e-skills UK Guide

Online notice boards

Online notice boards

A number of towns and villages have created online notice boards that act as a virtual village pump – somewhere to chat and gossip but also find out news and details of local businesses. Other notice boards have been created by similar minded people from across the world, maybe sharing an interest in certain specialised products, technologies or businesses.

Online notice boards differ from web forums as they are built with the explicit job of advertising products or services for sale, something which is banned on the majority of online forums. In fact we talk about the issue of advertising in online forums in this guide which may be useful to read:

Using Forums   

By using an online notice board carefully you should be able to make money by finding new customers and save money on your advertising budget.

Using online notice boards

As a business owner your biggest problem is often being seen or heard. An online notice board can be a good way of highlighting your business and what you do. If there is a village or town notice board for your trading area then you have a chance to focus on a local message that will appeal to local people or townsfolk. A friendly note about your shop being up the High Street next to the bank is a soft way of introducing yourself to your potential customer base. You could start to tailor messages for the community or talk about sponsorship you have undertaken for a local charity, all of which raises your profile.

At the other end of the spectrum with have international “B2B” or business-to-business notice boards that are used to sell between businesses. This could be anything from the selling of online services through to the liquidation of excess stock. Some sites offer a brokerage system where goods can be matched between a buyer and a seller.

It is always worth spending some time shopping around for the correct online notice board for your business. Use the online search tools on the internet to search for specific key words applicable to your line of work. Often the biggest online notice boards will just list you as another vendor, but a more specialised site may give you better coverage.

Are online notice boards for your business?

Not every business person should spend their time advertising with online notice boards. If your customer base is unlikely to use them then there is little point in advertising yourself. On the other hand some of the local notice boards that focus on a particular town or village are often vibrant places full of chat and people looking for goods and services. Like all advertising you will need to use your skills in determining what works for your business.  

Probably the more niche your business the more international your notice board choice will need to be as there will be few people in your local community that would buy your speciality products. One of the great attributes of the web is its ability to bring together businesses across the world into one single community.

Security and online notice boards

Unfortunately there are individuals across the web that will take the chance to steal products from you. When dealing through a local online notice board this need not be a huge problem as you could easily visit a customer to clear up any issues, assuming their details were correct. This is a lot more difficult in the international arena so be very careful when sending goods abroad and ensure that payment has been prearranged. Remember, if a deal looks too good to be true then it is likely to be a scam.

You also need to protect your reputation when dealing online, so make sure that you exceed customer expectations as you would in the real world and you are unlikely to have any problems. 

Take care when asked for payment by people running these online notice boards. Often dressed up as membership fees or joining fees these may be scams for a service that does not exist in reality. Credit cards are often safer to use than money transfers as fraudulent payments can be salvaged, in many instances, from a credit card payment.

Useful links

Here is a selection of online notice boards to give you a flavour of the variety of sites available. By doing your own searches you will be able to find sites that best suit your local business requirements:

•    IndustriaGlobal

•    TradExpro

•    UK Villages

•    Tadley Roundabout