Seeking Advice from experinced Fourm sellers and buyers

[daguin]

There are different markets on LPF. Initially, my target market were LPF's noobs/neophytes, but recently other hobbyists have expressed interest as well. My aim is not to rip people off with higher prices, but to have my best work sold at competitive prices.

This is one of the main reasons why I decided to stop trying to help you
I went back through and re-read the threads all the way through

Your story keeps shifting

You appear to be willing to say whatever you think you must say just to get people off of your back

As the story changes it is no longer possible to find the truth with you

Moh referenced SL's sale price of $599.99 to show the other side of the story: lately I've been taking heat for "overpriced" builds, but this is not true at all, especially with my recent price cuts.

You hear what you want to hear and see what you want to see
Moh's referenced SL sale is a perfect example of marketing OUTSIDE LPF.
If you put a website together and advertise it, you are then competing with WL and Optotronics, etc. You CAN ask for higher prices out there. In here, you will be called on prices that are out of line with your *known* skill level and your reputation

Peace,
dave

 

[RyanElectro]

This is one of the main reasons why I decided to stop trying to help you
I went back through and re-read the threads all the way through

Your story keeps shifting

You appear to be willing to say whatever you think you must say just to get people off of your back

As the story changes it is no longer possible to find the truth with you

What? I've been telling the truth the entire time. I have a medical condition that affects my ability to organize my thoughts properly, affecting my speech and writing, and worst: explaining. I can't speak fluently, I stutter a lot, have problems with "thought gaps", and my thoughts run on overdrive all the time, that it's hard to grasp what I really want to say: I constantly have to edit and re-edit my posts to say what I meant to say, even then it's often still not what I'm really trying to say. I have to label, colour code, set reminders for everything in my daily life to stay organized. So like I said, please bare with me.

I've always aimed at marketing to noobs and people who don't want to build their own, this has ALWAYS been the case. I feel it is the best market to start out marketing to for new seller. Though in recent PM's it seems other hobbyists have also begun to sink interest.

My aim was ALWAYS to have great quality builds at affordable/competitive prices.

What's wrong with you dave, you seem overly sharp-eyed on me. I'm a straight up honest guy and there's nothing to worry about. I've apologized to everyone... I'm now on good terms with most people who I had issues with. It's in my character to be honest and straight up, and yes I do have difficulty explaining myself. But what else do you want from me?

 

[daguin]

What? I've been telling the truth the entire time. I have a medical condition that affects my ability to organize my thoughts properly, affecting my speech and writing, and worst: explaining. I can't speak fluently, I stutter a lot, have problems with "thought gaps", and my thoughts run on overdrive all the time, that it's hard to grasp what I really want to say: I constantly have to edit and re-edit my posts to say what I meant to say, even then it's often still not what I'm really trying to say. I have to label, colour code, set reminders for everything in my daily life to stay organized. So like I said, please bare with me.

I've always aimed at marketing to noobs and people who don't want to build their own, this has ALWAYS been the case. I feel it is the best market to start out marketing to for new seller. Though in recent PM's it seems other hobbyists have also begun to sink interest.

My aim was ALWAYS to have great quality builds at affordable/competitive prices.

What's wrong with you dave, you seem overly sharp-eyed on me. I'm a straight up honest guy and there's nothing to worry about. I've apologized to everyone... I'm now on good terms with most people who I had issues with. It's in my character to be honest and straight up, and yes I do have difficulty explaining myself. But what else do you want from me?

Now you try to play a sympathy card and then try to turn it into me being mean?
That might have worked BEFORE you posted that video of you speaking "off the cuff"

Do you even listen to your own words?
You appear to simply be responding to the last thing that was said to you

I don't want anything from you.
I already tried to help
You chose to continue acting like you know better and are smarter than most of us
Live your life as you choose and I will do the same

No one needs to even believe me
Anybody can go back through to read the shifting of your story
Most won't, but it is part of my job here

I'm done trying to help

Sink or swim

Peace,
dave

 

[RyanElectro]

Now you try to play a sympathy card and then try to turn it into me being mean?
That might have worked BEFORE you posted that video of you speaking "off the cuff"

Do you even listen to your own words?
You appear to simply be responding to the last thing that was said to you

I don't want anything from you.
I already tried to help
You chose to continue acting like you know better and are smarter than most of us
Live your life as you choose and I will do the same

No one needs to even believe me
Anybody can go back through to read the shifting of your story
Most won't, but it is part of my job here

I'm done trying to help

Sink or swim

Peace,
dave

I appreciate your help, but it sounds more like being suspicious than being helpful.

