A place to buy and sell

[Pastor Jonathan]

There is, I heard, a place for unofficial sales of Accordance and resources. This is on Facebook.

 

That is great, except there are many who are not on Facebook.

 

I never have, nor will, own or be part of it. Having a place here where Facebook is not required would be nice.

 

Please consider adding that for those who either are not on FB or are leaving FB. We would like to purchase as well.

 

Thanks. 

[Joe Weaks]

This feels like an unreasonable request to make of a company, to set up an avenue to facilitate third-party transactions to cannibalize their sales.

[Pastor Jonathan]

Or it could drive business. They may not get the main package from Accordance, but not everything will be sold on the forum.

 

This could open the website to traffic going to get what isnt on the forum.

[Pastor Jonathan]

The way it can drive business:

 

Say I am in the market for a Bible software.

 

I can't purchase the collection I need and the step down does not have enough of what I need.

 

I jump on this forum and low and behold, what I need is available for sale at a price I can pay. I buy it.

 

Now, in three months, I am given a little extra money and I find that I want something more. I check the forum and it isn't here.

 

So where do I go? http://Accordancebible.com! The item is there and I pick it up.

 

In a year, I am in a better position and while I may be tempted by other Bible software, I am already in Accordance. I will see what is offered, find Accordance has the collection that fits perfectly. I already have some of what is in the other collection, the price is less, and I am ready to purchase!

 

So while the initial sale, yes, is not from accordance, that will drive traffic to their site.

 

And this is basic economics. A certain other software company GIVES away a pretty significant collection to Bible students. I can't link to it but needless to say, it really is awesome and as a Bible student, had I known about it, I would be on the other one. But when I say good, I mean GOOD. And when I say free, I mean FREE. not 90 day free, or in school free, but free free. Life free. 

 

A better example, I purchased the starter collection to a student who was interning with us. He accepted it, then found the other one I was mentioning.

 

Guess which he is on. It isn't Accordance. So while the sale may not be there, they will make money off him.

 

This is what I am invisioning for Accordance as I know it works. I love Accordance and if I can use any suggestion to help, I want to.

 

It may not work, but if I have an idea I would hate to sit on it if I can help the company. 

 

@R. Mansfield saw the link as I sent it in to try and get Accordance to do something like it.

 

But I would also want Accordance to come to the different denominational meetings as @Nathan Parkerand I were sharing in another thread.

 

Hope that makes sense as to why I said what I did. 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll show it to marketing. Not sure what their plans are on any changes/additions to the forum. In the meantime, I guess users could setup similar pages on other messaging apps. I've had good experience with Signal and Discord. Telegram had a oot of loading issues for me. 

[Pastor Jonathan]

@Nathan Parker

 

Thanks and you're welcome. If they don't like it, that is fair enough. But just thought I would try to help. Thanks. 

[Daniel L]

On 12/4/2022 at 4:11 PM, Joe Weaks said:

This feels like an unreasonable request to make of a company, to set up an avenue to facilitate third-party transactions to cannibalize their sales.

This is shortsighted.

1) I've bought a number of books that were below my expectations or different from what I was expecting. Having the option to sell unwanted modules reduces the risk of purchasing, thereby increasing sales from the company.

2) When a company shows a favorable attitude toward second-hand selling of its products, it causes many customers to have a more favorable attitude toward the company. It also shows that the company is confident about its financial well-being and popularity. (The opposite shows fear and desperation... which leads to bad decision making.) Both of these lead to increased sales.

3) Backchannels help to generate popularity. Simply having another social media channel with an Accordance community is valuable exposure and marketing. I'd recommend starting a Gab group (there's a high concentration of Bible readers on Gab) and maybe a Telegram channel.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

In the past I considered admining alternate social media platform pages to help the Accordance team out. I tried MeWe (seemed to be the most popular), Gab, Telegram, etc. I had a lot of technical issues with some of them. So far, Signal and Discord have been the most reliable that I’ve been using for messaging. I departed from social media in general since I never had enough quality interaction on it to make it a valuable investment of my time.

