Very good example: http://www.rcuniverse.com/market/category.cfm?catID=1

Benefits, compared to trading in "topics":

1. Tree-like catalog of goods
2. Pre-defined description format
3. Trader ratigs & history
4. Advansed filters (sell, wanted, sold, price,...)
5. Extended ads for advanced members (hilights, publishing in several categories,...)
6. No spam (topic bumps) when details are discussed.
7. Both single persons and shops can trade.

As far as you know, many forum have trading activities. It would be nice to have a special component for it. That's a rather complicated thing. I could pay much more than for forum license, but I can't spend my resources to develop such component myself.

I think, RC Universe has a very good implementation. Nothing to add and nothing to cut off. But that's a custom product.

I dont believe that kind of component should be built-in to IPB. Maybe as a third party modification, but not as a feature of IPB.

This would certainly be an interesting add-on, however I don't think there's really enough demand for a solution built into IPB (via an add-on). It'd make more sense as a standalone product, or perhaps even a Nexus addon, but often these addons are best left to third parties after we've laid the groundwork :)

Why to guess? May be, you could make a poll? I think, every medium & big comunity has serious trading activity. And licence price can more high than IPB & Nexus one. Because marketplace script generates a direct profit.

I would be interested if it were a seperate product or tied in with Nexus.

very interesting concept :)

IPS did code a auction system for Global Gaming HQ

I think this would make a good component type modification for those who would want it :) so +1

But having said that i do not think it should be a standard inbuilt feature.

:)

It would be great. I know when i was running forums i had a large IPB forum and a Large VB forum. The bad thing was the one with the most trading/selling was IPB. I searched for months for alternatives, recoded some to work with IPB just none worked that well.

Now not to go all vB on y'all but their third party modifications are much more extensive. They have a modification like this. Personally it would be nice to have developers do things to help out and have products they could release for free that are great. Yes there will be some you have to pay for but thats part of life.

Another thing I have looked at when running forums is vB looks much easier to make a plugin for. Maybe it is the complicity of IPB that keeps developers away. And no it isn't that complicated it just is more tedious and take more time to make a component.

Also the RCUniverse site started using vB when they opened and the site grew from there. They are now the largest RC related forum online. Both my forums where in the RC industry.

Thats just my view. I do agree with Rikki and Timmy about this shouldn't be built in with IPB stock but it would be a very nice third party plugin. I know if I could use it to maybe get like a $1 fee from every auction I would pay $100 or more for this product.

I'm ready to pay 500+ for marketplace component right now. I don't need a full-featured auction. Just a marketplace with possibility to reduce bid price. RCU features are pretty nice for my needs.

Put in a ticket to Sales about this one. They will do it or redirect you to a site that will.