Group buy process.

[Odinson]

First thanks to anyone awesome enough to set up any kind of group buy.

:beer:

OK now the business. If I either or show interest or commit to a group buy, and your group buy seems to go south when you actually need money, just PM me. Not being lazy or cheap or backing out. I just fail to subscribe to threads, get busy, and generally are oversubscribed and suck at organization.

Is it the PM limit imposed on non vendors? Can people apply for non vendor high PM limits so they can mass PM when stuff is ready?

What says the board? Fair enough for group buy organizers to able to and to PM you and say, hey the thing is ready? Or it's a go? Can they even do that?

Should group buyers request emails every time to get around this?

Remember organizers aren't always vendors and may well be putting their own money (and almost always their reputation) up.

Seems like a solvable problem I don't want to be an offender in. Want to be a good citizen. Also don't want to miss batches on limited runs.

What do you think?

[MOTOWN]

This is an excellent topic, My thing is Do not commit to a group buy if your not 100% serious about making the purchase, i like the way my group buy is turning out as i havent had to pm a single member (your self included) about the hoods.

Ill be ordering mines tommorow, tried a couple times today but i couldnt reach Bob.

Ill be the first one to admit i have totally forgot about some group buys like Blackened300a Dickey shirt buy, with trying to finish the little stuff on my car, and other commitments i have going on theres just never enuff time in the day.

[SC Cheesehead]

First thanks to anyone awesome enough to set up any kind of group buy.

:beer:

OK now the business. If I either or show interest or commit to a group buy, and your group buy seems to go south when you actually need money, just PM me. Not being lazy or cheap or backing out. I just fail to subscribe to threads, get busy, and generally are oversubscribed and suck at organization.

Is it the PM limit imposed on non vendors? Can people apply for non vendor high PM limits so they can mass PM when stuff is ready?

What says the board? Fair enough for group buy organizers to able to and to PM you and say, hey the thing is ready? Or it's a go? Can they even do that?

Should group buyers request emails every time to get around this?

Remember organizers aren't always vendors and may well be putting their own money (and almost always their reputation) up.

Seems like a solvable problem I don't want to be an offender in. Want to be a good citizen. Also don't want to miss batches on limited runs.

What do you think?

IIRC, if you're a contributing member, the limit is 5 max copied on a PM.

[MMBLUE]

How about a group buy forum :confused:

DUH..I just saw it on the forums page. I usually don't look there :stupid:

[Ladyhawke]

You can also subscribe to a thread and receive emails on its activity. It might mean a lot of emails but at least it is a reminder.

[Odinson]

This is an excellent topic, My thing is Do not commit to a group buy if your not 100% serious about making the purchase, i like the way my group buy is turning out as i havent had to pm a single member (your self included) about the hoods.

Ill be ordering mines tommorow, tried a couple times today but i couldnt reach Bob.

Ill be the first one to admit i have totally forgot about some group buys like Blackened300a Dickey shirt buy, with trying to finish the little stuff on my car, and other commitments i have going on theres just never enuff time in the day.

I had a feeling I wasn't the only one. I caught the shirts but then missed the first run on Fastblackmerc's coolant plug. Frankly lost track of the LED sign and projectors. Only committed to the third.

Also tried my own group buy thread for the trunk organizers, but didn't get enough commits.

Also... Bought a new car and then drove it down to Florida for vacation, that ate a whole month. I feel like a computer could make this easier for me but don't want to make a bunch of rules either.

Maybe it's simple as remembering to subscribe to the appropriate thread.

This is not a burnout but my head spinning around. :burnout:

[Blackened300a]

With the Dickie shirt group buy. I posted a interest thread to see if going through with another run is worth it. There was a enormous response to the idea with roughly the potential of over 100 shirt orders so I posted several times in the interest thread that another thread with ordering info will be posted with all the details.
That thread came out and was open for 3 weeks to gain orders. I bumped the thread often, I made sure I was on top of it so if anyone said that they paid, I wanted to verify I received it and send a pm out if I didn't. I even asked Ladyhawke to put it in the community forum just to gain visibility for those that don't use the "new posts" link. I'm not going to start sending out PMs to those who said they were "interested" because I made every effort to keep the thread active and visible while it was open. Over 1000 people viewed it so if they changed their mind that's their choice and I'm not going to push a person to commit.
50 shirts was the quota to do it and I came in at 47 out of the over 100 potential "interested" orders. I only was able to do the run and reach the 50 because I ordered 3 for myself to satisfy the price quote and the order minimum.
If any rules should be in place, it should be about people who vote in interest polls or post up that they are interested with no intention of ordering. These group buys have to be put together with the supplier, shipping costs, material to ship, travel expenses, and the small profit to cover the time and effort put into making it happen.
Carlisle shirts are cheap enough to make some extras and I can still sell them to people at the event if someone changes their mind. These are custom made shirts and cost around $30 each to produce so there is no way I can carry the costs of those interested if they back out.

This seems to be a new thing lately, for years most of the interested members followed through, now people just post up for the hell of it which needs to be addressed.