I recently posted a new bike to sell and this morning saw a PM in my email from someone who is interested and had tried to send me messages in the new classified section. There are no messages anywhere in my classified listing nor in my general Slowtwitch message inbox. I have looked everywhere but can not see where any messages have come in. Anyone else having this issue? And I guess if you are interested in the 2026 QR I posted, just email me because I can’t see if you have sent me a message!
The classifieds suck now. It’s like reading old black and white news paper and only 10 things show up.
1.) moved thread to site feedback.
2.) thus far you’re the only one to mention not liking it. People like having pictures up front before clicking into something.
3.) @juniormint I’m not seeing any messages for you, so I think maybe the person may have deleted the message before you got to it?
See my other thread, that of course has had to have been seen but has no replies….
The new classifieds is terrible.
What’s so bad about it? We have way more people using the classified’s now than before.
How are you quantifying that?
Overall, it just seems like the platform was engineered to be like eBay or pinkbike in terms of scale and volume, but it’s been 2.5 months and theres only 29 items listed. 29 individual items outnumbers the filter category subtype options. So at this low of a volume, it just doesn’t fit well with the system. I get you need time to build the listings but 29 in 2.5 months seems like low utilization. I could be wrong.
Functionality wise, I echo the uncertainty about how messages work and also the “load more” as you scroll is slow and only loads 6 items at a time. Even for the low volume of items, it takes too long to scroll through listings before you have to pause for 3 to 5 seconds as it loads more.
Overall I dont like how “formal” it feels. Old classifieds was all business but informal and felt more direct person to person, and you could see in the listings thread all the public chatter about the item which was helpful and informative. Here, having seller star ratings and suggested/original MSRP prices which are meaningless…in my opinion takes away from what made ST classifieds so great of a resource.
I share my opinion just to try and help provide feedback. Reason I created the other thread was to see if I was alone in these feelings. If I am I’ll shut up. Thanks for indulging me.
Hey @PBT_2009 sorry for the delay on this.
Let’s talk about Volume first. As to your point 29 items in 2.5 month seems pretty “Weak”
Unlike the old classifields that just kept “going on and on” New listings auto expire every 30 days unless the user choses to renew it. That is ment to save people from trying to buy things that someone forgot to get rid of. Does that need to change? Maybe 45days or 60 days? Im not sure just yet. But we are open to feedback that’s for sure. What we dont want is a bunch of old stuff that has simply been forgotten about up on the site that only causes extra search for users.
Since the start of the new classifieds launched we have had 168 listings added so let’s just call it 11 weeks or 77 days. So about 2.1 per day.
The old classifieds used to get about 3-4 listing per week. I know because we had to approve each one personally ( help with spam )
So people seem to be using it more. The real question is how can we improve it . Ive been talking to some other super users and happy to get on a call with you. We want it to be an awesome way for people to buy and sell gear in a safe way. LMK
The only thing I don’t like is that it is a different messaging system that is easy to forget about (this post made me go look and realize I left a bunch of people hanging, sorry!). Also that I have to pay to renew a post (really?) or re-post it again when it doesn’t sell.
Just my 2cents
You shouldn’t have to pay to renew unless you want it “Featured” Let me check that.
Also the direct message’s from users asking about your item should be hitting your email inbox as well.
Thank you for the info and statistics! Not to spurn your offer for a call, i appreciate that, would prefer to keep discussion here so others can also join discussion and build on it. My feedback:
- 30 days too short. I’d suggest 60 or even 90+ days before auto expire.
- Generally, the system feels overengineered for what it is and meant to be, if items are to auto-remove themselves after a relatively short period of time. if the site has 40,000 items like pinkbike, that level of filtering and organization is necessary, but until that time/level is reached, it just makes the system cumbersome. Example 1, suggest cut down the categories and sub categories to search by. Even since my initial post items are up to 44, but there are by my count 89 (!!) categories and subcategories to search under. that depth of subcategory is entirely unnecessary. Just keep the broader categories and not the subs (i.e., just running shoes, instead of running shoes plus ten subtypes of running shoes). Example 2, the “Popular” tag - by my count 80% of the listings have the tag. Popular doesn’t mean anything if (nearly) every item is popular.
- “Loading More” functionality is poor compared to other sites that use this approach. the initial load for me is only 6 items, and the load more takes 2 to 3 seconds each time, and each time only adds 6 items. I’m not a tech guy but other sites seem to have better metrics here (instantaneous/seamless loading as you scroll, and more results each time). theproscloset is good example - initial load for me is 20+, the load time takes a second or two (same as new classifieds) but returns 20+ results each time.