware of many other reptile classifieds beyond kingsnake.com.

Looks like it's back up.

[JLC]

Well, it seems to be down because I cannot access it.
TBH I wasn't aware of many other reptile classifieds beyond kingsnake.com.

They're working on it now. Opening Day frustrations are....frustrating.

Other than Kingsnake, there really aren't any other classified sites. The only one of any size that comes close is Fauna Classifieds, but they really aren't on the same scale. Most everything else is little individual forum ads like what we run here. The Reptile Ring isn't a classifieds site, although they're in the business of selling reptiles. That's an entirely different business model.

[Robyn@SYR]

We have had some database and bandwidth issues today, the team is working to smooth the road out. But it is smooth enough to have 1500 ads from over a hundred vendors on day one : )

Come check it out! http://marketplace.thereptilereport.com/

[majorleaguereptiles]

This will be the new platform of the future. Congrats to the marketplace at the reptile report for putting this together. Lots of work has gone into this. I literally remember talking to Robyn what felt like was decades ago about this possibility. Cool to see it come together. Bummer to see old platforms fall off, but this is worth it. We are on board!


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[Marrissa]

Awesome! I need a new job already because I'm going to be looking and tempted daily.

[zee-man]

I like the clean, professional format of the marketplace. I get the feeling however that there was a closed pre-load or some such as there are a ton of snakes already available on the website. Was there an initial invitation sent out for breeders to load their snakes, or did folks really that quickly load their ads in less than a day's time?


My one gripe for the website thus far is as follows. When I select an ad to view and then want to go back to my review of the adds, clicking the back button on the browser returns me to page 1 of the listing, not the page I last viewed. So if I clicked an add on page 12, when I want to go back to page 12 to continue viewing the ads I haven't seen yet, I then need to navigate from page 1 back to page 12 again instead of merely continuing where I left off. I imagine this is a coding "issue". I'm mentioning it for more user-friendliness. I've spent some time building HMI's (human machine interfaces) so I'm approaching it from that perspective. What would I as a user like to be able to do / see - which I believe is the goal here. Maximum user-friendliness and intuitiveness.


Otherwise, site looks solid. I fully understand this website is brand new, just trying to help out. Has lots of potential - as is apparent by the amount of interest from breeder's posting. I didn't take notice of this, but being able to add reviews to those who post - where you can directly see their user review, would be really great. Are there also any intentions of denying breeder's privilege if they have repeated infractions to try and help "clean" the pool of kids that pee in it? Both options should be doable assuming the user's history and postings are tracked. I think it is since you can see "other postings by this user". Attach a rating to each item sold, asking the purchase for a review and then link that review to the user. Just a thought, but that may be more difficult to do if buyers don't need to register. That said, you could encourage reviews by doing "give-aways" for those who write reviews of their experience of a registered breeder. Again, just some ideas.

[PitOnTheProwl]

Just marked it on my bar. Will have to check it out later.