Yes I'm very disorganized with my thoughts and might be perceived as inconsistent, but I'll try my best to explain. I only mean to be honest, I'm naturally very straight up and sometimes perceived as blunt or rude. I try though, I'm trying to watch what I say better, I'm just not too great with this type of thing.

Please don't think that I think I'm smarter than everyone here. I constantly reply that I'm not. I'm not an idiot, I do know some things, but I am always keen to learn more. If I sound arrogant, I'm sorry, I don't mean to. I took a lot of the advice given to me here. I'm doing what I can dave.

 

[daguin]

I appreciate your help, but it sounds more like being suspicious than being helpful.

Yes I'm very disorganized with my thoughts and might be perceived as inconsistent, but I'll try my best to explain. I only mean to be honest, I'm naturally very straight up and sometimes perceived as blunt or rude. I try though, I'm trying to watch what I say better, I'm just not too great with this type of thing.

Please don't think that I think I'm smarter than everyone here. I constantly reply that I'm not. I'm not an idiot, I do know some things, but I am always keen to learn more. If I sound arrogant, I'm sorry, I don't mean to. I took a lot of the advice given to me here. I'm doing what I can dave.

LOL! It's NOT "suspicion"

I no longer believe you

You are not "trying" to do anything but get people off of your back
Nothing else has changed

You are not "perceived" as inconsistent.
You ARE inconsistent

Here's some more advice for you:
Don't "try" Do!

You use self-deprecation as a smokescreen to cover your attitude
If you, for one minute, believed that you were an "idiot"
you would have listened to the messages given you early on

Use your schtick on someone who has not studied communication

Peace,
dave

 

[RyanElectro]

LOL! It's NOT "suspicion"

I no longer believe you

You are not "trying" to do anything but get people off of your back
Nothing else has changed

You are not "perceived" as inconsistent.
You ARE inconsistent

Here's some more advice for you:
Don't "try" Do!

You use self-deprecation as a smokescreen to cover your attitude
If you, for one minute, believed that you were an "idiot"
you would have listened to the messages given you early on

Use your schtick on someone who has not studied communication

Peace,
dave

*sigh*, I'm not here just to get people off my backs or cover my attitude. That is so low to say that of me. You clearly don't know me at all. My utmost value is honesty, ask Jeff or anyone whom I've dealt with. Yes, I do struggle with issues, and people usually say it's not hard to tell.

I really hate the fact that you think I'm a fake, covering my attitude, and dishonest, because that is exactly the type of person I despise. I'm not self-deprecating, and if you think it as so what can I do? It's the truth! Ask me for my medical records and the list of prescriptions I have to take every day. It hurts when you said I'm "self-deprecating". You think I want to admit that? I said so many times before, at least 3 times through posts and also on video, I said things like: "please bare with me", "I have difficulty explaining myself, please bare with me" "I'm not good at talking, please bare with me". What do you think I was trying to say? I didn't want to say it, but clearly you never got it. And then when I said it, you didn't believed me. I'm not the same as normal people. Believe it or not. I struggle, but I'm trying ok? I'm trying hard every day.

I hope you'll learn to understand me better as we grow as a community.

 

[tsteele93]

This whole thing is just the LPF mob mentality all over again. It happens with every person that tries to sell stuff here, Clif experienced it firsthand.

To be honest, I think it's more of sellers wanting to keep people from cutting into their profits more than it is about protecting the members. While I know that's not true for all, cutting the throat of potential competition is a factor for quite a few.

