Boats and Outboards error?

[alexm]

Their ads don't seem to show the date they were posted any more? Anyone else got this problem?

This is really annoying as some of the ads on there are years old (which isn't surprising because every time I have used it to sell something I have been unable to delete the advert afterwards due to errors!)

It's free I suppose... so mustn't grumble!

[alexm]

Just had this response:

Hi,

Thanks for your email. This is not a bug, we have omitted that feature from our website at the moment

Kind Regards,

Internet Support
www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk

I have replied:

Hi,

Thanks for the response. Does this mean the dates will be replaced at some point? As I’m sure you are aware, many of the adverts are long expired so being able to see whether an ad is recent or not is vital, especially when searching by keyword as you can’t even guess the age of the advert by how far near it is to the top of the page!

Thanks,

Alex

[alexm]

Reply:

Hi,
Thanks for your email, I have no information as to when this feature will be re-introduced I'm afraid.

Kind Regards

Lee McCartney
Internet Support

[Nos4r2]

I find the best way to remove an ad is to edit it with the word 'sold' as the only text. When they moderate it they remove it.
Either that or email them.

[codprawn]

I used to love their site but I have noticed lately it has become very slow and full of bugs.

[alexm]

Do you think they have removed the listing dates because they are embarrassed that 50%(?) of the ads are over a year old?

When I sold something on there I did the same as you and edited the ad to say **SOLD** because when I clicked the 'delete ad' link all I got was errors... it still took them a good couple of months to delete the advert!!

I can imagine that most people wouldn't bother to edit it unless they were still getting plagued by callers!

[Boats]

Hi,

I work for BoatsandOutboards and thought I should come on here to explain the situation.

Over the last few months the website has been getting a massive amount of traffic and we have been working on our servers to make the site faster, part of this involved making some upgrades and this is why there have been a few bugs recently, we are working on these pretty much full time at the moment.

We took the decision to take the age of the advert after a lot of complaints from people trying to sell their boats that felt it was not helping them by having the age. Some boats do not sell very quickly such as wooden boats. We are going to introduce much more advanced features to enable people to search by age and much more in the near future.

The website is basically free to use and we have to try and make it work for those people who do spend money with us but I see the usability issue as being just as important so we sometimes have to compromise.

The other problem we have is people do not always delete their adverts but even so these expire after a while, many people do renew their adverts and this is why there are boats that have been advertised for some time.

I know things are not perfect but we are slowly getting there with the issues on the site.



Kind regards

Stephen

[alexm]

Stephen,

Many thanks for taking the time to post the explanation... it makes much more sense than "I have no information as to when this feature will be re-introduced" so I'll stop moaning now!

Alex

[Biggles]

And if Stephen comes back on here.

I would like to add that www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk is an excellent service. I can't think of any other trading web site boat or otherwise, that provides such a good web sales service. I wish him and his team all the best for the future.

NR.

[codprawn]

Originally Posted by Biggles

And if Stephen comes back on here.

I would like to add that www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk is an excellent service. I can't think of any other trading web site boat or otherwise, that provides such a good web sales service. I wish him and his team all the best for the future.

NR.

Couldn't agree more - it is such a good site it's a shame to spoil it.