Making a listing "Featured" should be easier

[QuickRon]

I think Flynax's approach to upgrading a listing to Featured is complicated and somewhat convoluted. I don't think upgrading a listing to Featured should even be a "listing package". It doesn't make sense and I end up trying not use an "Upgrade to Featured" plan on my sites.

If my "Standard" listing plan runs for 3 months, for example, do I make the "Upgrade to Featured" plan also 3 months? That's not good, because the customer can "Upgrade to Featured" 2 days before the listing expires, and then the listing will "renew" for an additional 3 months when it's upgraded to Featured. That's not what we want, especially if we're charging for listings.

And we can't make the "Upgrade to Featured" plan for 30 days, because the Standard listing runs for longer and what do you do? Keep making the customer "upgrade to Featured" over and over for the same listing?

There's another popular classifieds platform that I've used and I believe their approach is better and easier to implement when it comes to upgrading a listing to Featured.

Basically, making a listing Featured is simply an additional fee (not a listing plan), that the customer pays for separately. So, for example, during the Add a Listing process, after the customer creates their listing, they're presented with another page which allows them to add "Extras", like making the listing "Featured". They check off the box and the extra amount is added to their order on the Checkout page.

For example, your "Standard" plan is $20 and the listing runs for 60 days. To make the listing "Featured" will cost an extra $10.

Also, if a customer decides at a later time to pay the $10 to make the listing "Featured", the listing will only be Featured for however many days are left for that listing. So, if the life of the listing is 60 days and the customer decides to make the listing Featured 30 days before the listing expires, then the listing will be Featured for the remaining 30 days.

Other ideas for listing "Extras" include making the listing Title bold (to stand out), highlighting the Title a different color, bumping up the listing on the search pages and adding styled words like "HOT" and "NEW". All these "Extras" are individual flat fees for the (remaining) life of the listing.

Yes. I know about the new "Monetizer" plugin, but, like the "Upgrade to Featured" plan, Flynax made "Monetizer" more complicated than it needs to be, which is why I probably won't be using it.

Why do I have to assign how many "Highlights" for how many days? or offer multiple Bump Up packages? And then the customer has to check out separately for either the Highlights or Bump Ups! Why not simply charge the customer a flat one-time fee to make the listing highlighted for the life of the listing? or Bump up the listing once for the remainder of the listing? And they can go to one Checkout page, click off checkboxes for the Extras they want and that's it. Why not keep it nice and simple ... and easier for the customer to spend more on your site?

What do you think?

[Pete Young]

"What do you think?" You Have a lot of questions QuickRon, I will do my my best to answer as I see it but others may have an alternate view and that is OK as well, it is good to discuss and learn without saying what is wrong or right / just seeing what others do.

1. upgrade to featured. You are correct in not using Upgrade to featured in anything as it just super confuses things from what I found as well. Rather than Use Upgrade to Featured I now just have Standard Listings or featured Listings, so what would happen in effect is if they have a standard listing and decide they would like a featured listing they would just buy the featured listing option, this takes away the days and confusion you see with the upgrade option.

In general most would know if they wanted the listing to be standard or featured but, if they do change their mind it is an easy less confusing upgrade.

2. Highlights & Bumps. "And then the customer has to check out separately for either the Highlights or Bump Ups! Why not simply charge the customer a flat one-time fee to make the listing highlighted for the life of the listing?" You can set the the cost of highlights and bumps as all inclusive in the package, rather than having the customer buy them one at a time, so in essence you can set up a package with a set amount of listings and also include in that a set amount of bumps and highlights. The number of bumps and highlights you allocate is up to you.

I have set bumps and highlights on a scale that ranges depending on the package, the more they spend the more they get type system to promote a package price that says if I spend a little more I get XYZ more in benefits.

This way a person only needs to buy the package size that suits them, and everything they need is included in the one transaction, and no fiddling around with small seperate painful payments just to bump or highlight.

You can make the highlight at what ever length of time you want so it could be set as the same time duration as a listing if you wanted to and that would cover that.

It is just about working out what works best for you, but I do see Monetizer as a plus.

I did however see some faults with it, that I had a custom job done on, it was the sort for bump was in the classified pages, I saw this as not required by customers, as it is only needed by users so I had that removed, and where it was needed was in MY listings, because as a user I needed to sort by bumps, so that I could simply dial up by bumps ascending and by doing that I could see the next thing or oldest bump to now bump back to the top, so I had that done.

I will do a quick video (and post here) of the way I have set up the packages with this and how the new sort works in my listings so you can see. Any question yell out and will be good if others also have ideas that they are using to learn from.

Pete

https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cb1UVNlQ3Y

You will see when I bump and highlight that the available numbers are high, this was due to an early glitch in the system that Alan has now fixed so do not be alarmed by that. By adding the bumps etc in the package it eliminates all of that extra payment required stuff, and you can see by adding it to sort in my listing that I can very quickly find my next item to bump up and it all runs smooth before that it was a nightmare working and guessing what to bump. TIP always highlight before bumping and all is good.

Would like to see what others are doing.

[QuickRon]

Hi Pete.
I agree, there is no right or wrong. This Forum section is for "Feature Requests", so essentially I'm requesting Flynax to re-think how to make a listing "Featured" in a more simplified manner.

For the record, I'm happy with Flynax. Overall, the product is very good and their support is responsive and excellent! But ... the "Upgrade to Featured" is one of my pet peeves with the software. And since they're working on version 5, maybe they'll have time to consider this for version 5.

Like you, I'm also forced to create either Standard or Featured plans, although I will create a Listing Package that offers both. I may have one lesser-priced Listing Package that offers a combination of Standard and Featured listings. And then I'll offer a more expensive Listing Package with a higher number of listings, but all the listings are Featured.

