This may be more than I need

[isthisforme]

I'm interested in starting a niche freelance site for a certain industry. I don't want it to be a bidding site. It will be a membership site though where buyers pay a fee to join and the site collects % of freelancers invoice.

I found this site as I was interested in the profile, feedback and escrow features.

I'm not interested in running "auctions." Also I would like interaction among buyers and sellers like a forum.

Should I be looking for something different?

[Erin]

If you like the other features you see within ILance, then I would say go for it and simply have custom development work outsourced to take out any logic you do not require for your business plan, perhaps it may save you a ton if you are working with what is already available within ILance.

Best to fully review the demo: http://demo.ilance.com

I have also sent you a PM of the admin demo access

thanks

[Peter]

I'm interested in starting a niche freelance site for a certain industry.


That's what ILance does best :) Social Freelance Marketplace Solution based on Reverse Auction Logic.


I don't want it to be a bidding site. It will be a membership site though where buyers pay a fee to join and the site collects % of freelancers invoice.


ILance offers a subscription matrix to allow you to create multiple subscription plans charging your members as you see fit.


I found this site as I was interested in the profile, feedback and escrow features.


Keep in mind, profile also connects feedback which is also connected to "bidding". I mean if you think about it, a Freelance site is a place where a buyer is looking for something, posts a listing about what they want, and then providers (bidders) bid with their best proposal and comment about doing the work, job, task. When the buyer selects the winning bidder, they can communicate, leave feedback, rate one another and it all interconnects to the main public profile menu.

In terms of "Escrow" well, escrow cannot be used if you are not allowing users to place bids or post auction listings. Escrow is tightly intergrated into ILance to provide you control from start to finish. If there are problems, you have control to force refunds, force release of payment and so forth.


I'm not interested in running "auctions." Also I would like interaction among buyers and sellers like a forum.


Okay, so you won't allowing "bidding" nor will you support "auctions" well I'm confused totally now :) You want to charge members for joining, you want to let them have feedback and maybe use escrow but nobody can list or bid on anything :). See my point? How do you want to run shop exactly?

As per running a "forum" you can buy LanceBB (http://www.ilance.com/lancebb) which is ILance's own solution for running a forum community within your marketplace. It's priced to sell.


Should I be looking for something different?

I'm not sure what you're actually looking for to be honest. ILance is a marketplace solution. It offers reverse auction, forward auction, lowest unique bid auction formats, escrow, profiles, feedback, ratings, advanced search, search engine friendly optimization and much more to get indexed quickly in the search engines.

From experience (and IMO) I can't see any member paying for a web site which doesn't allow them to bid, buy or sell.

Also, can you sum up in one sentence what you're looking at doing? just so I know if ILance can or cannot work for you. For example, how do you plan on letting users use escrow or feedback/ratings if they are not bidding or posting listings?

Regards,
Peter