when things get rough and my stress levels go through the roof i head to one of two places..

oops wrong one

And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain

DAMN IT I am now addicted to the forums, boy am I going to be in trouble when my Mom gets home and finds out I did not do my chores....not going to be good....BYE

Heres a business practice :  My dad (81) wanted something to occupy some time and wanted to get back into reloading his boys ammo (3 of us). He sold his press a couple of years ago and got on the internet to look for another.               He found one he liked but was a little pricy and emailed the owner and maker of this particular press to see if he could help out a fixed income elder on the price.             The owner emailed back and is going to send one for free to my Dad . The request must have touched the owner in a certain way to do that. My Dad was shocked but elated.     Now thats a business practice that I thought was gone with the wind.         No , all sellers cant and shouldnt do that , but this one had a mindset to help out a distant neighbor that he did not know.      I guess what I am saying is that business practices depend on the seller and buyer relationship. Societys business practice is obviously different, and that is why I like GA/AA for the closer relationship with sellers than with a big box store.  Even where I live I deal with the smaller type firearm store and my FFL works out of his home.     Business is business but people are still people.   

Post #83, brain, I told you he would walk right into it.... LMAO..............WALI..............

brainaxe - Post #73

That is exactly what I mean about brainwashing. The idea of a level playing field in business is erroneous, or a fallacy or a misconception, or sumptin'.

If you have a long time customer that buys in bulk, by the pallet, or by the gross or in very large quantities; are you going to give that same price to the guy who walks in wanting to buy onezy-twozy??

I can see your point here and below. But it would be very nice if the little guy was also given a bit of consideration too. I routinely give a customer a "freebie" of some type when they make a purchase, be it a onezy-twozy or a large purchase. It is usually a nice ink pen, calendar, or sumptin' else.

 Somehow people have been "re-educated" to think that the evil business owner must give back value that the customer has not earned. - Volume pricing is just one example. And here at AA/GA that MAY be what is at the heart of "no adds" or "preferential treatment" etc. - What you may see as preferential treatment; can also be seen as a "bonus perk" by others.

Should "frequent flyer miles" be given out via the level playing field rule?

If I spend one dollar vs someone that spends one thousand dollars be given the same bonus?

mountainhunter - In the menu bar above the area where one enters their post verbiage, if you click on the ABC icon just to the right of the smiley face on the top menu bar a pop up should appear with this message: ieSpell not detected. Do you want to install it now?If you are using IE 7 or 8, just click on OK and it should automatically download. Then when you need to check spelling just right click and a drop down menu will appear. Scroll down to Check Spelling and you can begin. I hope this helps.

Bubba J

It is different on Firefox, and then sometimes it will say a word is misspelled, when actually it is not, like egocentrism, spell check wants a hyphen when it is not necesssay nor can I find that it is proper to do so.

brainaxe - Revisit to Post #73. - After giving this, all of the welcomed responses, a bit more thought, and removing concept of the level playing field in the arena of marketing from the equation, what do you, and others think about this scenario?

Based on gross sales for whatever period would work best for GA Staff and the sellers who support the site with their sales, (which result in final value fees, a form of taxes, fees for ad enhancements, etc.), if a step system of discounts was established and implemented. For example only:

A seller who has gross sales on the site of $2,500.00 for a month, three months, six months, etc., would receive X% discount on these fees for the next amount of time that was originally established to earn the discount.

Then increase the amount of gross sales, (maybe double the amount each time), and possibly increase the time period, for the next % of discount. (I.E.) Gross sales to equal $5,000.00 for the next three months to earn a XX% discount. and so on. Then $10,000.00 gross sales for six months to earn a XXX% discount. GA already keeps running totals of each sellers sales as it is. Thus the end of the year report that they offer to sell each seller.

In my opinion, this system would be totally fair and also be an incentive for sellers to offer more items for auction/sale. Whatta ya think??

Bubba J

Bubba,  I dont mean to step in out of place here , but that seems to be a good idea. Something needs to be done to increase listings here. Listings seem to be not as many as once was and also right many relist. It takes me personally half the time to search through items as before. The used listings seem to have dropped since I started using this site.   I just figured it was part of a cycle.  I hope so.  JMHO

Bubba J - In general I can agree with your ideas for this. There can be some set of criteria that could apply to all members equally as long as they meet the set points.

But for GA/AA, they may not want such a structure. It is possibly they have made just a few concessions to a few members for a variety of reasons.

Could be that GA/AA has handed out a bone to some of those Sellers who have been here from the beginning.... Or along the way have helped the site in ways that are not known by the other members...(?)

As I said, I can agree with your suggestion of a tiered rewards schedule, but that may not be interesting to GA/AA.

True,AA/GA may not want the hassle of such a system, however, if the bones are only thrown to the big dogs, the little doge may fond another place to play. I think that this has been happening a little bit at a time for the past couple years.

Bubba J