It was also mentioned earlier in this thread that some sellers can justify higher prices on their builds because they're exceptional builders. There is only so many things you can do to make a handheld good, and it's not going to get any better regardless of your skill level. So lets not let our heads get too big with our sweet laser building skillz.

To the other sellers:

Ryan hasn't scammed anyone yet (That i'm aware of) and just because his price is higher than yours, doesn't make it unreasonable. I say this because If I were able to sell lasers, they would be a LOT cheaper than any of yours, and they would be just as good in quality.

Oh, and RE's $375 laser can also be purchased HERE for $599.99

Just saying.....

God Bless You Moh... I've been reading this thread with amazement.

First, I get it. Ryan does come across as arrogant. He's clearly a really bright kid who knows that and perhaps thinks a bit highly of himself. He is young and he doesn't have the perspective of some of us older members.

Going from 0-60 in a month is ambitious, but while I haven't chosen to sell on here and I'm not quite ready to sell even if I decided to do so, I've built a few pretty decent lasers (custom heat sinks, modified pills, etc...) that I could have sold and I've only been here since Dec 11. It IS possible for someone to come up to speed fast if they are smart and organized and ambitious.

Do I think Ryan may have overdone it? Yeah. Does he deserve this blitz? Really?

Dave, you seem very worried about the AlertPay thing. I think you are jumping on the "scam" side of the issue too quickly. It really seems obvious to me (maybe I am being naive, but this is my take) that Ryan had a potential buyer in NZ and when he found out the cost of shipping according to paypal's rules, then he quoted the buyer a high shipping cost and the buyer balked so he tried to come up with a cheaper alternative.

All this talk of referral fees and scamming seems a bit out of character with someone who wants to try to sell here. It would only take one scam like that to end any chance of selling on this forum. It just doesn't make logical sense to me that he is trying to scam. He just wanted to find a way to keep the sale to NZ alive and get around high shipping fees.

I also think some of Ryan's post are being misread, but I'm not going to dissect each one and defend it. I will say that on the Internet, everything SEEMS way worse than the writer intended most of the time. I have a friend that you could send and email that said, "hope you are having a good day!" and he would read it in some sort of negative or confrontational tone.

Another thing that is interesting to me... I have been a member of corvetteforum for over ten years and you are not allowed to bash the price of someone's "for sale" listing there. I understand that it is different here, but it certainly isn't a universal thing. Lots of places, if someone wants to charge a specific price for something, then the buyer decides whether it is worth it without a lot of (potentially biased or "conflicted of interest") comments from the gallery.

Ryan shouldn't have to explain his prices. Buy, or don't buy. It isn't like you can't scan this section to see what other builds have sold for in the past.

I could go on, but I think Ryan stepped up with the video. He laid it out there and as Moh said, he hasn't scammed anyone yet. If you are a seller and can do better, then it appears that this forum allows you to step in and say, "hey, I'll build that for less.". So do that if you want. But don't get mad if someone does it to you on a sale sometime.

In closing, I won't name names - but apparently at least one member has gotten his feelings hurt by Ryan and now you are going to "stalk" him and post negative remarks in every "for sale" that he posts? Really? Is that even allowed?

Seems like it would be easy enough to step back and see if his builds are good, and if they aren't then he can fix them or make good to the buyer or be banned.

:beer:

I'll go put on my flame suit now. I'm really going to miss Moh around here.

 

[daguin]

*sigh*, I'm not here just to get people off my backs or cover my attitude. That is so low to say that of me. You clearly don't know me at all. My utmost value is honesty, ask Jeff or anyone whom I've dealt with. Yes, I do struggle with issues, and people usually say it's not hard to tell.

I really hate the fact that you think I'm a fake, covering my attitude, and dishonest, because that is exactly the type of person I despise. I'm not self-deprecating, and if you think it as so what can I do? It's the truth! Ask me for my medical records and the list of prescriptions I have to take every day. It hurts when you said I'm "self-deprecating". You think I want to admit that? I said so many times before, at least 3 times through posts and also on video, I said things like: "please bare with me", "I have difficulty explaining myself, please bare with me" "I'm not good at talking, please bare with me". What do you think I was trying to say? I didn't want to say it, but clearly you never got it. And then when I said it, you didn't believed me. I'm not the same as normal people. Believe it or not. I struggle, but I'm trying ok? I'm trying hard every day.

