Secret Projects Online Store

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I've been thinking about this for a while. I can set up an integrated store within the forum using SMF Store ($79 to buy a license). This would allow many possible ways to sell items through the forum.

We could sell PDFs or scanned images in a standard "shopping cart" way, but this also could change your member group (so you could have a "Donator", "Supporter" or similar group, possibly giving access to extra material).

We could make items available for free, but only to people with a certain number of posts.

It will only work if authors want to sell things through the site though.

Ideas?

 

[lark]

Excellent idea ,

There are already a few great names on this forum I think...

Good luck with the project!

 

[dan_inbox]

We could make items available for free, but only to people with a certain number of posts.

Ideas?

• Unless a notion of 'quality of the content' of posts is built in, this is encouraging rather undesirable behaviors.
  
  
  
• the forum started as a friendly place to exchange knowledge between enthusiasts. This idea is taking it away from it, into a 'hoarding between the elite' mode.
  That would NOT be an improvement IMO.

 

[sferrin]

Not only that but where do you draw the line between can be sold without violating somebody's copyright? There are definitely a lot of gray areas here. If it was limited to self-created or researched items (along the lines of what Sentinal Chicken and Orion-BlamBlam does) I could see making them available in an online store here. If Joe Blow just found a ten year old copy of AvWeek and thinks he's going to scan it in and sell it uh, no. My two-cents on the matter.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Clearly the shop would only be used to sell self-researched articles. Ordinary users could not sell items, only the administrator (currently me) could put an item on to buy, though forum members could post comments etc about particular items.

However, it does depend on having enough authors willing to put articles online.

Regarding free items available to members with a certain number of posts, I was thinking of, for example, anyone with at least 1 post could download an item. This would encourage the "passive consumers" to at least register and post an "about me".

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Just to be clear, the idea would be that all the money paid goes to the author, not to running the site. In order for it to be worthwhile for the author, with low volumes of sales, every penny would go to the author.

 

[Matej]

We could sell PDFs or scanned images in a standard "shopping cart" way,

This original idea is good. We can sell self-made material and articles.

but this also could change your member group (so you could have a "Donator", "Supporter" or similar group, possibly giving access to extra material).

We could make items available for free, but only to people with a certain number of posts.

But please dont complicate the good original idea. We will post the standard information for free as till now, but articles that need a lot of research and time or high-res illustrations that require a lot of work in front of the computer can be sold. Everything else can be understand by someone as a discrimination. Also - if the requirement for the buying is to be registered on the forum, this limits the number of the potential customers.