Non-Vendor Accounts Posting about Shops

[Modyrts]

(This is a message from a conversation with a mod that never got back to me)

I just want to enquire with an issue I've been having recently with Ecigssa and it's moderators. I have been a member for years now and I don't recall ever having any issues or disrespecting anyone. I would appreciate if this issue could be reviewed by the appropriate members of the staff on Ecigssa.

I am a manager at a vape shop in my area and whenever I talk about my experiences and such in any post I make my post gets removed for advertising.

Now I want to bring up this issue, in none of my posts do I ever recommend anyone buy anything from me. I never self promote any products or even my vape shop. As far as I am aware I have never once even mentioned the name of my store, the products in specific that I sell, their prices or their specials. Yet my post on a review for a vaporesso xros gets deleted because I said and I quote 'I have sold countless of these and I have never received any complaints so I stand by it 100%'

Now please bare in mind that this isn't directed at you or any of the other staff members but this is bs.

I don't think it's fair that my experiences of managing working and owning a vape shop gets purely silenced due to the fact that it is. If I were advertising my shop I completely agree with the rules. However I do not intend to open up a seperate page for my vape store as my partner is against the idea. However I would appreciate it if I could post about things such as "I get people coming into my shop with weird requests such as motor oil" without it being removed for advertising...

I would appreciate if this could be reviewed as it is becoming a hassle.

 

[Grand Guru]

Tell us more about “the motor oil” please before this thread is closed by the mods. I’m intrigued

on a more serious note. It is different when you speak about products from a consumer/reviewer perspective… Whereas from a shop owner perspective, praising a product-despite your best intentions- can be considered as advertisement as you have a conflict of interest in this situation.

 

[Rob Fisher]

@Modyrts I can't really comment on your posts because I don't remember ever deleting any of your posts... but the bottom line is being a supporting vendor on ECIGSSA is really reasonable (40% of one Chinese RTA) and every vendor is crazy not to take the opportunity that ECIGSSA gives them to promote their business in their OWN FORUM.

As always some spoil it for others and keep trying to advertise their vape business without supporting the forum, so the mods are asked to nuke all attempts at promoting a vape business in the general forums... The general forums are for the members to discuss and chat with fellow vapers... in the past when we were lenient it was abused and if you are like me, and I suspect most others, we are sick and tired of adverts in our face and we certainly don't want them in our general forums.

I delete at least one or two blatant adverts every week... granted it's normally from people that have just joined and haven't read the rules of the forum and haven't even introduced themselves.

Provided you don't mention your vape shop or the products you sell in it you should be good to go.

 

[Modyrts]

Tell us more about “the motor oil” please before this thread is closed by the mods. I’m intrigued

on a more serious note. It is different when you speak about products from a consumer/reviewer perspective… Whereas from a shop owner perspective, praising a product-despite your best intentions- can be considered as advertisement as you have a conflict of interest in this situation.

So basically my store is situated between two shopping centers and on a main road so we get a lot of random foot traffic from random people. Ive had people ask me if we sell adult toys motor oil, if we do printing I had a saleswoman from some winery come market her companies wine thinking we were a bar or something people coming in and ordering pizza, I once had a "exotic offer me service if I gave her a vape.

I once even did a full quote for a guy who insisted I give him a quote for the tattoo he wanted even after I told him we don't do tattoos. There are some very strange folk out there and Id love to share these stories as I have before but they always get removed for advertising.

Just to get to that point about the owner thing. For this purpose Ive never mentioned the store or any advertising of the sort. I did once ask what people want stocked in a store which got removed. I get that but as many of my patrons know I don't give dam if its a terrible product I wont sell it. But that's besides the point I completely agree with what you're saying but usually my posts are warning people not to buy products such as my most recent rant about Voopoo.

 

[Modyrts]

@Modyrts I can't really comment on your posts because I don't remember ever deleting any of your posts... but the bottom line is being a supporting vendor on ECIGSSA is really reasonable (40% of one Chinese RTA) and every vendor is crazy not to take the opportunity that ECIGSSA gives them to promote their business in their OWN FORUM.

As always some spoil it for others and keep trying to advertise their vape business without supporting the forum, so the mods are asked to nuke all attempts at promoting a vape business in the general forums... The general forums are for the members to discuss and chat with fellow vapers... in the past when we were lenient it was abused and if you are like me, and I suspect most others, we are sick and tired of adverts in our face and we certainly don't want them in our general forums.

I delete at least one or two blatant adverts every week... granted it's normally from people that have just joined and haven't read the rules of the forum and haven't even introduced themselves.

Provided you don't mention your vape shop or the products you sell in it you should be good to go.

Evening Rob, pleasure to hear from you again, it has been a while. I don't believe you've personally removed any of my posts but a few other mods definitely have.
I completely understand that you would like to avoid adds and I support that 100% Ecigssa needs income to stay operational.
That being said, I just want this to be reviewed as I said in my original post, I dont do advertising or such or ever mention the shop. I purely posted a review about a pod mentioned that it is a popular device and got removed for advertising. I mean really... Had I said "I sell it for Rxxx or come buy it at yyy" I would understand

I mean I've had to be sneaky in a recent post as what people would like to see stocked in a vape shop because last time I openly asked "What do you guys want from vape shops" i got removed

 

[Rob Fisher]

Evening Rob, pleasure to hear from you again, it has been a while. I don't believe you've personally removed any of my posts but a few other mods definitely have.
I completely understand that you would like to avoid adds and I support that 100% Ecigssa needs income to stay operational.
That being said, I just want this to be reviewed as I said in my original post, I dont do advertising or such or ever mention the shop. I purely posted a review about a pod mentioned that it is a popular device and got removed for advertising. I mean really... Had I said "I sell it for Rxxx or come buy it at yyy" I would understand

Understood! It's a fine line the mods walk keeping the forum the place we want it to be and nuking...

