BEWAR OF ASTROMART AND HERB YORKPosted By Dan Lamoreaux |
Not what it will take to keep us Astromarters happy, but what is it going to take to keep Herb happy. The path of least resistance is in the following order...
A: Shut down Astromart and walk away
B: Throw Astromart open to all and let it become a mine field
C: Make it profitable enough that it is worth his time to mess with it or someone else to take it over
I am for whatever it takes to make the last option the one of choice. An annual fee for all users seems the simplest option. Trying to do credit card billing for a per ad fee seems like a logistical nightmare as well as collecting a percentage of each sale. Plus the ads would end up reading "Please ad 3% for using Paypal and X% for Astromart transaction fees. >
I realize an annual fee will likely greatly reduce the number of Astromart subscribers, but what remains will be a solid core of serious astronomers that do a sizable amount of buying and selling of equipment each year. What it costs to keep Astromart running is something only Herb knows. Can he keep enough annual subscribers at a certain price point will be difficult to calculate. The higher the annual fee, the less you will have willing to pay it. It might take an MBA to figure it out.
I do not know if there is a real tangible way to determine how much Astromart leads to people patronizing ATWB for new equipment, but from some of the posts by Herb I have read, I get the feeling he doesn't believe it to be all that much so there in not a lot of incentive to keep Astromart running from that aspect.
So Herb please do what ever it will take to make option three the one you choose.
DanL
A: Shut down Astromart and walk away
B: Throw Astromart open to all and let it become a mine field
C: Make it profitable enough that it is worth his time to mess with it or someone else to take it over
I am for whatever it takes to make the last option the one of choice. An annual fee for all users seems the simplest option. Trying to do credit card billing for a per ad fee seems like a logistical nightmare as well as collecting a percentage of each sale. Plus the ads would end up reading "Please ad 3% for using Paypal and X% for Astromart transaction fees. >
I realize an annual fee will likely greatly reduce the number of Astromart subscribers, but what remains will be a solid core of serious astronomers that do a sizable amount of buying and selling of equipment each year. What it costs to keep Astromart running is something only Herb knows. Can he keep enough annual subscribers at a certain price point will be difficult to calculate. The higher the annual fee, the less you will have willing to pay it. It might take an MBA to figure it out. I do not know if there is a real tangible way to determine how much Astromart leads to people patronizing ATWB for new equipment, but from some of the posts by Herb I have read, I get the feeling he doesn't believe it to be all that much so there in not a lot of incentive to keep Astromart running from that aspect.
So Herb please do what ever it will take to make option three the one you choose.
DanL
