BOULDER, Colo. (BRAIN) — The BuySell feature on BRAIN's sister site Pinkbike.com is popular with many bike retailers who use it to sell new and used merchandise. This week Pinkbike announced some improvements to the program, including a peer rating system for buyers and sellers.
"Buying and selling things online relies on trust between buyers and sellers. Historically, the BuySell has benefited from the Pinkbike community: actual riders buying and selling their gear, where active users could earn reputations and scammers stood out. But as the platform has grown, scam attempts have gotten more sophisticated and effective," said Brian Park, the executive director of cycling content at Outside.
"To more easily identify good sellers and bad actors, we've introduced BuySell User Reviews, a system that lets people rate and review their communications and transactions with other users. At the same time, we're updating the pricing for boosted listings and increasing the number of active listings allowed," Park said.
On BuySell, Pinkbike doesn't handle payments or verify transactions. Exchanges are entirely between users. Now, buyers and sellers can leave public feedback after their interactions, helping others decide who to deal with and who to avoid.
Buyers and sellers can leave a review for another user when they've had a two-way conversation about a BuySell listing through Pinkbike messages, or a seller marks an item as sold to another Pinkbike user.
When marking an item as sold, sellers can tag the buyer's username, either by selecting them from the message list or adding it manually if the sale happened elsewhere (like a shop or local meetup). Once the sale is marked, both users can leave reviews for each other.
If a review is linked to a completed sale, it will indicate that a product was bought or sold.
Anyone who gets a review they don't agree with can communicate to resolve the issue directly or dispute the review with Pinkbike, which will hide the review while moderators review it.
If the review stands, it returns to public view. If it's removed, it's gone for good and can't be re-posted for that item.
Alongside the launch of User Reviews, Pinkbike also rolled out a few updates aimed at improving how the BuySell marketplace works for everyone.
In the past, Pinkbike limited the number of active listings to distinguish private sellers from businesses. Now those limits have been raised so private sellers don't have to bundle multiple products into a single listing.
Pinkbike also increased prices for Boosted Listings to reduce search clutter and improve visibility for quality listings. This is intended to maintain the revenue needed to continue improving the platform, while decreasing the overall number of boosts. Fewer boosted posts means each one gets more meaningful exposure, and buyers get more relevant search results, Park said.
Currently free accounts are allowed to make up to 20 active listings, with Boosts costing $20. Outside+ account holders can make up to 30 active listings, with $5 Boosts. Powerseller accounts can make unlimited listings, with $2 Boosts.
More information on Pinkbike.
