Tool Store
- This topic has 11 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 6 months ago by Joseph Sellers.
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16 October 2013 at 1:46 am #20030
Hello Everyone,
Was just curious of your thoughts to suggest a Tool Store on the site. Ive noticed from time to time that we get a lot of people asking where they can find good quality user tools at fair prices. I realize that this site has members in different continents but it could be geared to the members areas where shipping or meeting up to trade buy or sell tools that you have a surplus of, or post something like a classified add on what you are looking for . I think it could be beneficial to us all as woodworkers. I know that on some occasions I wanted to help out my woodworking brethren in this regard, but logistics seemed to be a bit of a hurdle. Meaning, it wouldn’t be cost effective for me to sell and send tools to someone in need from Canada over to England or vice versa but could have occasionally helped another fellow woodworker within proximity. Let me know your thoughts, wether positive or negative. It could also increase traffic and get more people signing up for MasterClasses.16 October 2013 at 9:47 am #20035Interesting idea.
I used to visit a few photography forums and one had a trade forum where established members (I think required 6+ months membership and >100 posts) could post adverts of stuff for sale, or items wanted. It worked well but required clearly defined rules; the price was the price unless the seller agreed to an offer, seller chooses the buyer and their choice is final, no moaning, etc. Common sense stuff, really.
I think it’s an idea worth entertaining but might not be worthwhile due to the requirement for heavy moderation.
From my personal experience, I have sent several saws to a WWMC member in Belgium because he couldn’t find a seller willing to ship them. I had a few spare, only asked for what I originally paid for them plus shipping to Belgium, he happily obliged and I sent them over. He’s happy because he has saws to sharpen and use, I’m happy because I have more space! I think it’s this sort of arrangement – one person with tools they don’t need, and another who needs them – that could be useful here.
I don’t think the idea of a store in the forum would be suitable though, Tim. If you’ve got a stock of items to sell, and you do it frequently (as in fettling tools for profit), you’d be better off with your own site or you’d risk becoming affiliated with/dependent on WWMC.
George.
16 October 2013 at 12:13 pm #20046i think if you have tools for sale it would be more beneficial to sell on structured site ie EBAY, GUMTREE, CRAIGS LIST although i dont see a problem with putting links on here for items you are selling or looking for just my opinion for what its worth
16 October 2013 at 11:34 pm #20057Hi guys,
Thanks for the suggestion and comments.
We looked into this but there are complications. Terms and conditions on a site which just deals with digital products are actually somewhat different to when you allow people to list physical products.
Sadly, it is more difficult to allow members to sell to each other without any problems for the site owners. In other words we still have liabilities for items listed on our site. We would have to tie this up with much more complicated terms for the site. Sorry to be so bureaucratic.
We may look into it in the future but for now we can’t put any time into it.
17 October 2013 at 3:41 am #20066I’ve seen this done well and it can be a great benefit but only with a GREAT deal of effort from the site administrators, iron clad and inflexible rules, and a lot of cooperation from all regular members. It requires a real cultural commitment to make it worth the extra trouble.
John
18 October 2013 at 11:45 am #20123@admin That’s unfortunate but understandable. Legal stuff can be nightmare! However, what about the idea of a ‘Member services’ type system? For example, I’m making a load of boxes in the run up to Christmas and would be happy to pick up an extra board, cut components to rough length, and send it out to someone who doesn’t have a local B&Q if they could cover the cost of postage and raw materials. I also have a band saw, so if people needed components milling to size and could bring the timber round, I could do it for them here. Like many others here, I’ve built my bench so if someone local wanted some help doing theirs I’d be happy for them to come round and give them a hand.
Someone else might be happy for people to pop round and use their planer/thicknesser, drill press, table saw or whatever.
This is probably a wider issue, more like setting up contacts for what are effectively local ‘virtual’ woodworking clubs which we don’t have here in England, but thought it’d be worth mentioning.
Sorry for de-railing the topic!
George.
A “Classified” area on the forum is interesting, but in my opinion it is well beyond the intended scope of the site. Larger sites similar to the (US based) Woodnet, Sawmill Creek, and Ebay are well suited toward that activity since there are so many members with old/used/extra tools to sell.
If anyone on WWMC has a personal blog or website where they list tools that they have to offer, I would welcome them to mention their site so we can all take a gander. 😉
21 October 2013 at 10:47 pm #20240I love the idea of members sharing resources.
I am happy for people to communicate via this forum.
The problems come when a financial transaction is arranged on the site itself.
22 October 2013 at 2:09 am #20241I was merely suggesting a thread where surplus tools could be posted. I would never suggest that the payment method would be governed by the administrators of the site. Say if I had some tools in Toronto, Canada where I’m from, I could post them under a thread called “The Tool Crib” or “Bulletin Board”and a local member could simply personal message me and we could make our own arrangements. To meet up, trade tools or offer bench time/services to one another. Or even share experiences. I wouldn’t in no way want it to be problematic amongst the good community you have established here.
22 October 2013 at 9:09 am #20245Thanks for the reply. I believe I did understand the suggestion. Even if we didn’t process payments I think we would still have to update our terms and conditions to robustly prevent users from blaming us if they were mis-sold.
We will think about it and it may be possible in the future.
Regarding arranging meet-ups and letting people know about a local events etc. I have no problem with that.
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