Original Message:
Re: Membership requirements for potential renters ($9.99 fee) (by Darcy D.):
I don't see how having a paid membership really keeps the seller's e-mail from getting out. Lots of free sites do not display your e-mail ie Craigslist.org or Kijiji.com. I have ads on both of these sites and have gotten many more inquiries than on Redweek. Some of the inquiries I got from this site were for dates other than what I advertised, asking if I wanted to exchange etc, so an inquiry from a paid member is not necessarily any better than a non paying inquiry. Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of good things about this site. My personal favorite is Redwishes. If I were looking to rent a week I would not hesitate to pay for an ad on Redwishes and just wait for renters to find me! However by only allowing paid members to contact us we could be loosing 90% of the potential market as mention in previous posts. I don't know if it is that high, I hope not. Perhaps Redweek could introduce a free one time only trial membership say for a week or two or a month. Once they have used Redweek with, I'm sure, good results they will probably not have any problem with a paid membership for future rentals. Getting our weeks rented or sold is all a numbers game as it is with any sale. The more shoppers the higher the percentage of a sale.