Tandem Cycling - Tandem specific For Sale / Wanted to buy

Has there been any discussion of a place on this forum or on the Bike Forums about creating a tandem specific For Sale / Wanted to buy thread or dedicated forum?

It seems to me that there are quite a few tandem specific items that would get a lot more exposure with this audience. Is this practical? Could we just start a "For Sale" thread and "Wanted to Buy" thread on this forum? Would the be against the rules?

Does anyone else think this would be a good idea?

+1

Agree.

+3

Devil's Advocate

From a seller's perspective, you lose exposure and focus by using a generic thread that will be mucked up with all kinds of ads interspersed with questions and comments on any one of a numbers of items such that you literally "lose the thread". As a seller, I want to put my offering out there and be able to watch a thread for questions that pertain to my offering, get it sold and then watch the thread drift into obscurity.

From a buyer's perspective, you're left to sift through a whole bunch of stuff that has no interest unless you're just window shopping and looking for targets of opportunity. Again, as a buyer who's looking for a used Santana, I'd appreciate having the chance to 'see' that Santana F/S message topic pop up as a new subject instead of having to sift through some mega thread in the hopes that the latest post was something of interest.

My recommendation, if it ain't broke don't fix it. I think the mods have embraced the fact this fairly low-volume, niche forum of ours doesn't see any classified ad abuse and, that being the case, lets the infrequent private seller ads run their course without moving them to the larger classified ads forum. That's a good thing in my mind.

I haven't tried to sell anything on this forum nor have I seen anything offered for sale.

I've done some searching & browsing on the Bike Forums classified ad section but there is so much non-tandem stuff on there that it is difficult to browse.

Has anyone else tried to sell tandem specific bikes, parts or accessories on-line? The only other venue I've seen is tandemmagazine online and that seems pretty thinly populated.

If I check ebay or craigslist, there is so much non-tandem stuff there, it is not easy to browse.

Other venues?

Thanks.

We're looking at some options of specialized marketplaces right now. We're running one as an experiment in C&V, and if it works as well as we hope, we'll be spreading that model out some.

I'm assuming that many long term tandem owners have some tandem specific stuff laying around the house that is no longer of use to them but may be quite useful to just the right person.

That's one beauty of the internet - it makes a community out of a widely dispersed population.

As long as somebody is selling items of his own property, rather than a business proposition, I not only accept seeing it on this forum, I welcome the posts. I agree it should net be a separate thread, which I would not likely read.