Hacker News Reader

Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

Where did the current listings come from?

about half of the current listings came from our beta group of buyers, the other half we put up and are based on what we came across in our market research. we are only promoting the listings that are from our buyers though. if we received a legit bid on one of the other listings, we probably would accept the bid and talk to the person about how they happened across the site, what was confusing, what they liked, etc.

I wondered that too, and also wondered if there is some sort of template which the buyers use. If that's true, the template approach hurts because it blurs all the buyers together when they probably need help differentiating their request.

there's a set process buyers go through to create a listing. not sure if that's what you mean by template...also not sure what you mean by blurring buyers together...

The buyers info always starts with something like "We would like to speak..."

I wondered if there was some default text in the set process buyers go through when they create a listing. Perhaps default text that started with "We would like to speak...".

Because all the blurbs start out like that, I found it hard to skim over the list (hence the blurry comment).

This may not be your problem, it may just be that all your buyers are just copying each other. Does that explain my comment any better?

Ah yes, that does clarify things. We've helped our buyers write their first listings, so that's probably why they look similar. The steps that buyers go through prompt them for specific data points that help them create complete listings, but the description you are referring to is just a text field. It's interesting that you were scanning those - I just did as well and the similarity of the text jumped out at me too. Thanks for the feedback!

If you're helping them write the listing, suggests they simply say what it is they want.

Obviously they could like to contact people. They wouldn't be on the site otherwise.

Good point!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com