Would a "sale/discount tracker" thread be worth considering?

[Rhoderic]

As we all know, many companies in the industry carry out temporary discounts or sales on a sporadic or regular basis. Given that there are literally hundreds of companies, these offers can be hard to keep track of. Indeed, often they're over and done with by the time one finds out about them, if one even finds out at all. Furthermore, often when one does notice them, it's only by pure chance as one navigates casually, aimlessly around between various webshops, forum threads and Facebook pages. For instance, shortly before beginning to write this post I was browsing the Ral Partha Europe website and noticed RPE is running a 20% Halloween discount right now. As another example, the only reason I know Otherworld is running a 20% anniversary sale right now is that the owner mentioned it in a recent LAF thread that was tangential to the subject (turns out it's also on the Otherworld Facebook page, but I don't frequent that).

What if we kept an LAF thread running for the express purpose of alerting each other to temporary sales, discounts and special offers? It would probably never be comprehensive - we'd always be likely to miss some offers - but even an imperfect, incomprehensive list of ongoing temporary offers could be helpful to us (and possibly also ruinous to our personal finances ), right?

The way I envision it, this proposed thread would be either in the "General Wargames and Hobby Discussion" subforum or the "Commercial" subforum of the Bazaar (whichever one the mods would think most suitable), and it would be one of those threads wherein special rules apply for posting. If you would indulge me as I get ahead of myself for a minute, I would humbly suggest something along these lines:

1. Anyone can post to alert other readers of any and all temporary webshop discounts, sales or special offers they notice. Which is to say, it wouldn't just be an "advertising" thread wherein only the relevant companies get to post notifications of their own offers. If you've spotted a temporary webshop offer, post it! Obviously, sellers get to post their own temporary webshop offers in the thread as well, under the same rules as everyone else.

2. Posts must be kept concise (within reason), so they do not stray from the relevant information regarding the offers in question. Also, no irrelevant back-chatter. The thread should be as consolidated and as easy to have a good overview of as possible.

3. The end dates of any and all offers must be written in bold text, so that readers and moderators may easily maintain awareness of when offers expire. In the case of offers that don't have strictly predetermined end dates (some manufacturers/sellers like to keep it informal and decide when to withdraw their offers on a touch-and-go basis), the poster should write this fact in bold text, along with any possible information about "roughly" when the offer might be expected to end, if such information exists. As long as it can be reasonably defined as a temporary, short-term offer (even if the time period is not strictly predetermined), it belongs in the thread.

4. Offers which cannot be reasonably defined as temporary short-term ones don't belong in the thread, nor do offers which essentially maintain a form of permanence by continually cycling through products to be put on discount (such as the Dream Pod 9 "discount of the week", or Black Tree Design's "daily sale", which seems to just be static anyway).

5. On a fairly regular basis, the moderators would go over the thread and remove any posts about offers that have expired. The bold-text expiry dates would hopefully keep this easy. That way, the thread would only contain notifications of currently ongoing or impending offers (along with recently expired ones that the moderators have not gotten around to deleting yet).

Would this idea be worth considering? Perhaps to be instated before this year's slew of christmas holiday offers begin kicking in?

I'm aware it could turn out to be a dud if we try it. Even then, maybe it would at least have been worth a try? If there turns out to be no life in the thread, the mods can delete it again and consider it a casual experiment that just didn't pan out. No biggie.

If this has been suggested or thought of before and dismissed as undesirable for LAF, then I apologise for bringing it up again.

[Rhoderic]

As an example, a typical post in the thread (as I envision it) would be something like this:

Ral Partha Europe is currently running a 20% Halloween discount which will end on November 5th.

Each offer would ideally get a post of it's own, so the following would be a separate post to the above one:

Otherworld Miniatures is currently running a 20% anniversary discount which will end on November 9th. See the Otherworld Miniatures Facebook page for details on how to get the discount.

The basic idea would be that one could browse the thread in a minute or two and gain some degree of overview (however incomplete) of which limited-time discounts, sales and special offers are currently being run in the "hobby industrysphere". Perhaps one will strike upon a gem! For many of us, these offers are golden opportunities to buy those products we'd been wanting but hesitating to get.

[HerbyF]

This sounds like a great idea to me. Maybe a sticky on the Commercial board. That way it would always be on top & easy to find whenever someone logs on. An would stand out when scrolling though the unread posts.

[Rhoderic]

Thinking about it some more, some additional thoughts came to my mind.

First, "special offers" that would qualify for inclusion would not just be discounts and sales in their strictest sense, but also offers like "Free shipping to the US/UK", "Buy three and get one free" and "We'll throw in some extra freebies with your order", as long as they're time-limited offers. Another example of an offer that would not qualify is the Ion Age "freebie miniature of the month" offer, which essentially remains permanent even though the miniature so offered changes every month. Permanent offers would clutter the thread, when the whole point of the thread would be to catch temporary offers whenever they come.

Second, offers are sparser during some times of year than during others. Therefore, the thread I'm proposing may well turn out to be empty for some stretches of time, only to light up again with postings when offers begin resurfacing. Consequently, if my proposed thread was done as an experiment, it may have to be a fairly long-term one that isn't cancelled the first time it seems to die down.

