Introducing DNTrade Membership Levels

[chris]

After feedback from several of our senior and experienced members, we've decided to make some further improvements to DNTrade and roll out a new membership structure.

Rest assured, we will not disrupt the DNTrade that members have grown to know and love. Rather we will continue to build upon it by introducing two new paid membership options called "Trader" and "VIP". These new membership options won't be for everyone and that's why we will still continue to offer the free base level membership which will now be referred to as "Community". Full details about these memberships will be available shortly.

These new paid membership options are designed to cater to the needs of our more intermediate to advanced members which include some key benefits such as member verification, a new private forum (no public or search engine access) and a soon to be launched Daily .au Drop Analysis Tool.

Over the next 24 hours or so you might notice things moving around and I'll keep updating this thread to let you know where we're at as we roll out the changes.

Please feel free to post any questions or feedback below.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[chris]

You might notice some template changes and things moving around a little. We're trying to do this when the site is quiet, apologies for any weirdness in advance.

 

[chris]

Introducing Memberships - Community

We have just published the new DNTrade memberships, you will see a banner link to these now under the main menu bar or you can visit https://www.dntrade.com.au/memberships.php

All current DNTrade members automatically become Community members.

Community membership provides you with all the same benefits they have always had for free, except with some updates to Marketplace access. Community members are still able to read the Marketplace posts (which ensures maximum exposure for sellers) and they can still PM sellers if they are interested in buying.

 

[chris]

Introducing Memberships - Trader

If Community members want to also be able to post in the Marketplace forums, all they need to do is upgrade their membership to 'Trader' for a small fee of $19.95 per year.

'Trader' members will have both read and post access within all the Marketplace forums. There are still no listing fees or commissions taken and all transactions remain the responsibility of members.

The reason we have introduced this new 'Trader' membership is so that DNTrade can manually verify each 'Trader' member to add a level of quality control and to help to foster trust and confidence within the community. 'Trader' members will also have access to iTrader ratings so that they can leave transaction feedback.

For the next week only, we are giving away a limited number of FREE lifetime 'Trader' memberships which are available for any of our CURRENT DNTrade members to thank you for your ongoing support of DNTrade. If you would like to accept this offer, all you need to do is:

1. Go to 'User CP' > 'Edit your details' > 'Additional Information' and complete the required private fields to assist DNTrade administrators in membership verification.
2. Then PM me (chris) before midnight next Sunday 31 March 2013. We will then verify your details and upgrade your membership.

Note: This offer will be removed from this post after 31 March 2013 so don't miss out.

We know a few of you have active posts in the Marketplace so we will leave the permissions open for a grace period of a week until the new Trader memberships come into effect.

 

[chris]

Introducing Memberships - VIP

The third membership level is called ‘VIP’ which is exclusively for intermediate to advanced Australian domain name professionals and enthusiasts.

For a membership fee of $119.95 per year, VIP members will have all the standard 'Trader' member benefits and will also receive read and post access to the new 'VIP Lounge' private forum (no public or search engine access).

There are also some extra benefits and resources we'll be introducing (including a soon-to-be-launched Daily .au Drop Analysis Tool which will provide some additional stats on the daily drops).

Finally, as we have done with each 'Trader' membership each 'VIP' member application will go through the manual verification process and also a 'Peer Review' by other VIP members. Conditions apply.

If you have any questions about these memberships, please feel free to post below.

 

[chris]

Just a reminder that all existing members need to follow the steps below and PM me if they want their membership upgraded to Trader for free.

For the next week only, we are giving away a limited number of FREE lifetime 'Trader' memberships which are available for any of our CURRENT DNTrade members to thank you for your ongoing support of DNTrade. If you would like to accept this offer, all you need to do is:

1. Go to 'User CP' > 'Edit your details' > 'Additional Information' and complete the required private fields to assist DNTrade administrators in membership verification.
2. Then PM me (chris) before midnight next Sunday 31 March 2013. We will then verify your details and upgrade your membership.

Note: This offer will be removed from this post after 31 March 2013 so don't miss out.

We know a few of you have active posts in the Marketplace so we will leave the permissions open for a grace period of a week until the new Trader memberships come into effect.

Please note that only Trader and VIP members will be able to post in the Marketplace forums after Sunday.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[goldnugget]

Well there you go....go offline for a couple of weeks and the world changes.

I was going to list my few AU's open to offers prior to putting them on NetFleet due to a shift in personal circumstances but I guess I cant now.
Forum looks good BTW.

Good trading everyone, maybe catch up again down the track.

Jay

 

[johno69]

but I guess I cant now.

Of course you can.

$19.95 / year is not much really for what it gives you.

 

[neddy]

Of course you can.

$19.95 / year is not much really for what it gives you.

+1

Jay, if you get just one deal or one idea from this forum, then the token membership fee will pay for itself many times over.

Another way to look it is that $19.95 would be a really appreciated contribution to the people that keep this forum going day in, day out. In the old language, that's only about a zack a day.

 

[chris]

Well there you go....go offline for a couple of weeks and the world changes.

I was going to list my few AU's open to offers prior to putting them on NetFleet due to a shift in personal circumstances but I guess I cant now.
Forum looks good BTW.

Good trading everyone, maybe catch up again down the track.

Jay

Hi Jay,

The main reason we introduced the Trader membership was to try and increase the level of trust, which we feel helps both buyers and sellers.

Thanks for your feedback, always happy to take all comments on board.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[goldnugget]

Hi guys,

Dont get me wrong, ofcourse the forum powers that be are free to do as they wish.

Its just that I've been out of the loop for a few weeks and came onto the forum to see whats up and discovered that access to some areas of the forum I did have access to I know longer have access to.

What I dont get though, sure there is some info that can be gleened from the forum and community members can still ask and get replies to whatever they want to ask....so this element of the forum is still free.

They can still enquire about domains that may be for sale, but cant list or advertise one. So for the sake of just putting a post in the for sale section, they are asked to contribute financially to upgrade their membership to 'Trader'. Keeping in mind, its not as though this is really a sales platform for domains, and most of the domains for sale are done through Netfleet....membership to Netfleet etc is free and they capture a much wider audience than this forum.

So in effect I think that the forum itself will be limiting its opportunities financially and membership upgrade wise by the current set up as it is only the regulars and full on traders that will be inclined to pay to upgrade their membership just so they can list a domain (What I'm talking about are those that just like to trade within the inner circle of the forum members...you know what I mean...).

I get the level of trust thing...but I see you have yet another sales sub forum for the elite (sorry I cant remember the top level financial membership name). I would have thought that this would have sufficed for those that only want to deal with the inner circle?

Thats just my thoughts on it.

Like I said, I just came back online and the changes were made. Forum mods are free to do as they wish (based on whatever advice some members have given) but it would have been nice to at least have known about the changes (by way of a group email maybe?) that there would be changes made to current members access.

Outside of that, the forum is still the forum..........

Cheers Jay

 

[chris]

Thanks for your feedback Jay.

Yes the forum is still the forum, the aim of the memberships is to provide members with additional options if they wish. We believe it will help make DNTrade a better place by offering a level of quality control. We appreciate that these options won't be for everyone and that's why we've kept the standard Community membership free.

As johno69 and neddy said, for Traders it's only a token amount that helps contribute towards some of the costs associated with the new procedures.

DNTrade is a labour of love and we want to continually improve the experience for all members, we've got some exciting stuff in the pipeline

Cheers,
Chris