Request: prevent vendor group buy "preorder" conditions
 

In light of the recent ban of 86_Industries (or whatever his name was), is there any way a restriction can be inserted for group buys?

Namely, there should not be a "group buy will commence once group buy minimum quantity is met". Specifically, no payment should be tied to a commitment/intent to buy.

If a vendor has to take money to secure a group buy, that vendor shouldn't be doing business in the first place as there is no guarantee that the buyers won't be conned out of their money. I'm sure there's a better way of wording this but the site should have something like this in place to protect members.

-alex

that's kind of how group buys come to fruition in the first place...

Not exactly.

There's many ways of organizing a group buy, but 100% up front payment of a product that has yet to be produced is a gigantic red flag.

Up front payment to order something that isn't normally stocked, I understand. But a group buy where up front payment of the MOQ (minimum order quantity) results in the product being actually made? I don't see how this makes sense at all.

Frankly, if I was a business and I had to ask my customers to front the money for ordering products I am selling to them, I'd fail pretty hard at this.

-alex

a lot of these "businesses" fail pretty hard at it. They are the hero when they are selling coilovers at $10 above cost but their razor thin profit margins prevent them from ever growing and investing in their "business", and once they realize their customer base is only willing to buy on price and not even factor in things like service or knowledge, they are gone.

The problem is more so the fact that anyone with an email address containing the letters 86 can be a vendor and sell parts on the forum. It needs to be on the consumer to do their research and deal with vendors who are authorized dealers, or have established history and credibility. Or hell, even a contact phone number . end rant.

that being said it still sucks to see people bilked out of their hard earned cash. never a good thing

There's no way to prevent someone from creating a "legitimate business" selling $10 above cost on a $2000 item.

My suggestion is for the site to take a bit more initiative, filter out bad apples before they get the opportunity to sell... that's all there is to it.

The site enforces the "daily bump" limit pretty strict for vendors. I don't see why my two suggestions so far (verification of business license/entity and this suggestion for group buy listing restriction) would have any impact on a normal business selling legitimate, ready-to-ship goods.

-alex

Isn't this the type of thing that falls on personal responsibility? If you're dumb enough to give someone all your money on a pre-order and you haven't done business with them before/never heard of them, etc. then it's really your fault you lost your money.

Yes, but the previous vendor was someone who did group buys for over a year in the manner I previously described without anyone saying no.

So to the average forum person, it seems like this vendor was completely legit. And frankly, he was.

Minus the parts where:

• People were unaware of this being a "100% prepaid group buy then make product" promotion
• Seller was bad at communication in general
• Seller mixed up group buy orders with website orders
• Products listed for sale on his website, but not in stock
• Whatever other dirty laundry being aired in the feedback threads

Could've just prevented this from the get-go by prohibiting a 100% prepaid, preorder group buy where the products have yet to be produced.

But I'm just suggesting this as ways to improve the site. Ultimately if the site admin don't care, this will just repeat itself in the future with the next "reputable" vendor.

-alex

The thing is you hear more complaints than praises. This industry doesn't work the same as others. To keep your parts pricing down a good portion of the industry drop ships. Even the biggest distributors of parts do not stock everything. That's just the way it works, unless you want your cost of parts to go up. Rock bottom low price, inventory, service. Pick 2 of the 3. Just like the contractor's pyramid. There is nothing you can do to prevent good businesses from going bad, even if you filter out the bad ones first.

I've never liked pre-orders that involve money changing hands. At work I have people ask about product before its ready for sale. All we do is take there contact info and say we will contact them when the parts are actually ready, boxed up and ready to ship. Some people want to leave money to "secure" there spot but we don't do it. We have to ensure people that they will be contacted. When money changes hands everything becomes a sticky situation.

If you put yourself into a pre-order you are putting yourself out there.

I would never pre order from a non reputable vendor. I did just put $50 for some Spec D headlights in April but I used Paypal. 60 days to get my money back if anything were to happen, but this vendor had a successful Winjet groupbuy already. I knew 86_ZN6 was a fraud within a few weeks of seeing his posts. Not only did he stock mostly junk, I saw enough complaints around false promises.