Going Going Bike

I had a couple of flyers stuck in my spokes when my bike was locked up in Covent Garden a few weeks back, as did all the other bikes in the row. All that meant was there was a big fucking pile of flyers on the floor, most people just chucked em.

http://www.lfgss.com/thread47269.html merge

Ha! same title and section ffs!

lots of good ideas there - i like the focus on proving ownership, the stolen bike market is a joke
registered!

Good idea, and like the proof of ownership concept, but terrible site design.

First time on and having a look for a few things-site error message 3 times in a row performing a basic search, and the design/layout/search function is awful. Will need to game up massively for this to be a success and would be better promoting it at clubs/races than flyering streets.

http://www.lfgss.com/thread47269.html merge

Believe me, that thread was not coming on search!!!!
I tried it 1000 times before starting a new one.

I'm more than happy to have this merged, but feckin' hell... what's wrong with the search?

Has the issue not been resolved yet?

Hi guys - glad you saw our poster and been able to look at our site. It's in beta at the moment, so a work in progress, but happy for feedback. Mr Smyth, thanks for your comments. Very nice of you.

I never liked buying cycling kit through ebay (not least because of the reputation for stolen stuff) and wanted a simple, bike focused place to buy and sell bikes and accessories. GGB aims to be that.

Wiganwill and nuknow, you sound like you know what you like/have strong views, and it would be great to hear them. DM me, or contact me through the general GGB email address and I will get back to you.

Thanks for you reply Andrew, is good to know you're here and contributing.
My general views once I opened the site for the 1st time were, as I mentioned above, not exactly of a buy/sell website but more of a kind networking/blogish sort of vibe.
Like you said, you're still on a beta stage atm, absorbing all the feedback, etc.... so there's probably more than enough time to develop/explore the best strategy.
Hope everything goes smooth for your business, don't be shy, share your thoughts here.

(I did register last night ; )

The space taken up by the count-down timer is way too much! And I suspect it's slowing down the site when a full page of timers is ticking away (on this computer). Ebay's system is, albeit not elegant, simple and effective.

Gregorio - glad you like the design and ownership stance.

Totally agree re. search functionality. It's not where it should/needs to be. Hope to have this sorted shortly.

Can we agree to disagree on the design side? I like it and the feedback has been generally excellent. Hopefully when the search improves the design issues you have will fall away.

Sorry you did not like the spoke card idea...I will have to look into it. The aim was for everyone to get some nice spoke cards which they would like to keep in their wheels. Didn't quite work out.

Finally (btw - thanks for all your comments!) totally agree about marketing at races/clubs. We're gonna be doing a lot more of that. If you see us, please introduce yourself.

The space taken up by the count-down timer is way too much! And I suspect it's slowing down the site when a full page of timers is ticking away (on this computer). Ebay's system is, albeit not elegant, simple and effective.

Horatio - I think the timers may be slowing the site down (and in fact we had to move to faster servers to deal with this and increased traffic!)...i'll look at alternatives. Thanks.

"On our site, to make life a little harder for cycle crims, we encourage all you sellers to input your frame number (where will I find that?) and also upload a photo of it when you list your bike. We know it's a bit of a fiddle but it really makes a big difference. In return, your listing will proudly display the Proved It! icon, and everyone will know that you are doing your bit.

We also want to hear any suggestions you have for other things we can do to put a spanner in the thieves' works."

Surely if their priority was stopping thieves (rather than using stopping thieves as a marketing gimmmick) then they would make this compulsory?

Jeez - I've had two bikes nicked and various bits stolen from my bike (in fact my girlfriend had her seat post and saddle stolen yesterday) so we are committed to this.

At the moment we don't require frame numbers because not every bike has one, but it is something we have thought about requiring (and continue to think a lot about!). We also have other ideas to get us as close as possible to becoming a stolen bike free zone that we would like to do, but they take time/money etc which are in short supply for a start up.

Thanks for following us and any further comments welcome.

Thanks for you reply Andrew, is good to know you're here and contributing.
My general views once I opened the site for the 1st time were, as I mentioned above, not exactly of a buy/sell website but more of a kind networking/blogish sort of vibe.
Like you said, you're still on a beta stage atm, absorbing all the feedback, etc.... so there's probably more than enough time to develop/explore the best strategy.
Hope everything goes smooth for your business, don't be shy, share your thoughts here.

(I did register last night ; )

Thanks for registering and for your kind comments. Keep visiting the site and let me know how you think we are getting on!

My fist impression was, what are all these type faces? and who chose the horrible mix of colors? It looks like some 1950's retro site. And what is all this stuff in the middle, the videos and then there's that barber's pole pattern all over the place. Confusing, cluttered and, I think, amateurish looking. It doesn't look like a site who's raison d'etre is buying and selling stuff. More like a blog with a bit of merchandise on the side.
Maybe it is trying to be quirky and idiosyncratic but where money is involved I don't want quirky or idiosyncratic, I want professional and informative.
Sorry to be so critical but on a first look it's not a place I would revisit until I heard good word of mouth about it.

Gregorio - glad you like the design and ownership stance.

Totally agree re. search functionality. It's not where it should/needs to be. Hope to have this sorted shortly.

Can we agree to disagree on the design side? I like it and the feedback has been generally excellent. Hopefully when the search improves the design issues you have will fall away.

Sorry you did not like the spoke card idea...I will have to look into it. The aim was for everyone to get some nice spoke cards which they would like to keep in their wheels. Didn't quite work out.

Finally (btw - thanks for all your comments!) totally agree about marketing at races/clubs. We're gonna be doing a lot more of that. If you see us, please introduce yourself.

Sorry if the design comment is a bit harsh but I think it just seems a bit of a mish-mash and detracts from the overall experience.

When I lived in France I used Troc-Velo http://www.troc-velo.com/ a lot and think it is excellent-geared for club-members buying and selling (I think they have a larger club scene in France tho) and nice, functional design with a pretty good pricing system that although not-auction based, allows the seller to show price reductions or whether the price is negotiable. Overall I think this would be a good system to start-eBay is renowned for shill bidding and stupidly high prices and although this might make them a lot of money, a 'classified' style site with buyer/seller protection would be much preferable platform.

Good luck with it anyway!