 

With that said, if a “someone” does get to officially join the Accordance family, one goal this “someone” would have is to leverage the strength of Accordance’s customers to go where Accordance staff doesn’t have the resources to go. If that means working with Accordance users to start Accordance user communities on MeWe, Gab, Telegram, etc., (plus I’m still interested in some form of “Ambassador” program where users could attend various smaller ministry events/meetings and promote Accordance), that would be great. I know it’d take some planning to sort through the details to ensure Accordance is well-represented by the Accordance users who would step up to the place and get involved, but I’ve seen some excellent Accordance users on here who really care about Accordance and who could get involved in some useful opportunities to help promote Accordance.

[Abram K-J]

19 hours ago, Daniel L said:

I'd recommend starting a Gab group

 

Steer clear, instead.

[Daniel L]

12 minutes ago, Abram K-J said:

 

Steer clear, instead.

Why? "Christianity" and "Bible Study" are two of the largest Groups there. And there are other Christian and Bible Groups.

 

As with any social media site/app, there are agitators and trolls, but solutions exist. Whoever starts a Group is its Administrator and is free to moderate as little or as much as he wants. And, of course, individuals are able to mute or block other users.

[Pastor Jonathan]

This is the only “social media” I am on.

 

However, I am open to several avenues to have this.

 

Accordance does not have a Reddit page, or Mastodon page.

 

But on FDroid, there is a decentralized social media that only those who are on it can follow, but I am not familiar with it.

 

However, I am absolutely open to a Signal group, or even a Sessions Group. Sessions is built on Signal but with much more privacy. I believe it is get sessions. Great platform. 

 

I am open to that as well. Let me know when Signal, sessions or what is launched . 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Pastor Jonathan

[Lawrence]

9 hours ago, Nathan Parker said:

In the past I considered admining alternate social media platform pages to help the Accordance team out. I tried MeWe (seemed to be the most popular), Gab, Telegram, etc. I had a lot of technical issues with some of them. So far, Signal and Discord have been the most reliable that I’ve been using for messaging. I departed from social media in general since I never had enough quality interaction on it to make it a valuable investment of my time.

 

With that said, if a “someone” does get to officially join the Accordance family, one goal this “someone” would have is to leverage the strength of Accordance’s customers to go where Accordance staff doesn’t have the resources to go. If that means working with Accordance users to start Accordance user communities on MeWe, Gab, Telegram, etc., (plus I’m still interested in some form of “Ambassador” program where users could attend various smaller ministry events/meetings and promote Accordance), that would be great. I know it’d take some planning to sort through the details to ensure Accordance is well-represented by the Accordance users who would step up to the place and get involved, but I’ve seen some excellent Accordance users on here who really care about Accordance and who could get involved in some useful opportunities to help promote Accordance.

 

I might be missing something here, but aside from the second-hand marketplace, aren't these forums already performing that function?

[Pastor Jonathan]

2 hours ago, Lawrence said:

 

I might be missing something here, but aside from the second-hand marketplace, aren't these forums already performing that function?

Unfortunately, no. We are not allowed to advertise here, per the TOS.

 

To all,

 

Regarding my last comment, I should have added, if this would be allowed, and if “someone” is allowed to authorize this type of thing. But Signal or Sessions would be my preferred method.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Pastor Jonathan

[Abram K-J]

11 hours ago, Daniel L said:

Why?

 

Respectfully, Gab’s obsequious role as a megaphone for anti-Semitic and white supremacist content (all under the disingenous guise of “free speech”) is well documented by now. (A few minutes with a search engine will unearth it; not going to link to anything here.) If that hasn’t already deterred you or Nathan or anyone else from using and promoting Gab, I doubt that anything I say here will convince you that they’re not a value-neutral entity.

 

Because you brought up Gab in this public space, I just wanted to push back. Accordance should really have nothing to do with Gab, in my opinion.

[Erhard]

I really think that @Pastor Jonathan is onto something here.

A long time ago, I used to work retail. There were always loss leaders to bring people in. Once they came for the discounted item, they bought other things as well.

For me, when I had different Bible programs, (WS, BW, Logos and e-sword) and then found Accordance, I already had a package from the other company. Really the only reason Accordance initially became my main program was the WS crossover package. It was a good price. Once I used Accordance more it became my favourite and I have purchased lots of resources since then. I think it may also drive sales as mentioned and promote more loyalty to Accordance by showing that Accordance cares for their customers rather than just being sales oriented. (btw, I believe that Accordance does care for their customers)

[Tony Lawrence]

1 hour ago, Abram K-J said:

obsequious

I had to look that one up. Thanks for expanding my vocabulary today!

[Daniel L]

@Abram K-J, This does not constitute an impediment. Simply don't follow or block, if necessary, people you don't want to see. The group admin can ban agitators and remove off-topic posts. There is a large, probably untapped market there. It is a place that would greatly benefit from an infusion of solid Bible knowledge. 📚🕊

 

The truth is: the other platforms allow plenty of racial supremacy and hate accounts, including anti-Semitic and advocacy of terrorism against Israel. It's just that the platforms (defined by law as being neutral) are illegally acting as publishers, and in doing so, have decided to block only one brand of racial supremacy and anti-Semitism.

 

Ironically, there have been incidents of the major non-Gab platforms censoring the quoting of Bible verses! They've blocked the searching of Christian terms and flagged links to Bible sites as "low quality." Videos of Christian worship have been labeled "misinformation." Gab is actually a safe haven for Christians! Brighteon.social, though much smaller, is also a safe Christian haven.

[Abram K-J]

11 minutes ago, Daniel L said:

Gab is actually a safe haven for Christians!

This is a lie. But, agree to disagree. 

[Joe Weaks]

6 hours ago, Abram K-J said:

 

Respectfully, Gab’s obsequious role as a megaphone for anti-Semitic and white supremacist content (all under the disingenous guise of “free speech”)…

I knew nothing about Gab, but a quick look clearly confirms what you're pointing out, Abram.
That's the difficulty for small businesses these days, that social platforms come with baggage (much unlike running your own forums).

[John Fidel]

In my opinion, these forums are where customers should interact. If all these proposals are to allow for the sale of the software between buyers, then it seems very out of place. I personally would not join any outside social media group as I feel most of the more um... senior customers would not. Customer to customer sales is really not the business of Accordance and hopefully not very common.

 

[Mark Allison]

There's actually a group on Facebook that deals specifically with customer-to-customer sales of Accordance modules. Perhaps that's a solution for some.

[Leopold Green]

Coming from England I would rather stay on this polite and respectful forum... I had never heard of Gab but looking at it it represents the side of your wonderful country that leaves the rest of the world utterly bemused... at least here we can all respect each other

[Michel Gilbert]

I would suggest that Accordance add a new subforum in Forum Comments, Suggestions & Help, called License Transfers.

This new subforum could serve two purposes:

 

1) provide information on transferring licenses in last wills and testaments;
2) announce licenses (modules) for transfer/sale.

This way, posts about licenses/modules for transfer/sale would be hidden from immediate view, in a subforum near the bottom of the page. If Accordance did this, they should insist that posts be as brief as possible, e.g., “Licenses for transfer, visit my profile for more details.” The seller would have to use private messaging for all the rest.

 

I’m not suggesting this because I want to sell any of my modules. I hope I never have to sell any of them. But I know that there might be legitimate reasons for wanting to sell, even including the commands to sell all that you have, etc.

 

[Pastor Jonathan]

2 hours ago, Mark Allison said:

There's actually a group on Facebook that deals specifically with customer-to-customer sales of Accordance modules. Perhaps that's a solution for some.

@Mark Allison,

 

There is, but I was looking for a place that I can buy without Facebook.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

@Abram K-J makes some great points about Gab. I wasn’t going to heavily go into the discussion, but I’ll add some additional comments here.