I also offer a Standard single listing plan and a Featured single listing plan.

BTW ... I don't offer any Free listings. Everything is paid for.

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re. Highlights and Bumps - thanks for the screencast. I agree that including Highlights and Bumps in a Listing Package does make it easer for the customer, in terms of payment, but I still see issues by INCLUDING the Monetizer features (ie Highlights, Bumps) in a Listing Package (Single or Multi).

For example, most of us will create a more expensive Listing Package that will include the Highlights and Bumps, as an incentive for the customer to pay us more (and get more benefits). And other Listing Packages that don't offer these options. This forces a customer to make their decision when purchasing a listing package and then they're LOCKED into their decision. (Similar to the Upgrade to Featured topic)

So not only will a customer who purchases a "standard" (ie without Highlights and Bumps) plan NOT be able to purchase Highlights and/or Bumps at a later time, we actually lose out on these opportunities to monetize these features and pull in more revenue. And you can't force that customer to go and purchase another listing plan to get those features, as that would be unfair and you'll have an angry customer.

(Of course, we're not going to include Highlights and Bumps in all our plans, because then there's no added value.)

Coming back to the idea of keeping these features (ie Highlights, Bumps, making a listing Featured, etc) separate and OUTSIDE of listing plans, means that any customer, regardless of what listing plan they originally purchase can buy any (or all) of these Added Extras at anytime to "improve" their listing. This will make the customer happy and boost our bottom line.

Customers don't have a problem spending a small amount, like $5 or $10, and going through the checkout process, if it means improving their listing. And ... if they intended to just purchase one "Extra" option, like making a listing Featured, when they get to the order page which lists all the extras, they may very well add a couple of other "Extras" at the same time.

I've used this system on a different platform and it works very, very well.

Lastly, keeping these listing "Extras" as separate products that have their own order page also lets you market these "Extras" to your customers, at anytime, and send them directly to the order page for a quick sale. And ... it may make it easier for Flynax to add more "Extras" down the road without having to further customize listing packages.


- Ron

[Pete Young]

BTW ... I don't offer any Free listings. Everything is paid for.

I am glad in a way yo said that as I thought I was a Nutter when I decided not to have free listings.

(Of course, we're not going to include Highlights and Bumps in all our plans, because then there's no added value.)

That is something I have done at this point, the way I made value was by increasing ratio of these and other items. For example

with say 12 listings package there might be 12 bumps and 12 highlights / a ratio of 1/1, with say 24 listings package there might be 48 bumps and 48 highlights / a ratio of 2/1 and so on.

Again no wrongs or rights, I am what you wold call in early development stages and you seem in more advanced stages and I am always looking learning and improving, so just as I have it for now, does not mean it can not change.

I've used this system on a different platform and it works very, very well.

Yes GT is set up like that and I see no problems with that set up, my thing was to make it all inclusive at the front and collect a sure sale at the start for all than than a maybe sale later, but either option would be fine.

Lastly, keeping these listing "Extras" as separate products that have their own order page also lets you market these "Extras" to your customers, at anytime, and send them directly to the order page for a quick sale. And ... it may make it easier for Flynax to add more "Extras" down the road without having to further customise listing packages.

If extras were added to the listing package as the monetize ones were then it could flexible and be done either way with just a click of a button, not sure if you know but things like monetize (If I am correct) and like most plugins are not done by flynax per se. They are done by individual coders who make up their own plugins to work with the flynax operating system in general.

As a result these third party plugins are the thoughts of the plugin creator who may or may not fully understand or work with classified sites on a daily basis but think of an idea that may work and as such you find the issues you are talking about. (I may be wrong on this, but am sure in this example Alan created Monetizer within / for the flynax system, and such he would be able to customise monetise to suit needs I am sure).

One Idea if you wanted to could be to create a listing package just for the bumps and highlights package and sell that as a separate identity rather than single bites ? not sure if that would work.

[QuickRon]

Hi Pete.
That's very interesting. No. I didn't realize that some of the plugins are developed by outside 3rd parties. I thought that Flynax developed all their plugins in-house. That was one of the things that attracted me to Flynax in the first place. At least the plugins are being sold and supported by Flynax.

I had an awful experience with a different platform, where the modules were sold and supported by 3rd parties. I purchased a handful of modules, spending around $400, and 6 months later the "developer" was nowhere to be found. I couldn't get support and had to move to a different platform.

I think Alan did the Banners plugin as well, which is a great plugin; but, I thought Alan was part of the Flynax team.

Back to the bottom line, I hope Flynax will consider simplifying the process of making a single listing Featured. I think we're in agreement that the current method of the "Upgrade to Featured" listing plan doesn't work very well.

- Ron

[Pete Young]

Ron I am only having a guess based on what I read, and see, often you will see referal to an error in a plugin have to be fixed by the creator, flynax will not do that, and you get a specific person to fix a plugin, I am sure if a creator left some how flynax support it? but there have been the odd pluggin that has dropped out as well from memory / no longer supported with upgrades can not remember exactly which it was now? how it works in the back I am not sure. I know Alan is developing a new plugin, maybe I have it wrong?

[Leonid Brumari]

I agree with Ron. It is going to be much easier for users to order highlights,bump-ups or featured if it will be on one page "listing extras" with checkmarks instead of creating a whole bunch of different listing packages, because users usually post ads with hope to sell their stuff without spending extra money. And in my opinion all listing types like services, stuff and my listings in the users menu should be in one my listings category with option to sort them, because basically they are all listings and additional lines in their menu just frustrating them.