[pranavt]

Can the classifieds have atleast some form of link-up with the forums for all BHPians? Beyond the "BHP forum nickname" field, there is no other way to know if the other party is a BHPian or not; short of finding the actual user and PMing him to make sure the two are the same. Perhaps sending an authentication email at the registered email address on the profile or something similar, tp confirm if the user is not lying.

[Rehaan]

Pranavt,

See my earlier post regarding this :

Originally Posted by Rehaan

We are working on a way to identify ads listed by BHPians.

If all goes as planned :
- There will be a BHPian! badge shown on their ads >
- There will be a way to search for only ads listed by BHPians (via advanced search)


For the BHPian badge mentioned above, accounts will be verified.
NOTE: This will probably also be restricted to BHPian membership level and above. Still not finalized.

We're working through a few ideas on how best to manage this.

cya
R

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by RVD

@ Mods: If a search is done based on the body type, should the most recent ad not show up first ?

Update :

All searches & categories now sort newest first, and show 20 listings to a page by default.

Cheers,
R

[Xehaust]

More bugs i noticed today.
Usage is on Firefox 3.6.10 on Mac OSX with quite a few open tabs (All the tabs were the various categories in the classifieds, eg. Sedan, Hatch, etc.).

Problems noticed are:
1 - When viewing, when i click on the NEWEST, it jumps to another section while still showing the correct section HEADING. Below are two pictures.
(Also, jumped to sedans while viewing ICE, jumped to sedans while viewing gadgets)


2 - For SEDANS,HATCHBACKS, it showed the heading correctly, but for ICE & GADGETS, it showed as a search. Below is the picture.


Finally, in 2, 1 also takes place.

EDIT: 1 Seems to work perfectly when there are no tabs open. Would be a big problem for most of us who love tabs.

But 2 is still the same (Although only a visual gaff, it will look more professional if it looks the same as the headings given to sedans & hatchbacks, etc.)

[swiftnfurious]

Rehaan,

1. Not sure you missed out the below question or have actually answered it already. Posting it once again as I think its a "nice to have" feature.

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

Excellent work guys! It definitely looks better and the additional features are a plus.

But I noticed that there is no field for the year / month of registration of a vehicle? Could we get this added as this is also one of the data every potential customer looks at.

I would request to make this field mandatory as well so that it acts as a reminder .

2. I remember that in the *old* classifieds, there was an option to "close" the sales once the actual sale was done. Do we have a similar procedure in the "new* classifieds as well? I could not find any ad which said "Sale done" or "Sale closed".

3. And i have faced the same problem reported in the previous thread "More bugs" by Xehaust. Some times when I click on the "Search by body style" it goes to the same page where we have "featured listings". It happens with multiple tabs. It takes couple of clicks to actually get what you want to see.

PS: Sorry if I am asking stupid questions or those which are already answered !

[ghodlur]

Mods,

My account is finally activated thanks to Rehaan's efforts.

Now I am repeating my old question again, sorry for that. I tried to search for car listed under location Thane using the zip code 400601 (For eg) but the search throws a lot of Pune cars. The search criteria used was just 400601 and nothing else. Can you kindly look into simplyfying the search please.

[honeybee]

I went to the classifieds and clicked on body style icon to list all SUV/4x4 type vehicles. Within this, I cannot search for vehicles only from Mumbai or Maharashtra. So the search works independent of the body type. How come?

[Xehaust]

So i went & put up my 1st ad in the classified today & have found some MAJOR problems:

1 - Since i was logging into the classifieds after a long time, i had forgotten my password Tried using the "forgot password" option twice & it said a reset mail has been sent "successfully" to my email.

PROBLEM - There was no mail recieved all day. This problem has the potential to lock users out of their own accounts (specially the forgetful ones or who log in after a long time).
A possible solution from my side - i remembered my password later

2 - The messaging function is not working. Thankfully i had listed my number on which a potential buyer called up & said that he had messaged in the classifieds also. Later, i went to my ad & tried using the messaging function to test it by messaging myself.

PROBLEM - No message recieved either from the potential buyer or from myself. This is a major problem & should be fixed soon. Also i realised that there is no section wherein i can go to check messages like the PM feature we have on BHP. So where do the messages go or get stored??? And how do we view them???

3 - Once i do end up selling, there is no "SOLD" option. Only a "De-activate" button. So once actually sold, do i have to "De-activate" my ad? A "SOLD" button along with the option to put in the price at which the actual sale took place would help others.

4 - Finally, waiting for verification (even for minor tweaks to the ad) is a little irritating & when the ad is modified in any way, when you modify it, we have to re-enter the "TYPE" field again as it resets itself for some reason.
Further, the fact that the ad goes offline (people cannot view it) when until verification is done (for editing the ad that was already up & running after initial verification) is an issue that should be looked into.

P.S. - Is any mod monitoring this thread? Or are we just giving feedback for no reason? If you are monitoring, please do reply to our feedback like Rehaan was doing earlier. Thanks.
Finally, the new classifieds is a tremendous effort & an excellent update.
Kudos to you guys but do keep on track with the execution & solving these niggling issues or this tremendous effort will be wasted.

[pranavt]

Create ad for Parts/Accessories.
Edit ad.
Try to save it.

Manufacturer field is empty. Please fill it.

No such field in the form.

[Xehaust]

Originally Posted by pranavt

Create ad for Parts/Accessories.
Edit ad.
Try to save it.
Manufacturer field is empty. Please fill it.
No such field in the form.

Answered in my post already. Here is the excerpt:

Originally Posted by Xehaust

4 - Finally, waiting for verification (even for minor tweaks to the ad) is a little irritating & when the ad is modified in any way, when you modify it, we have to re-enter the "TYPE" field again as it resets itself for some reason.

