Price codes for secret sales

Commercial Sellers' Spot BLF User Negotiated Deals
1

I posted this idea in the [20-OCT-2015] Refinements of forum categories and rules on affiliate links / codes thread, and sb suggested I start a new thread for it.

So here it is.

I would like it if a price range code could be created to go with all these secret deals.
Something like price a=<$5.00, b=$5-10, c=$10-15, d=$15-20, then beyond $20, e=$20-30, f=$30-40 etc., and letters could be added together to increase the price beyond z, Roman numeral style once it reaches z >$230.

Members could request this code once they reach a certain post count or the method that is currently used to see if a member is real when requesting prices could be used, if there is one. This way members could know if a product is within their price range without requesting a price pm, threads wouldn’t be bumped more often than needed and it should still keep the map police away.

A title might look something like this
GB: xxxxxx P60 host BLF-SE (range b)

2

Oodgay ideayay.

That is pig Latin, it fools them every time. I think the CIA uses it.

3

Sorry, but imho this will just make more people confused. If a manufacturer would want to know a price i think you can’t prevent that from happening.

4

good idea

5

Not a fool proof method but it is better than nothing. Probably you make want to simplify to just three Cat.A (50% and above OFF), Cat.B (30%-49% OFF) and Cat.C(10%-29% OFF).

6

This idea wasn’t designed to completely thwart map, but to allow members an idea of what something is selling for without having to request a price, and slow map down.

The only problem with % off is knowing the starting price.
My original idea was each letter represents $10, but then I changed the first few letters to better reflect the price of cells and similar items.

I think most members would quickly grasp the concept upon seeing the “code” laid out in a few columns. We could scrap the adding letters together and just change z to >$230.

Edit- If anyone did struggle with the price they could still PM for the price like the current system.

(PS- I have been told I have complicated ideas)

7

I like it.
Yea, they’ll catch on in time but in the meantime.

8

Make the code dependent on the date the code was posted

A code posted today would be 10-20

1020 minus the code equals the price .real simple
a 65$ light would have the code ……*955

1020 –955=65$

9

I like that, but the date would need to be written in the post, as the time and date next to the post # changes when it’s edited.

10

Date stays the same for the OP, even when edited.

11

Nice, that makes it easy.

12

Cat A = 00-25 USD
Cat B = 26-50 USD
Cat C = 51-75 USD
Cat D = 76-100 USD
Cat E = 101+ USD

that should be close enough to quick identify a groupbuy …

maybe A+ = 0-12.5 USD and A- = 12.6-25 USD
for the MAP deals?

13

$25 jumps between letters is too large imo.

14

i’m no expert but in my humble opinion this is less self explainatory, because until you know the reference of the op, which could differe from yours, you won’t know the price range… instead i’ll stick with the OP idea

15

I also tend to prefer the OP’s idea, because it is finer grained.

I don’t think that making the price dependent on the date will work, because what happens when the date is posted in on January 1st?

Another idea would be to simply offer a link to more information at a fake URL that tells the price. For example, if the sale price is $22.99, put: “Get more information in this thread: budgetlightforum.com/index.jsp?node_id=2299&action=go&time=134423.” It’s sort of “security by obscurity”, because it just looks like a dead link. The actual price is in the bogus “node_id” parameter.

By the way, as somebody mentioned, there is no sure way to avoid the MAP police. It might be good to start creating a picture of the product name using a quick online logo generator, instead of writing the name of the product, because BLF has really good search ranking and it will immediately pop up when the MAP police search for the new product name. So something like this would be much harder to find:

16

that would make NITECORE feel magic….irresistible to me…ahahah

17

http://www.designmantic.com/create_thumb?id=11981&amp;company=Nitecore%2BTM16@99&slogan

Just change the bold texts for the title and id for design.

18

not sure if that is the solution…
MAPpolice are people with eyes and a brain… :wink:

(and sometimes just envy members who tell a manufacturer a running groupbuy just to kill it.)

.

remember i announced a nitecore and olight sale lately?
within less than a day banggood got the order from olight to shut down the code they gave me (nitecore is still running)
but other places still sell olight on low prices…

i assume that the shutdown was a human act - otherwise all deals promoted here should have been affected?

19

Just assume there is a zero added
1-1 =’s 110$

or the Op could just write out when these special lights were manufactured and write out the date …October 20th

20

Charleston Code. In retail, they used to use 10 digit codes based off a keyword that had 10 unique letters.

C H A R L E S T O N
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

Or just use binary. lol $255 would be 1111 1111 :wink: