Thanks Tracy. My initial line of thinking was along the same lines as yours. I thought that this list would be a detriment to our paid advertisers. Take this for example. Someone in the Raleigh area was looking for Red Oak. They would likely go straight to Scott Smith's farm as his prices are likely much less than Klingspor, etc. That would be an example of a saw mill under cutting an all around woodworking store on lumber. However, all Scott sells is wood. He doesn't sell anything under the sun related to woodworking. So in that way, Klingspor, Woodcraft, the Woodworking Source and Asheville Hardware could still compete as they are not exactly in the same "league" as a saw mill. And if only paid advertisers could be on that list, I would imagine you would get a lot more paid advertisers. :widea: But, do we really want that many advertisers on the site? Would that lesson the value of the site to the every day user? Perhaps there could be the same amount of ad spaces and the ads would "rotate" among all of the advertisers. :eusa_thin I think it could work and it may just bring in more revenue to the site. After all, most of us would head straight down to Scott's place anyway for red oak. I know I would, and that I learned that from this site. That's one of the reasons I joined was to find out where to get the best prices on lumber.
This would make it more competitive for suppliers in one area, but I think that on a daily basis, we all know where we're going to get what anyway. This could actually give our advertisers more power to get people in their doors. Let's say that sale prices are highlighted in red. If Klingspor decides that they're going to sell walnut for $1.00/ bf for a few days, they'd probably have a parade in their store, but like any other store, they would bet on the fact that these folks would pick up some other stuff while they were there. They're taking a small loss on one particular to thing to drive up the sales on all of their other merchandise. :widea:
Also, this list would require a ton of work to keep it up to date. That's a whole other issue. :swoon:
Just some thoughts..... :eusa_thin