 

[Modyrts]

Understood! It's a fine line the mods walk keeping the forum the place we want it to be and nuking...

Completely understand. I used to be a mod on reddit and another forums page... people can be disturbing...

 

[Silver]

Hi @Modyrts

if you are a vendor and want to share your ‘vendor’ experiences why don’t you consider supporting the forum?

By you “advertising” that you are a vendor of sorts on the general threads it’s unfair to other vendors that support the forum

Folks can easily message you and ask you for a follow up question and in so doing you are indirectly promoting your vaping business

the reason why that is unfair is that our supporting vendors are not allowed to discuss products or services in the general threads.

Hope that makes sense

You are more than welcome to contact me should you wish to become a supporting vendor

Bear in mind that this forum has been running with this policy for many years and it has been working well

 

[Modyrts]

Hi @Modyrts

if you are a vendor and want to share your ‘vendor’ experiences why don’t you consider supporting the forum?

By you “advertising” that you are a vendor of sorts on the general threads it’s unfair to other vendors that support the forum

Folks can easily message you and ask you for a follow up question and in so doing you are indirectly promoting your vaping business

the reason why that is unfair is that our supporting vendors are not allowed to discuss products or services in the general threads.

Hope that makes sense

You are more than welcome to contact me should you wish to become a supporting vendor

Bear in mind that this forum has been running with this policy for many years and it has been working well

Good evening @Silver
Please see your personal mail.
Regards

 

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

I want to fully support @Rob Fisher and @Silver 's responses.

I read your thread https://www.ecigssa.co.za/voopoo-let-me-down.t72936/ before reading this one.

Although I am a long-time active member I had no idea that you owned a vape shop. Reading your thread confused me. Your comments lead me to believe that you were not just a member of the vaping public.

Comments like " I've seen countless of these break in one drop" and, " I know of 5 or 6 people who are walking around with cable ties around their vapes " lead me to realise that you could only be a vendor.

I would have no problem with a member saying " Honestly just don't buy them" ... (Voopoo products). I do however have an issue with a vendor saying this. One reason is that this could have a negative influence on the sales of other vendors. Another is that members who like Voopoo products may start doubting their decision to buy the item concerned.

For some strange reason, the general vaping public would believe the views of a vendor before those of other experienced vapers.

No matter how well-intentioned a vendor is (as I believe you probably are) there is always a bias. I have been in a couple of vape shops where the staff speaks badly about products they don't stock or no longer stock. No shop can stock all products but speaking badly about items which they don't stock seems to be done to convince the shopper to buy one or their own products.

I believe that the forum's policy regarding vendor's comments has worked well in the past and should be left to continue to do so.

 

[Modyrts]

I want to fully support @Rob Fisher and @Silver 's responses.

I read your thread https://www.ecigssa.co.za/voopoo-let-me-down.t72936/ before reading this one.

Although I am a long-time active member I had no idea that you owned a vape shop. Reading your thread confused me. Your comments lead me to believe that you were not just a member of the vaping public.

Comments like " I've seen countless of these break in one drop" and, " I know of 5 or 6 people who are walking around with cable ties around their vapes " lead me to realise that you could only be a vendor.

I would have no problem with a member saying " Honestly just don't buy them" ... (Voopoo products). I do however have an issue with a vendor saying this. One reason is that this could have a negative influence on the sales of other vendors. Another is that members who like Voopoo products may start doubting their decision to buy the item concerned.

For some strange reason, the general vaping public would believe the views of a vendor before those of other experienced vapers.

No matter how well-intentioned a vendor is (as I believe you probably are) there is always a bias. I have been in a couple of vape shops where the staff speaks badly about products they don't stock or no longer stock. No shop can stock all products but speaking badly about items which they don't stock seems to be done to convince the shopper to buy one or their own products.

I believe that the forum's policy regarding vendor's comments has worked well in the past and should be left to continue to do so.

Lol yeah I had to get sneaky with my posts as to not say that my experience comes from me being in store because they kept getting removed.
Silver and I discussed this privately and I do see why this policy is in place and what you're saying also makes sense
But frankly speaking I'm not on these forums in any business capacity and have no intention of doing so due to other limitations. And besides have we all forgotten that the classifieds section exists? If I wanted to do business I'd just post there although these mods are pretty on point so they'd probably catch on soon enough.
I can understand the concern and necessity for the policy however I have no interest in setting up a vendor account at the moment, perhaps later on as I discussed with Silver however then my personal account still would sit with the same issues would it not? (Lets be honest, I don't want everything I say reflecting on my business) Making the whole process moot.


Again, I understand the policy, I see the need for the policy, I shall respect the forums rules, but I am not happy about it.

Immediately after sending this out I got approached by someone (mind you a non-vendor) advertising their products . This is basically why I don't want to be recognized as a vendor