What do you think about the idea of having vendor forums?

Each vendor forum would be dedicated to postings from, to, and about a particular canoe product vendor—let's say Rushton Canoes. Rushton could post announcements or other information about their products in the Rushton forum, just as they may do today on Facebook/X. I wouldn't charge them. The quid pro quo would be that someone at Rushton has to be reasonably available for Q&As about Rushton products asked in the Rushton forum, just as they may do today in responding to Facebook/X comments.

It would be a way to facilitate more direct communication between vendors and our members, hopefully helping all parties via more informed and increased sales. We could try to start with the major canoe and paddle manufacturers and then perhaps select gear manufacturers.

I first saw vendor forums on Shotgunworld, but they seem to have cut back on the number, possibly because they charge the vendors for their forums. A better current example is probably the vendor forums at Bushcraft USA. Take a look. Many of the forums seem very active and popular.

What do you think? If any vendors are reading, I'd be interested in your thoughts too.

I think this could be a good idea and potentially expose members to some of the smaller canoe dealers in their areas.

As long as it stays within one forum and doesn’t bleed into other areas of the site I could get behind this.

Worth a try. And as Jm suggested above, mods could enforce restriction on posting within the dedicated forum, being responsive to member inquiries and monitor for posts unrelated to our interests.

I participate in a bicycling forum,

https://forums.thepaceline.net/forumdisplay.php?f=3

Vendors are listed there on a header group, with ‘clickable’ icons. Viewers are taken directly to that vendors website. I presume the vendors pay a fee to be present on the forum opening page, and they don’t impact a users visit if one doesn’t click on them. Perhaps that’s an option.

Kathleen and I have self-published three books on our wilderness adventures. Does that qualify us as vendors?

Patrick Corry said:

I participate in a bicycling forum,

https://forums.thepaceline.net/forumdisplay.php?f=3

Vendors are listed there on a header group, with ‘clickable’ icons. Viewers are taken directly to that vendors website. I presume the vendors pay a fee to be present on the forum opening page, and they don’t impact a users visit if one doesn’t click on them. Perhaps that’s an option.

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It's a reasonable idea and a reasonable way to do it BUT it goes against the stated policy of this site to never have paid for advertising.

Myccr has advertisers listed down the side of the screen. It irritates me. Makes me reluctant to view the site.

Patrick Corry said:

Vendors are listed there on a header group, with ‘clickable’ icons. Viewers are taken directly to that vendors website.

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recped said:

It's a reasonable idea and a reasonable way to do it BUT it goes against the stated policy of this site to never have paid for advertising.

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Pat, what I see on the bike site are clickable vendor ads. Recped is right that this is simply paid advertising. I'm talking about having public conversation forums for specific canoe product vendors.

Again, my thought is to set up a seventh category node called something like "Vendor Forums." Under this node would be a public forum for each vendor that wants to participate, such as the "Swift Forum", "Hemlock Forum", "Northstar Forum", "Wenonah Forum", "Badger Paddle Forum", etc. There would be no charge to the vendors for this, but they would have to be willing to reasonably respond to reasonable questions in their public forum that members ask. (For example: "Swift, how much weight does your new UV shield and epoxy upgrade add to a Keewaydin 15 solo canoe.")

This wouldn't affect any of our six current category nodes or 40 current forums, all of which will still be governed by the same site rules, and anyone who is uninterested in the entire Vendor Forums category can simply ignore it.

There would be no charge, no payment to us, required of the vendor. Yes, the information or announcements they post in their forum could be considered advertising, but so what. We want that information, and members will eventually post or link to the same info here anyway.

Again, the best example I know is the Bushcraft USA site, linked in my OP, for those who take the time to look.

PaddlingPitt said:

Kathleen and I have self-published three books on our wilderness adventures. Does that qualify us as vendors?

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Of course, you are both Vendors for Life and many other good things. Especially Kathleen; she's never given me any grief. Everyone who starts a thread has a "forum", and everyone should start a lot more of them.