I hope you'll learn to understand me better as we grow as a community.

Others have decided you need defending.
I imagine it is because I am not being "nice"

I'll leave you to the slings and arrows of the forum after I put the above song and dance to rest

You have pulled sympathy with the "I don't explain myself well. Please bear with me" whine

You were perfectly eloquent in the video you made.
You made that video without notes or manuscript
Yet you displayed fewer disfluencies than most of the students in my public speaking classes

When you post, you have unlimited time to re-read and re-write until the post says exactly what you want it to say

You are posting and saying exactly what you want to say
If others want to feel sorry for you then it is only because they have not read the thread with a critical eye

You alter your story every time you are proven wrong
Then you state your new story like you, once again, had the inside track on truth
That is until you are, once again, found to be incorrect
Then you shift your story again

This will shake out in the long run

Live long and prosper

Peace,
dave

 

[jakeGT]

Haha tsteele. You do not get it either

Yeah Ryan can get used to it, he brought all of this on himself, I'm allowed to post whatever I want, if you don't like what I post, you can report it or neg rep me. Past that you will have to just..... DEAL WITH IT.

I don't care what you think, as long as this guy is charging $150 an hour for his labor and hasn't proven a damn thing about the build quality, besides a picture of a driver he prepped where the soldering looked less than professional as he was trying to represent himself, then I will be around to call him out on it. He for sure WAS trying to profit so much that it was unjustifiable. So yeah as long as I am here, I'll be watching his and anybody else's threads tryin to get rich off of LPF.

Like I said people who can charge $400 for a laser discovered the unique host themselves, procured/cut the custom sink them self, etc etc etc. he bought a survival laser and slapped it together. He makes promises on customs he cannot keep. If customs takes a laser is he gonna give that buyer back the $400? He says it can never happen, he is obviously above the law.

He insults when he doesn't like something posted towards him. He acted like a whiny brat when he didnt get his way. He preys on noob customers he said it himself he was looking for the noob market. We at LPF care about our members. You can get used to that or get over it. None of us started this trolling of RE because he is a new seller and he's cutting in on peoples profits. I haven't sold a laser on here in forever! I am not a regular seller anymore. He brought this on himself for the way he acts, he can't be told no or your wrong, and when he does says its our fault were being too mean.

You kind of act like him, like you just walked in an own the place. Both of you.

He did not hurt my feelings with his jackass statement about my job, what he DID do was show his true self. And I despise the kind of person he has shown himself to be. It all stems from when he is wrong and will not accept it.

Once again, don't like my post? I suggest you familiarize yourself with the following:

 

[tsteele93]

Dave, please don't take my comments the wrong way. I'm not suggesting that you were "being mean." I simply wanted to step in and point to something I thought might be a misunderstanding or miscommunication. Specifically the AlertPay thing. I was just saying that I really don't think Ryan was trying to use AlertPay as a tool to scam anyone. I think he saw it as a way to dodge paypal's requirements (if he wanted protection) of using a more expensive shipping method. There seemed to be a lot of focus on that and I really think it was not any kind of scam, but just a way or him to try and save a sale that was going to be too expensive because of shipping to the buyer if he used PayPal.

Other than that, as I said before - Ryan HAS brought a lot of this on himself and has made mistakes. But watching the video really made me think he's a bright kid who may not be good at communicating some of his emotions in written form, but he doesn't seem like a scammer or troll.

Like any of us at that age (and even some of us who are older), emotions sometimes got the better of us and if we felt we were being attacked, we fought back. Sometimes even when we weren't being attacked, or when we weren't being attacked as hard as we FELT LIKE we were... and even Ryan has admitted to that.