Right now we're entering the two-three months of the year when offers are the most abundant. Another time of year when there's a lot of offers is the show/convention season (mid-spring to early autumn, more or less) when many companies effect "We won't be at Salute/Historicon" style sales. In between these times of year, there may be less activity.

[beefcake]

I really thought that was a leading reason for the Commercial thread to be made. Not a bad idea though... well bad for my wallet.

[Rhoderic]

I really thought that was a leading reason for the Commercial thread to be made.

By "Commercial thread", do you mean the Commercial subforum, or is there already a thread like the one I've proposed that I haven't noticed?

To further elaborate on my "vision"*, I guess it just feels a bit excessive to me, personally, to start a new, separate thread every time one spots a new discount or other similar offer and wants to alert other people to it. For instance, the aforementioned Ral Partha Europe discount I noticed the other day wasn't something I was prepared to start a new LAF thread about. It may well be helpful to other people to know about, but it's such a brief offer that the thread would eventually just have begun to clutter up the forum, and too many threads like it would start jostling with each other in a counterproductive manner. I suspect many people feel the same way; often someone will notice a sale or other similar offer going on as they're browsing webshops, but will think it too much of a fuss to start informing other people about it even though some of them may find it useful. The thread I'm proposing would be an orderly, low-fuss way of posting "bulletins" that (hopefully) wouldn't significantly raise the level of cacophony in LAF.

To further illustrate what I'm saying, I also noticed a few days ago that Ravenstar Studio is running a 30% discount until the end of October. That was another thing I didn't feel like starting an all new LAF thread about, but maybe there's an LAFer out there to whom Ravenstar products at 30% off is a golden opportunity (if only they were to know about it in time).

I'm not saying sellers shouldn't be allowed to keep starting new threads in the Commercial subforum to advertise their special offers. Far from it. But fact is, that many offers are never advertised in LAF at all (and if they all were advertised, the Commercial subforum would be much more chaotic and cacophonous than it is now), so the thread I'm proposing would be like a useful adjunct wherein anyone who knows of a time-limited offer in one of the hundreds of webshops across the hobby industry, can casually raise a flag about it even if they're not the seller themselves.

But I'm going to shut up now and let the suggestion stand or fall on its own merits of demerits. I don't mean to be "wall of text"-ing my fellow LAFers, and it must be starting to look like I'm frothing at the mouth by this point

*Uh-oh, I'm starting to use grand words, now. I'll probably be saying "manifesto" next!

[Westfalia Chris]

Honestly, I do not see the need to do so. "Private individuals" as well as companies are welcome to post threads on such "Sales Events" on the commercial board, although they should also be labelled "Commercial" for easy identification in the Unread Topics views.

Once such an event has run its course, it'll fade into obscurity naturally, or someone may notify the moderators to remove or lock it. Such a thread would involve more work than it is worth, IMHO, since we cannot merge topics (i.e. we would need to re-post and lock threads made separately to collate the info), and the workload concerning the Bazaar boards is bad enough as it is.

Note, though, that this is not a final verdict on the issue, but my personal informed opinion as long-term Bazaar mod and Forum Co-Admin.

[Rhoderic]

The technical constraints of LAF moderation aren't anything I know enough about to be able to factor into my idea, so to arguments to the effect of "the forum engine can't easily handle that sort of thing and it's too much extra work", I can only concede defeat. It's a fair cop. I respect and appreciate the effort that moderators are putting into LAF already, and I don't want to increase their workload.

Seeing as I'm still reluctant to start a number of separate threads titled "(COMMERCIAL) Ral Partha discount", "(COMMERCIAL) Ravenstar discount", "(COMMERCIAL) TinMan discount" and so on, can I assume I would not incur the wrath of the moderators if I were to start an entirely unofficial thread for collecting information about multiple sales events? This would not be a "structured" thread like the prospective official one I proposed earlier, nor would I expect it to be made a sticky, but hopefully it would remain a "running" thread that not only I would be using. If it's a dud, I'll probably abandon it and as you say, it will naturally fade into obscurity.

I'm ultimately doing this out of self-interest: I want to buy miniatures and other hobby products cheaply. When someone knows of a sales event I don't know about, I'd like to be informed of it (as long as there isn't too big a fuss about it, at least). How many LAFers knew of the RPE and Ravenstar discounts before I did, and didn't bother to mention them (just as I myself wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't started this thread)? There are RPE products I've been meaning to buy (albeit not with any great sense of immediacy), and if I had not happened to visit their website on a whim the other day, I would probably have missed the chance to get those products 20% cheaper. So, to put it simply, I want there to be a place where other people tell me of as many sales events as possible, and I'm prepared to contribute what I know in return.

The alternative of starting a separate thread for each sales event seems to me like it would generate a lot of chaff in the Bazaar, but maybe I'm missing something, and of course I'll go along with whatever the moderators think is best.

[beefcake]

By "Commercial thread", do you mean the Commercial subforum, or is there already a thread like the one I've proposed that I haven't noticed?

Yep that's what I meant

[The_Beast]

The individual posts has several good things going for them: anyone can 'bump' the thread as long as it's useful, the original poster can mark the Title to indicate it being finished, not available, whatever, and such posts might actually give me a reason to look there.

Since Commercial was separated, I've not gone there oft, and, thinking back, fear I've missed quite a bit.

Doug

Edit: And, since all such posts are marked with 'Commercial', half the very limited space in 'Recent' is already burnt.