PaddlingPitt said:

Myccr has advertisers listed down the side of the screen. It irritates me. Makes me reluctant to view the site.

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For the third time, I'm NOT TALKING ABOUT PAID ADS.

Glenn MacGrady said:

I'm talking about having public conversation forums for specific canoe product vendors.

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Apparently I misunderstood your intent. I was not lobbying or advocating for paid advertisers.

I think the members here give good/poor/ bad reviews of plenty of products they like or don’t like. Having vendors advertising here is a non-starter for me. Just opening the door to all kinds of mischief.

I was on a sawmill forum that had vendor forums like that. They generally saw little use. Most users tended to ask questions on the general forums because they were looking for feedback from members rather than direct from the manufacturer.

That being said they weren't a distraction either. They were just there and they didn't interfere with regular forum viewing.

I don't recall any of the manufacturers using them as an advertising platform.

Alan

My knee-jerk reaction is against this idea.

I think the lack of commercialism on this forum is increasingly unique on the internet. Obviously all should be welcome and new members aren't bad (we need a critical minimum to keep the lights on), but think our relatively low number of members helps keep things civil and friendly here, relative to say paddling.com (formerly paddling.net), which has gone commercial and on which almost every thread seems to descend into bickering and politics. Facebook groups relevant to canoeing also seem to have more traffic and more bickering.

I agree with @Boreal Birch that this could open the door to unwanted traffic. What if a dealer says '20% discount to everyone who joins CT and likes my post!'? Who decides which vendors do and don't get a platform? What if Dick's or REI or Cabela's want one? Are they fair game? Hopefully Amazon and Walmart aren't despite selling camping and paddling gear?

And I think members give plenty of honest suggestions. Folks can recommend vendors in the Small-scale Retailers section. I know there are some members here who work for or know vendors and chime in from time to time - fine by me. Enough of us follow vendors, and report conversations with vendors, that I don't feel like we're missing much.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it?

Two other forums that I regularly frequent have sub-forums set aside for manufacturers/dealers. It takes nothing away from the main site and adds just a bit of familiarity to the member/vendor relationship.

The most popular one charges vendors for posting privileges, but that forum has well north of 50k members and 10M messages.

I guess my first response was similar to Tsuga8's but it's worth a try. My hunch, based on similar forums, is that you won't see much additional participation by manufacturers just because there's a sub-forum for them. But maybe this site will be the exception because of it's smaller size and more focused topics.

Answer = unsure,
No move is better then a bad move?

I frequent a large firearms forum. The vender forum is quite heavily populated. New posts in the vender forum also show up when one clicks on the general "new posts" icon. I know you mention it is not paid advertising, but on this particular site, vendors pay to be hosted.

Generally speaking, I never visit the vender forum. However, if a post shows up in the new posts with an ad for something that looks good, I will usually click on it to check it out.

I don't see it working like that on a canoe site though, as stuff usually doesn't go on sale. However, talking to someone directly from the company on this forum would be a good thing, if the company actually agreed to invest that kind of time.

The one bad thing for the vendors is that their particular forum can often become a B1tch forum, where unhappy customers unload in the best unbridled low class no consequence internet fashion. On the positive side, if the vendor handles the complaint in a classy way, the complainer often ends up looking like a jerk, and the vendor gains credibility.

What are the chances of Bill Swift responding to a question about one of his canoes in a vendor forum on this site? Could be a good marketing opportunity, especially if it was free.

IMHO, I think a separate forum is unnecessary. Vendors are already welcome to comment on existing threads about their products, and can start new threads whenever they want. I suspect a "vendor" section will become a "dead zone" with very little activity.

It's worth a try. Forums require funding to keep the lights on and this seems like a very unobtrusive way to handle it.

The only issue/worry I would have is that useful vendor content could quickly become another advertising opportunity ... in some cases