Also, I think in some posts Ryan has tried to explain himself but inadvertently just made things worse - and to Ryan I would say that sometimes the best response is, "Thanks, I appreciate your advice. It makes a lot of sense and I will try to use it wisely going forward," rather than "Thanks for your advice, but let me explain further... Note: I do not always take my own advice on this!

Jake... Honestly I haven't read all the posts to see what Ryan said that upset you so much, but if it didn't bother you then why else would you make it your personal vendetta to follow him around the forum and post negative comments in his for sale threads? Just ignore him. Be the bigger man.

It would be one thing if he had sold crappy lasers to people, or scammed people, but you don't have any of that. You just don't like how he came in and started selling lasers.

I agree that he is jumping in too fast and too cocky, but until he sells a poor build or scams someone, then I don't see how stalking his posts is good forum etiquette. Maybe it is allowed here? I don't honestly know. That is up to folks with more responsibility than me around here. I just post my thoughts and leave them for you to consider.

And I don't plan to go around reporting you or neg-repping you. Really? I mean you just took the time to post a picture of the rep button and you tell me your feelings didn't get hurt and your emotions aren't your motivation here?

IMHO, running around reporting everyone and neg repping them is basically just jumping straight to he emotional side of things and not staying cool-headed and rational about it. You can use the neg rep button if you like, but I'll just try to stick to expressing myself with my posts.

Finally, Wolfman - as I kind of expected from you... Nice job, I think you handled this thread very classily.

:beer:

 

[RyanElectro]

Dave, I want NOBODY to feel sorry for me. I want EVERYBODY to understand I struggle with certain things, to bare with me as it's difficult to understand me. Even I can't understand myself. I have a condition that affects me in various ways, the only benefit I get is a high IQ. Everything dealing with EQ is always scored very low. Communication and explaining, socializing, etc. I'm the worst at. I have maybe 1 real life friend who truly understand me for who I am. I'm just a geek who's only life is online... but even that is gone now.. there's nothing left for me.

I'm not that great at explaining, as you can see, when Moh and TS pitched in, they explained the situation MUCH better than I ever can.

And NO! I do not "prey" on noobs! My goodness. I said I market to noobs, that's what I think is best for a starter seller. I'm not good enough to market to other hobbyists just yet. On one hand, you guys expect me to be some super builder that markets to hobbyists and have really low prices, and on the other hand, you guys say I'm just a new seller and "preying" on noobs.

Market Prices
I'm DEFINITELY not! preying on noobs. I'm not that low. Noobs get "preyed" on by WL, by $599.99 prices. Selling a clean, rare laser that's 300mW more powerful and $324.99 less expensive is definitely not "preying" on them. Think from market perspective, not cost price. I'd be an idiot to sell it for $250. Even at $325, I had too much demand, that people were "bidding" over other people to buy my laser. That means the market wants the price higher than $325, around $350 perhaps, as that's basically where the bidding stopped. Believe it or not, I still didn't sell it to any of the bidders, but to a person who trusted me throughout, a person who supported me and believed me. I sold it to him for very cheap @ $305. I'm NOT here only for the money.

And dave, you really think I'm here to fake it all? That I have no integrity, no honesty, just a huge fake, here on LPF to deceive everyone. You think I just want to be hated? This is the most upsetting thing for me atm...

I'm already good with most people and we've settled our differences. But it is still you dave, the person who supported me from the start. I can't believe u think this of me. Everyone who actually have dealt with me have said that I'm a real good guy, honest and offers great service. I really think it's a big misunderstanding of me. It's really sad... you'll probably never get to know me better.

I feel I can never get ur support back. But I liked you dave, you were the first one who supported me... and I'll never forget that. I'm sorry I made some mistakes and let you down. But I can assure you throughout this entire thread I was honest and it was from my heart. I hope that in the future (if there is any), you'll come to know me better. I can't stress it enough that I'm an honest, straight up guy.

Anyway, I think I'm done here, I have no more strength to carry on, I try to hide it but I'm feeling really depressed and just no motivation to get out from bed anymore... no appetite to eat. And PLEASE don't feel sorry for me. I'm just stating how I feel. Just tired of living...

