Your feedback on the new site

[Gumtree John]

Hi everyone -

Gumtree John here. I just wanted to let you all know that we really appreciate the feedback you are giving us about the new site - yes, we even like the negative feedback. The whole team here is working hard to make Gumtree the best possible site for all of you.

Here are a few of the issues that we have heard in South Africa (and the rest of the world) and how we are thinking about addressing them.

1. No ability to search by price range in autos - We hear you. While we will be working to improve the search functionality to allow this in the future. In the meantime your best bet is to sort by price and browse that way.

2. No ability to search properties by location (or price, type,...) - Again, we hear you and agree. We are also working on a long term improvement to search here. In the shorter term, we'd recommend 2 things. a) Posters can include the location in the title or as a keyword b) We are considering providing easy-to-fill fields for posters including: location, type, # of bedrooms,...

3. No wanted section - So you actually can look at just wanted ads on the new site - it is just done a little differently. Here are two ways to go about it. a) Click on the want ads on the bottom right of the home page. Then navigate to your category. b) Click into a category from the home page and then select wanted ads from the left hand navigation bar.

4. No barriers between days - We are looking at bringing this back - it might be really easy to change. The one downside here is it makes sorting a little trickier (for example, sorting by price). But know that we are thinking about this one.

5. No repost functionality - We realize that this might make it a little more difficult for some, but hopefully it will also cut down on spam. And I think we know how everyone feels about spam...

6. Trouble deleting ads - Check your emails, posters. We just sent out a message with instructions about how to manage your ads on the new site.

7. Missing categories/new category suggestions - These types of changes are pretty easy to make. Keep letting us know what you would like to see here, and if there are enough requests we may be able to add categories in.

Whew. I think that takes care of the big ones for now.

Please keep the comments coming. This is your site after all.

Bye for now!
Gumtree John

[Nick427]

Dear John,

I am looking for a flat and I think you should get the pricing done per month.

Deleting an ad:
is it possible that you send a mail reminding people of their ads and telling them that it gets deleted in xx days if they don't confirm?

That way we could reduce the amount and more importantly, avoid unnecessary calls to ads that are long obsolete.

Thanks,

Nick

[Vinyl Lounge]

John said "5. No repost functionality - We realize that this might make it a little more difficult for some, but hopefully it will also cut down on spam. And I think we know how everyone feels about spam... "

Hi John, thanks for your reply.

I don't see any spam on Gumtree and I never have. Even when you had the repost function. However...

In South Africa we have a huge problem with auction houses like Ebay.
The dillema is that PayPal will not allow us to receive payments through their system.
Most Ebay buyers prefer to use PayPal (as it is rammed down their throats by Ebay), so this prevents us from trading online internationally. Most sellers here are fed up with auction houses anyway and there seems to be no reason to pay the exhorbitant fees they charge when one could use a service like Gumtree. Especially now since you have made it so functional.

1) Why not let us post to international Fijji sites? Become the new international marketplace. A product search in Google will show the worldwide listings for that product in Fijji anyway, but If it was posted with the intent to sell internationally, then that ad would have the relevant shipping info etc.

2) If I wish to sell my products on an ongoing basis, until they are sold that is, then I would have to relist each product every day. Could you not provide some kind of feature where the ad could be saved? Then when one relists, it is just a matter of a few keystrokes instead of filling in the entire form each time.

I'm really hoping you take Ebay down. If anyone has the power via market presence, then your company does.

Thank you.

[Stroyce]

Hi Vinyl Lounge

If I am not mistaken eBay and Gumtree are one and the same.

They merged not to long ago eBay now owns Gumtree.

[Vinyl Lounge]

Ohhhhhh well! Then we are well and truly ...(the thing that you turn with a screwdriver) ...ed!!!!

[Capetonian]

Vynil, arent you confusing auctions sites and ad sites ?

Would be curious to know what kind of ads you need to repost so often. I think the good thing on gumtree is to have some spontaneous ads that interest you, and you reply, not standards ads writtent 10 months ago and reposted each week...

And you are very lucky (??!!!???) not to see spam on gumtree.

One stat: i replied on 5 Friends/dating ads the last 2 months: 100% where SPAM. i event avoid to reply to ads i saw before, knowing that its certainly not a spontaneous ad but a recurring reposted spam.

Here is the kind of answers i, and i'm sure hundreds of users get:

===========================================
Hey thanks for the reply!

I hope to be in town another 3 or 4 days ..so as the ad said, im just looking for some
*****, discreet as possible would be nice. I’m not very picky but id like to talk a bit 1
on 1 before we get into it...You can check out my sexual likes / dislikes, bio and pics
of me on my profile – hotnhornyroxy - http://tinyurl.com/34dkf6
its also the easiest way to get in touch with me since im on there all the time.

can't wait to hear from you…
Hugs & Kisses
============================================

Please gumtree, fight the spam; they won't certainly stop, but thanks for making life very very difficult for spammers..

A "report spam" button could for example alow you to de activate spammers accounts ?

[Gumtree John]

Hey Vinyl and Stroyce -

You guys are right - Gumtree is owned by eBay. But let me assure you that we are run very indepently. The whole Gumtree team is dedicated to making our experience the best it can be, even (or maybe especially) in areas where eBay falls short.

So keep letting us know how we can improve your experience - we'll do our best to help you out.

Gumtree John

[$ bill]

Helloz all, hey John the site is lookin good well done to the gumteam.....so would you guys consider having a section where goods can be auctioned as on bob? y not poll it & see what the publics response is

[Vinyl Lounge]

Thanks for the reply John. I appreciate your efforts to improve Gumtree.

[anita_ct]

I'm sorry but the updated Gumtree sucks & will always suck with such an interface.

The old Gumtree was very professional, fast and easy on the eye with items for sale only listed in text and easy to read. If one was interested in a specific item you only had to right-click and open it in another tab or window to get more specific info.

Now you are forced to view unnecessary pictures & empty picture frames. This is completely unnecessary and annoying and should be best left for a second-tier window.

I personally think that it is just a sly move by the owners to gradually move from a once fast community based website to just another commercial pay site much like the extremely irritating Cape Ads Online to which I once subscribed before it went from fast text based ads to forced picture crazy garbage.

Then its Goodbye!

Always remember what it was that drew people to your website in the first place that made it popular.

Anita.
Cape Town.

[gdiza]

[anita_ct]

[anita_ct]

So, Gumtree is now owned by eBay!

The end is near!

[gdiza]

[Stroyce]

Hi all

Personally I think this site has been set up for subscription, it might be FREE now but I think we will be paying soon, if my understanding is correct there are 'Kijiji' subscription sites and this one falls under 'Kijiji' and 'eBay' I think it's only a matter of time before we will be required to pay.

Please tell me I am wrong 'Gumtree admin' or are these just rumors?