Autopia Community Support

[DavidB]

Dear Autopians,

The cost to run Autopia for the past 12 months was a staggering $39,000. This figure does not include my personal time or the time put into the community by our Moderator team. It also does not take into account the upgrade costs we have deferred until later this year.

Reviewing our outbound link traffic (the traffic we sent to other sites), I discovered that the Autopia community delivered just under 900,000 page views to other websites. Our logs revealed more than 100 commercial websites that directly benefited from you clicking on links within the threads and posts of Autopia.org. To fairly report my findings, my own business was the beneficiary of approximately 85,000 of those outbound page views (into http://autopia-carcare.com).

My analysis tells me that Autopia.org influenced between $2,500,000 and $4,000,000 in direct sales in the last year (based on the ratio of TPS direct sales from in-bound clicks to the total number of clicks delivered). All of this benefit was largely funded by The Perfect Shine, LLC (the corporate owner of Autopia.org).

It is now time for all those commercial entities that benefit from the Autopia.org community to compensate the community for the gains they enjoy. Compensation, taken in the form of advertising, will help pay for:

1. Computer hardware and software
2. Technical support and annual licenses
3. Network connectivity and bandwidth
4. Moderator benefits
5. Support staff

In return for their advertising dollar, The Perfect Shine, LLC (TPS) proposes to offer the following benefits to Autopia.org sponsors:

1. Access to Autopia.org community members
2. A listing in the sponsor directory
3. A listing in the Web Links database

For additional fees, TPS will offer premium sponsors enhanced opportunities for marketing and direct access to community members, including:

1. Placement of banner or text advertisements
2. Links and text ads on the Autopia Reviews system
3. A dedicated forum area for their business
4. The ability to display product review results on their web pages

In order to offer the most benefit where it belongs (with the paying sponsors), we will be asking vendors who are not sponsoring the community to limit their use of the community to reading posts.

Sponsor packages will be very affordable, starting as low as $50 per month. All vendors and manufacturers who received $6,000 or more in direct or indirect sales from Autopia.org in 2004 will benefit from this opportunity.

This change on Autopia.org is being affected so that the community can continue to grow and remain solvent. This change will not impact the discussions you (non-vending members) may have, or your ability to link to your favorite resources. However, we will ask that you please try to support the vendors who support Autopia.org.

Sponsor packages will be available later this week. We will begin changing the status of known vendors to “Supporting Vendor” and “Non-Supporting Vendor” next week.

As a competing vendor (TPS and its affiliated stores) in the Autopia.org community, TPS will hold itself to the same standards we have set for the rest of the community. We will make any and all marketing opportunities that we provide for ourselves available to our competitors at competitive prices (e.g., our cost to deliver a customer/sale will be competitive with Google). TPS is committed to keeping Autopia.org an open platform for the discussion of all topics, products and companies related to car detailing and the automotive appearance industry.

This change in our policy will directly benefit all members and will fairly distribute the cost of running Autopia.org to those who benefit from Autopia.org commerce. If you have any questions, I ask that you please contact me directly at david@autopia.org. I cannot answer questions regarding sponsorship in the public forum.

Regards,
David

[Shiny Lil Detlr]

$2.5 - 4 MILLION in sales?! Holy crap; I knew we were all obsessed, but that's one helluva lot of wax!!

[DavidB]

That is only the "direct" sales, meaning purchases made when someone clicks on a link from within Autopia.org. The actual sales influenced by Autopia.org are MUCH higher.

[Pup]

I know this is my first post.
However I have been reading this forum for ages.
Another very large site (on a different topic) has members who give a small amount every year (20 dollers) its not mandatory nor do the people who do it get anything in return except for a small image under there username and avater.

I don't know how everyone would feel about this, however I personally have learnt a heck of a lot from all the users and its because of the owner that this has happend. So I personally would be willing to help support this place.

[kpounds]

David, I really think user donations could help out too. Just a simple Paypal link and lots of us could donate $5-10 (times 20,000 members it adds up).

[paco]

It wasn't long ago that members were contributing. Not really sure when and why it stopped though. I seem to recall it being $10 or so but I could be wrong.

David does bring up an interesting point. If our sales are generating that much revenue, then the Autopia community should be compensated for it by contributing to the site so that upgrades and costs of maintaining the site are covered by our direct sales.

Why should we be hit twice??? Personally, I don't mind contributing to the site but the mayor does bring up a valid perspective.

[D3mon]

Can thoroughly recommend Google's Adsense system as a nice, easily-managed source of revenue.

[kompressornsc]

I think David's in a tough position. He supports the site through sales in his own business, sells ad space to competitors, and allows competitors to post (without spamming). It's not a situation I would want to be in, and from a business standpoint, he would probably be better off not allowing any links, recommendations of other products, competitors, etc. on the site, but of course, that would kill the community. It's a tough situation. I don't know that I would want to have to make the decisions he does. I guess ultimately, the members will decide with their wallet the direction Autopia goes. I personally haven't ordered anything form David, but will when I need something he carries just out of support. And honestly, I think he goes out of his way not to shove the store down our throats. I was trying to find it one time, and it actually took me a while to do so. Another site I am on, a tuner owns the site and you know it.