 

My social media usage was primarily on Facebook and Twitter in the past (I also had Instagram and WhatsApp, but I never heavily used them, so I closed those accounts). I mainly left both of them due to the privacy issues associated with both. I also left Twitter because it was preventing me from issuing weather updates for the weather company I work for (they kept flagging my account as a “potential spammer”, even though my weather updates were backed with high-end weather data). 

 

For a little bit, I evaluated some of the various alternative social media platforms to see if I could find one with a good balance between user privacy and the ability to easily share weather reports with the community (as that was my main reason to use social media). Some of them I tried include MeWe (which started off decently, and I was even getting some views on weather reports, but I had a lot of technical issues with them), and Gab. I did have some technical issues with Gab as well, but my main issue with it is what @Abram K-J pointed out. It’s one thing for a social network to allow for free speech and even allow for speech I disagree with on their platform. I’ve been going through a PhD program and have been reading plenty of material that I disagree with and that challenges me to think through and formulate my personal views. The biggest issue with Gab is their leadership promotes individuals (on their personal blogs and on their personal Gab pages) that have denied historical events (such as the holocaust, as one of Jewish ancestry whose ancestors escaped Germany before the holocaust, this is a major issue for me personally), among other things that Abram have summarized well. I couldn’t in good faith continue to use the platform, even though their leadership claims to be “Christian”. One thing it did open my eyes to is how much of an issue this is among people who call themselves “Christian”, so I’ve devoted more of my academic efforts to correcting this aberration in the training of ministers and Christians. Some of my friends also used Telegram for messaging, so I used it for a bit, but I had way too many technical issues with it.

 

I’ve left all social media for personal use, and I don’t plan to return. I would only access it if company needs me to periodically access a company social media page for business purposes, and only for business purposes. My life has been far more peaceful without social media (I’ve also “tuned out” of most news and just receive a handful of news headlines each day, plus I’ve scaled back my use of technology in general). I mainly communicate over email and messaging, For now I have Discord to access one of my local HAM club’s chat page, but I don’t even use it much. I also have Signal to access a ministry’s chat page, but I also don’t use it much. I’m a member of a handful of forums (this is one of them) that I interact with users on, as I find specific forums a more useful investment of my time than social media. I also run a personal blog and have also moved all my weather reports to a blog which I’ve found to be more effective than social media.

 

I don’t work for Accordance at the moment, but in the event I ever do have the opportunity to join the Accordance family, I’m not personally opposed to Accordance users doing stuff on social media to help promote Accordance and to interact with other Accordance users on places where the Accordance staff doesn’t have the time or resources to go (such as the Facebook Accordance sales group). With that said, I wouldn’t want users just randomly starting Accordance user groups out on social media that could diverge into off-topic, lower-quality, non-Accordance discussions that could soil Accordance’s reputation. Dr. J and I were members of a Facebook user group for one of our biblical academic memberships, and the discussions on there from so called “biblical scholars” were obscene, vulgar, and nothing even remotely related to “biblical scholarship”. Dr. J and I both quickly left the group. A discussion between Accordance users and Accordance staff would be needed to ensure any Accordance user groups created on social media are clearly identified as “user groups” and not directly affiliated by, administered by, or endorsed by Accordance staff. Some guidance would need to be given to ensure the groups are healthily promoting Accordance without introducing any baggage, and any users who oversee such groups would also need a contact at Accordance staff to report issues that were to arise.

 

None of this is impossible (Nota Bene has an excellent Nota Bene users mailing list I’m a member of, and while not an official mailing list of Nota Bene, it’s still extremely useful), and it’s great that Accordance users are willing to help promote Accordance, but I agree that such things can’t be rushed into. Accordance is a fantastic Bible study app with a solid reputation over the years, and I want to ensure that anything any of us do to promote Accordance truly promotes Accordance and not simply adds unnecessary baggage to the program we all love.