Vendor Support Levels - Drive Thru Online - Support

woody · #1 (**permalink**) 09-29-2009, 10:29 AM

Unsure the current software supports this, so figgered I'd ask :)

Can Vendor registrations be set to work within support levels?

ie:

1> Vendor selects 'free' option...they are allowed to add their information, but are not included in the state/alpha listing, do not get a banner, and get limited information displayed on the Vendor map (name and addy only)

2> Vendor selects 'supporting' option...this requires a $xx subscription payment and allows them more complete info (map and listings) and a 'Supporting Vendor' status

3> Vendor selects 'banner' option....requires a $xxx subscription payment, the banner upload is enabled, a full info option for map and listings, and premium placement (this would also be more useful with various levels...$100 = x impressions, $200 = y impressions, $300 = z impressions, etc.)

I already have an extensive list of Vendors that fall in the 3> category but am looking for more 'automated' possibilities for those Vendors who wish to show their support but are not yet financially able to invest in the banner option....and offering the 1> level helps the membership recognize ALL the options that are out there.

Thanks :)

Mark · #2 (**permalink**) 09-29-2009, 11:24 AM

Brian,
With the current release of Vendor Tools we don't support what you describe directly. That said I have been doing some consulting work for a client that is combining pages describing different advertising options, paid subscription levels through vBulletin, and automated private messaging to gather and provision information for advertisers.

I believe that if we worked together to define the workflow, levels, and automation tasks it would certainly be something that could be implemented for you. Let me know if you would like to arrange a time to speak and we can discuss how to accomplish this.

Thanks!

Mark

MGSteve · #3 (**permalink**) 10-05-2009, 04:17 AM

Hi Mark,

The integration with VB's Paid Subs is really important as I suspect that's how 90% of people get traders to pay. It's certainly the case with us.

Mark · #4 (**permalink**) 10-05-2009, 09:43 AM

Yes. For a couple of consulting projects we've done recently this was a workflow that the site owners were interested in. That said we would need to do quite a lot of requirements gathering to determine how best to support this workflow (initial site visit to subscription to vendor entry/vendor rep configuration/etc.). The biggest issues to work around is what type of subscription options would be configured to support different advertising options and how that relates to vendor entry, vendor rep capabilities, etc.

If you can share how you would like to see this work given the way you run your site and others can share their practices it will help us develop a proposal for an add-on to Vendor Tools.

Thanks!

Mark

Andy R · #5 (**permalink**) 10-10-2009, 08:23 PM

Having a way for vendors tools to accept payment from vendors through PayPal just like the subscription feature would be really make Vendor Tools a complete solution IMO. This would require having level (or usergroups) inside vendors with each having different permissions and settings. I don't know if linking the built-in vBulletin subscription is the best idea for this or having it's own built into Vendor Tools would be an easier solution or not.

If 'user name' for vendor = usergroup x then show all details
If 'user name' for vendor = usergroup y then show some details
If 'user name' for vendor = usergroup z then show no details

Another idea might be to have vendorgroups where you set permissions (as described above) and then a field to link the vendor groups to usergroups. If you then use the built-in Subscription Manager and that upgrades a vendor to Usergroup X, a schedule task can go through and read which user names are in the usergroup and then assign them to the proper vendorgroup.

Adding a simple banner rotation script to show banners on the sites for vendors is also a 'must have' in my opinion. A banner script with a payment solution would really round out this script and bring considerable more value to a buyer therefore increasing sales IMO.

Mark · #6 (**permalink**) 10-10-2009, 09:23 PM

Andy - both payment and advertising pieces are something that we've considered for add-ons to Vendor Tools. That said I've run across a gamut of how site owners are managing their sites. Some don't have advertising programs, some have existing banner serving systems, etc. so I've not seen a enough data from the customer base to determine what is really needed or desired. Right now the way we are proceeding is to offer our experience with advertising programs and vendor management to help site owners use Vendor Tools as a core to building revenue with their sites. I realize that there are still a bunch of manual steps when taking this approach but I'm trying to identify a general pattern that, if well understood, we can develop some solutions for.

I would love to get your feedback on how you want to use Vendor Tools and I would be happy to work with you to set up the manual steps and pieces that surround it. Once we understand that process and have it working well we can look at how much of that we can automate and manage through Vendor Tools and additional add-ons for it.

Thanks!

Mark

Andy R · #7 (**permalink**) 10-10-2009, 10:41 PM

If the system Woody described was available that would be great. I understand it's quite complex and could be very happy with just a banner script that rotated banners evenly between the sponsors who have paid to have their banners shown (ie. 10 sponsors would mean each one's banners show 10% of the time). If someone wanted 2x or 3x the banners they could just have pay for 3 vendor slots and get the same effect, so having a way to suppress them from showing up 3 times on the vendor list would be needed.

There are tools out there to provide self provisioning for ads with OpenX:
RevMax 4 for OpenX 2.8 advertiser signup banner uploads and payments | btdsoft.com

Maybe the work flow should be that a tool like RevMax is used to collect payments and then the site owner just configures Vendors Tools based on that order? That way the site owner can show a banner or not show a banner based on the submission.

You are right there, are tons of ways to slice this up. I'd probably be game for what ever as long as the process was automated.

Mark · #8 (**permalink**) 10-12-2009, 11:25 AM

Thanks for the reference to RevMax. I hadn't heard of it before but now have spent a bit of time looking it over.

I also spent some time looking at the vBulletin ad placements that are delivered out of the box. If we were able to provide an add-on to Vendor Tools that would provide:

The admin to enable the standard vBulletin areas, create new areas, and define the sizes of banners that can go into them
The admin can define, as part of provisioning a new vendor, what ad areas they have access to
The vendor the ability upload/manage banners that go into each of the placement locations they are provisioned for
Simple round robin displays of banners in each placement location that is active

Would this be a sufficient starting point?

As Vendor Tools is really geared as directory and tool to facilitate vendor engagement (rapport building) we have expected that offering add-ons would be the next logical step. Having add-ons that would handle both the e-commerce aspect of getting vendors signed as well as ad management seem to be of interest to a lot of the forum owners we've been talking to.

As for the e-commerce aspect the hardest part is dealing with the means of Payment. If we could piggy back on the vBulletin supported payment APIs that would be ideal. Unfortunately there are pros and cons with each (ie - the Authorize.net API doesn't support recurring credit card charges). If we can get more feedback on the workflow that forum owners are using/want to use that would help us greatly on determining if there is something of value we can offer on this particular front.

Thanks!

Mark

Andy R · #9 (**permalink**) 10-12-2009, 11:51 AM

What you outlined above would be excellent.

I would guess that 90% (or more) of forum owners use PayPal. I'd just piggy back onto the vBulletin system if possible and outline the limitations.

Mark · #10 (**permalink**) 10-12-2009, 12:44 PM

Thanks for the feedback. I'll have to experiment with this a bit over the next few weeks to try to get the workflow to gel in my head and ultimately lead to something that we can develop and integrate cleanly as an add-on to Vendor Tools. As I get a clearer picture of what this might be I'll share it with you.

Thanks!

Mark