[DavidB]

Thanks for the feedback on this issue. Here are my thoughts:

1. This is a large market. There are millions of car enthusiasts. That means there are plenty of sales to go around to all vendors who earn a good reputation. Those vendors will be welcome to advertise here, just as my own business will do.

2. The "community" is important to me because without it I would not be in this business. I am first and foremost a car crazy enthusiast. My business can roll over and die; the community will live on.

3. This community gives enough business to enough vendors that it [the community] should be supported by those who profit, not by the members. Members pay more than their fair share through product purchases.

In the past, I made the mistake of allowing "product partners" to have excessive access to the community. Some of the product partners (including 1Z, Meguiar's and some smaller players), used the community inappropriately. This mistake shall not happen again. No pay... no play.

I tried to make Autopia an open environment where enthusiasts and vendors could freely interact. Unfortunately, my generosity was mostly taken advantage of by those who found Autopia to be a target-rich environment to increase their sales. This is all well and good, but I was left holding the bill.

Where we are going is quite simple. Vendors will no longer have any opportunity to discuss their products in any forum area other than “Ask the Manufacturer” or a private forum area they specifically sponsor. Because the PM system has been grossly abused by sellers, vendors will not be permitted PM privileges. These simple steps will stop the unsupported selling within the community.

Now, the good news is what we will do for vendosr that will help their business:

1. A basic advertisement listing on the sponsor page will cost $50 per month. That’s cheap! My average paid click on Google is over $.50.

2. There will be multiple pay-for-performance banner placement opportunities. Most of the ad placement will be focused in the Autopia Reviews area, where it belongs. I am not going to garbage up the forum and make it look like a billboard.

3. Manufacturers (including the boutique labels) will be able to add their products in the Autopia Review database through an express inclusion service. We will eventually add most products, but express inclusion will allow the manufacturer to control the text and presentation. Why a paid express inclusion? Simple… I have to pay for our Content Secretary’s time.

4. Advertisers will be able to include Autopia Review ratings on their websites. I just completed the programming for this and it works great. See http://www.autopia-carcare.com/p21-145.html, as an example. The Star rating and rating test are not part of my store page. This information is dynamically served to each product page in my store by the Autopia Review system. Paying advertisers are welcome to have this same advantage. All that’s needed is a SKU number for each product. It was a lot of effort on my part to develop this technology.

5. I have a network of enthusiast car sites that want to publish our ads and content on their website. That means our content (product reviews, articles, etc.) have an even greater opportunity to assist advertisers. Here’s an example of how our content is served to another community: http://www.mercedesshop.com/diy/deta...location=index. I will make this same content delivery capability available to paying sponsors. Of course, the clicks within the content go to the sponsor.

“Content is King” on websites, and this community creates a lot of content. Every car enthusiast shares a common passion for having a nice looking car. Not everyone is as nuts about detailing as we Autopians, but all car enthusiasts need the basic information about how to detail correctly. Everyone wants to know what products work. That information is largely coming from us.

I track an amazing amount of information. The number of inbound page views we receive from other car communities is staggering. You can hardly find a car community on the internet that has not linked to Autopia at one time or another. I know, because I have all of the information recorded. We [Autopians] have a huge influence in the buying decisions of hundreds of thousands of car enthusiasts. That influence needs to be supported by the vendors who benefit from this community.

[Setec Astronomy]

Originally posted by DavidB

Vendors will no longer have any opportunity to discuss their products in any forum area other than “Ask the Manufacturer” or a private forum area they specifically sponsor. Because the PM system has been grossly abused by sellers, vendors will not be permitted PM privileges.

I'm confused about this. Above, you use the terms vendor, manufacturer, and seller. Do these mean different things to you? Once I asked a question in "Ask the Manufacturer" and was told by a mod that I had improperly posted as I was asking a vendor, who wasn't a manufacturer, but now you are saying that vendors will be able to use that forum.

And what does your statement above mean for people who have a side business, but are active members of the community? That they will no longer have PM privileges? Where will you draw the line between "basement vendors" and pro/semi-pro detailers who might also profit from this site? I see many posts looking for detailers in certain areas...if a detailer gets a job from one of these posts does he then become a "vendor" who must become a sponsor or have his forum access reduced?

I'm just thinking about many valuable contributors who could be construed as making a profit from this site and therefore losing them as regulars.

[DavidB]

Mike,

I wrote that late last night so I was pretty tired and did not check for consistency in wording.

In the Autopia community, a "seller/vendor" is anyone who sells and profits from car care products and services. In general, this means anyone in the car care and detailing supply business.

If someone is a weekend warrior (selling out of their trunk once a month at a car event), I don't think of tthem as being in the business. It's a hobby.

Otherwise, anyone who sell products and profits by "networking" with members on Autopia should assist with the cost of operating the community. If a seller never makes it known to Autopia that they offer products, and they do not use the community for networking, they do not benefit.

db

[Somedevil]

David, it sounds like you've got a really good plan here. For me, every single car care product purchase I've made in the past year has been the direct result of reading this forum. No doubt this site generates a tremendous amount of revenue for vendors, and the benefit should work both ways.

--somedevil