 

[ped]

Anyway, I think I'm done here, I have no more strength to carry on, feeling really depressed and just no motivation to get out from bed anymore... no appetite to eat. And PLEASE don't feel sorry for me. I'm just stating how I feel. Just tired of living...

Oh for god's sake...would you like some cheese to go with that whine?

 

[JLSE]

Oh for god's sake...would you like some cheese to go with that whine?

LOL...

@RE, quit worrying about the arguing, convincing or whatever you want to call it.

Do some reading, practice some soldering , build a laser and move on.
Sitting around and getting worked up about what person A and person B
have to say will not gain you any building experience.

Move on and stop looking back. You only gain build experience by building..
not by talking about it.

:beer:

 

[jcranmer]

Anyway, I think I'm done here, I have no more strength to carry on, I try to hide it but I'm feeling really depressed and just no motivation to get out from bed anymore... no appetite to eat. And PLEASE don't feel sorry for me. I'm just stating how I feel. Just tired of living...

:gj: Way to disprove Dave's point.

It's a pitty the system won't let me send some rep your way.

 

[ElectroMagneticFreak]

Anyway, I think I'm done here, I have no more strength to carry on, I try to hide it but I'm feeling really depressed and just no motivation to get out from bed anymore... no appetite to eat. And PLEASE don't feel sorry for me. I'm just stating how I feel. Just tired of living...

Hi Ryan,

Sent this as a PM but thought I'd post part of it here too.

I'm sorry all this stuff is bringing you down. You are such a bright person and you obviously have real talent in learning things very fast regarding laser building, learning new technologies etc..

Don't worry about things on LPF right now. I know that if you just give it time things will settle down after you stay for a while and people see more of your projects, people see more of your builds etc. People are protective of the forum and it's kind of a somewhat hard to break into club of respected builders and laser handymen but that's just the way it is. Don't take it too personally man. They have been on here much longer than us so it is disrespectful not to listen to their advice gained from experience in everything from sales policies, build techniques etc. People are going to be protective of the forum since they have been contributing members for many more years and have gone through many things to form the understanding and experience of how things on the forum should done and what the etiquette is for everything.

Whether or not you agree with the admins and veterans advice, they are going to be your "elders" on the forum and so it is kind of a respect thing with how they perceive you taking their advice.

I think the veterans and Dave will have no problem showing you respect as time goes on and people see your work and you show how you have taken their advice with building techniques, on sales practices etc. as you keep doing interesting projects. Just stick around and keep building, post pics of the whole process and just have fun doing builds or even do some more tutorials on how you did various parts of your builds with videos or photos of the steps etc. I would love to see some more how to vids on various steps in laser building. It would also give the ability to witness skills and techniques that can be seen by the veterans, and they can check out how it's done and give suggestions, their observations etc.


You have so much to offer man I am very impressed with your capabilities and your talent in learning things quickly you will be a shining example of creativity on the forum if you keep up the learning process and try and stick out the constructive criticism.

Just don't take anything personally, and try to take advice without feeling personally criticized and observe and respect the wisdom of the veterans and admins and I know you will be respected and held in high regard in time as more of your projects are shown. The fact that you have learned so much laser related so fast means you will no doubt show some amazing creative additions in the future.

Try and look to the future and possibilities are endless.

It'll all get better man!

Aaron

 

[ElectroMagneticFreak]

Anyway, I think I'm done here, I have no more strength to carry on, I try to hide it but I'm feeling really depressed and just no motivation to get out from bed anymore... no appetite to eat. And PLEASE don't feel sorry for me. I'm just stating how I feel. Just tired of living...

Sorry for the double post but i felt it might be important to add:

I don't think it is good to always assume the person is making this up or being dramatic. In giving him the benefit of the doubt on the tired of living statement, you never know how personally devastated Ryan could be from his hope being let down for what his personal goals are for being part of a community here and getting off to a good start.

While using threats of suicide when they are not true is really not cool, it not good either to not take them seriously if they really are legitimate...