Facilitation Site - How would you do it?

[armrphy]

Hi all,
This is my first post so I hope I am putting this in the right section.
I thought I would begin with this and see if you guys have any thoughts on the best way to go about accomplishing a project I am considering.
I am looking to create a site offering an online service. Lets call it a facilitation service. Putting particular buyers in touch with hard to reach suppliers.
Basically, I want visitors to pay a small fee to be allowed to send an email to my database of suppliers, requesting pricing for the items they are looking to buy. This fee would be chargeable each time they used they service. Products are small value and frequently sought.
I want to make the fee payable via a phone call/text - much like is done on the site Donedeal.ie. They then get a code, which they input on the site, which allows them to submit their request - once.
The bulk mail feature is straight forward. I can do this via a membership/subscription service on the site through Joomla, which I am proficient in but I am inclined to investigate the integration of the phone payment system.
Anybody have any thoughts on how they would approach such a job - would you use a cms? do you know of any scripts/templates/components that are pre built for this type of thing. I have some ideas but I am curious what others think.
Many Thanks to anyone for any replies
Art

 

[php.allstar]

Hi,

I have a similar idea to this that I've put on the back burner since almost a year ago while I sort out other priorities...

The idea I have is in a particular niche so I hope we're not going to compete if we ever get off the ground...unfortunately, due to the nature of this thread, I can't give awat what my idea is until I launch it which is likely to happen several months down the line!

Anyway, the basics of my idea are:

• Users to search for a product/service (in this particular niche)
• Users pick the businesses they would like to send an enquiry to
• Enquiry emails are sent to the signed up businesses (no cost to user)
• Business receives enquiry email (which has tracking codes to tell that they opened it)

The businesses would have to have signed up before hand and have agreed to pay €1 for every enquiry (sales lead) sent their way each month. If the business receives 3 enquiried from the site, they owe you €3 that month....etc...

This way, there is no limiting factor to your users, no barrier to entry with any costs involved. Also you'd get more users on board with this model and could get more money out of the businesses who will be climbing over each other to get the sales leads!

If you were really greedy, you could of course impose an enquiry tax on both the user and the business, but I'd say that site wouldn't get off the ground! LOL

As far as scripts go, I think you'd be looking at coding something yourself as this is such a specialised script. I'll be developing my own script for my idea anyway.

Please post a link when you have the site up, I'd be interested in having a look at your implementation so I could steal all your good ideas!