A "Trader" facility on a website is an area connecting buyers to
sellers of second-hand goods.
I.T. Beyond provides a Trader facility to the ExplorOz website, which you can
view [click here]
for a working example of what can be remodelled to suit your needs. In this
example, the Trader operates as follows:
sellers enter 256 characters of
text in an online form, plus their email address, which is masked into a
Send Enquiry link plus optional phone number. The ad is displayed online
immediately and can be searched by a combination of Category/State/Ad Type.
Each new ad loaded is listed above older ads and automatically expire after
1 month. ExplorOz offer this a free service to sellers. Buyers view the ads
online and make contact direct with the seller via email or phone. There is
no interaction been the website owner and buyers/sellers.
sellers may elect to pay for
their ad (via the ExplorOz online payment system), which enables them to
upload additional text plus an image with their ad, which is displayed
online immediately and can be searched as per above. However, paid ads do
not expire automatically and rely on the seller to flag it as sold to remove
the advert.
For both ad types, free or paid,
the seller is given access via a unique link string per ad, to enable them
to edit their ad or to flag the item as sold.
A Trader facility can be easily added
to your site on request using similar mechanics as outline above, or customised
to your needs.