I'm thinking of setting up a marketplace on one of my smaller sites. It would be a buy, sell, trade, employ (BSTE) type of place for like-minded people. Any suggestions for how to set it up, please? The site is on WordPress.
My biggest concern is spammers, and keeping them out.
At first glance, a forum seems to be the obvious way. Let people post their ads. Simple. But there's always an awful lot of back-office work on forums in keeping out the scum and I don't fancy going through all that just for a little marketplace. (If the site already had forums it would be easy to add a BSTE, but it doesn't have one and I've no desire to create one.)
Another option I considered is a dedicated classified ads program. I had one of these many years ago on my expat site, but it was an absolute nightmare trying to keep it clean.
Charging a nominal entry fee (say $1) might be worth a try with some sites but not with this one. It's nowhere near critical mass. Mind you, I could let all my pals in free to kick it off. Who said I'll be in there on my own, then?
I suppose I could add listings if people send them to me by contact form. But I'd rather the system was more automated. Also even contact forums get a lot of spam these days.
Sad isn't it? The first thing to think about isn't giving the customers what they want, it's how to keep the slimeballs out.
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