Just a little looking around in the details you filled & you will notice that TYPE has reset itself (As in phone,ipod,camera,etc.). But yes, it incorrectly states that "Manufacturer" field is empty rather than "Type".

Originally Posted by Xehaust

1 - Since i was logging into the classifieds after a long time, i had forgotten my password Tried using the "forgot password" option twice & it said a reset mail has been sent "successfully" to my email.

PROBLEM - There was no mail recieved all day. This problem has the potential to lock users out of their own accounts (specially the forgetful ones or who log in after a long time).

Update - Have now recieved the mail. Guess the system is running very slow. Got it after about 12 hours almost.

[benbsb29]

Originally Posted by Xehaust

Update - Have now recieved the mail. Guess the system is running very slow. Got it after about 12 hours almost.

I had placed an ad and got quite a few enquiry messages from visitors regarding the same. All these were delivered to the same mail id which i had provided when creating the user id to login to Classifieds.

It may be possible there is a batch program in the background which runs at regular intervals to deliver the messages. However, i am only guessing.

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

I noticed that there is no field for the year / month of registration of a vehicle?

Sorry i missed this earlier. Here are a few reasons why we chose manufacturing year over registration year / month :
- When you sell your car, people are more concerned about the date of manufacture, since thats how old the car actually is.
- A lot of times someone would take delivery in the last few months of the year and then register it only the next year, in effect making an `06 car and `07.
- Dealers could even use a car as a test drive car for a while and then register it much later

I think that covers why year of manufacture is more important than registration month/year.

We might ad month of manufacture as well at a later stage, as well as the possibility for month/year of registration if we see good enough reason, however, the more concise and straightforward the ad-listing form is, the better.

Originally Posted by Rocky_Balboa

'reason for sale' column

This has been added for Cars & Bikes.
Now every type of ad has a "Reason for sale" that sellers can fill

Originally Posted by Xehaust

1 Seems to work perfectly when there are no tabs open. Would be a big problem for most of us who love tabs.

This is actually a shortcoming of the software being used. We're looking into workarounds at the next major overhaul.

Originally Posted by Xehaust

2 is still the same (Although only a visual gaff, it will look more professional if it looks the same as the headings given to sedans & hatchbacks, etc.)

Like you said, its purely a visual difference between different headings. Have made a note of it though.

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

I remember that in the *old* classifieds, there was an option to "close" the sales once the actual sale was done. Do we have a similar procedure in the "new* classifieds as well? I could not find any ad which said "Sale done" or "Sale closed".

You have 2 options (outlined in the Classifieds FAQ)
- Delete your ad
- De-activate your ad (This lets you re-activate it with one-click at a later date)

The option to mark as "sold" but still have it visible has not currently been implemented, as feedback received from the majority of members was that they do not wish to see already sold ads shown.

Originally Posted by ghodlur

I tried to search for car listed under location Thane using the zip code 400601 (For eg) but the search throws a lot of Pune cars

At the moment, you can see that the zipcode search is set to "150km radius of..."

Once the classifieds gets more populated, this default radius will be reduced.

For now, you can manually change the search radius from within the Advanced Search. Choices are 75, 150, 300, 600km. This will solve your issue.


More in the next post.
cya
R

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by honeybee

the search works independent of the body type.

Yes it currently does. We will consider adding a "body style" dropdown as an advanced filter at a later date.

Originally Posted by Xehaust

found some MAJOR problems:
1 - Tried using the "forgot password" option twice

2 - The messaging function is not working.

Actually Xehaust, this is an issue with yahoo mail.

Mails being sent to a yahoo address reach hours later, and their spam filtering is awful. Sometimes mails from an address will end up in your inbox, and then a few days later mails from the same address will end up in your spam folder! (after being delayed by a few hours ofcourse!)

Team-BHP Classifieds emails are sent out immediately, and will typically reach within 30 seconds when using any other major email provider. Nonetheless, we'll look into any ways we can optimize mail delivery to yahoo addresses.

Also, with yahoo, when you send out an email (eg. to a gmail address) it can take a while to arrive. I did this yesterday between my yahoo and gmail accounts and it took 10+ minutes to arrive. That doesn't sound long, but we're in 2010, and email is pretty much instant with any other provider. Just mentioning this to you if you're at all considering a switch

Originally Posted by Xehaust

when you modify it, we have to re-enter the "TYPE" field again as it resets itself for some reason.

Thanks for pointing this out! Its a bug and will be fixed soon. (This also answers pranavt's question).

Originally Posted by Xehaust

Further, the fact that the ad goes offline (people cannot view it) when until verification is done (for editing the ad that was already up & running after initial verification) is an issue that should be looked into.

Agreed on this shortcoming. We'll see if anything can be done about it. Though manual verification does actually happen quite fast - perhaps it felt longer due to the delay in approval email delivery?


Thanks,
R

[prateekm]

Can you hyperlink the forum id to the profile page? Like when I post a ad, it will be hyperlinked to this.

Would be easier to send PM's to the buyer

[Xehaust]

Hey Rehaan,

Great to see your back & in full form
Yup, everything has been replied to & feels good to be able to give back to BHP since some of my feedback is actually helping perfect the new classifieds.

Thanks for the clarification of the email issue.
It did hep a lot. Yes, the mail ID im using for the classifieds is indeed Yahoo & after reading your post i checked the Spam folder & behold, found all those "Missing" emails. Am training the filter to mark those as not spam.
P.S. - Yahoo is not my primary email

@ Prateekm - you mean it will make it easier for a buyer to PM the seller (i.e. - you) right?
If yes, that serves no purpose as it is already very simple by clicking on the contact seller link in the ad.
Further, only members can see profiles on BHP.