Vendor FAQ

VerticalScope Vendor Program

VerticalScope takes great pride in the immense wealth of user-generated content and discussion venues across thousands of communities within our family of sites.  To better serve those communities and offer unique value to both members and commercial partners, we operate a vendor program that designates official representation status to our commercial partners on behalf of their respective companies.  Vendors are welcome participants in our communities, serving as direct, engaged touchpoints with the companies that our audience knows and loves. As a member of VerticalScope Vendor Program, we’ve laid out a few simple rules of the road to ensure a quality experience for your business as well as our resident community members.

Vendor Setup

As part of the initial setup as an official vendor in our communities, you’ll provide your Business Name, which can be your username, as well as your business-related email address. Our team will flag this account appropriately to allow it to make commercial posts without being moderated for spam. Vendor accounts are visibly tagged so that members can recognize the post as originating from a company representative. If you have issues with account tagging or credentials, contact [email protected].

Rules for Vendors

1. Post only from an officially designated vendor account.
2. Commercial posting (part of any marketing offering of product or service) is limited to your specific sponsored area or the public vendor deals. Vendors are allowed and encouraged to make recommendations as posts in response to direct requests for product/service suggestions by members in the broader forum, provided they are relevant. Vendors may post one new thread within a classifieds section every 72 hours after reaching a minimum post count of 5 forum-wide.
3. Vendors are required to adhere to and respect Terms of Use found in the footer of each site as well as forum-specific rules, generally located as pinned threads in the Intro section. Any issues encountered with other users, moderators, or staff should be surfaced immediately to your contact with VerticalScope - 1-888-216-8242 or email [email protected].
4. Vendor program group buys are permitted, but must be reserved to the specific vendor category or vendor deals section.
5. Active vendor program sponsors have certain moderation powers over their specific sponsored subforum. This includes the limited ability to edit, delete, and organize posts and threads within the sponsored area expressly to keep the section clean. Do not edit or remove unfavorable member feedback that does not violate the Terms of Use.

Best Practices for Vendors - Getting the Most out of Community Engagement

1. You are welcome and encouraged to participate in regular, non-commercial conversations with the membership of our communities. Be respectful, civil, and helpful in your responses and you’ll get a lot more engagement with your commercial endeavors.
2. Engage with our communities positively, especially if there are particular topics you or your representatives are well-versed in. The sharing of knowledge and passions is the currency of any community, and taking a friendly approach in a non-commercial way is a great method of establishing trust and interest.
3. Keep it casual!  Avoid corporate lingo and jargon, taking a more straightforward, personal approach. Members are less likely to engage with a user that sounds like a marketing brochure, and more inclined to interact with someone who they can relate with and convey the value of the product or service on a personal level.
4. Being detailed matters with commercial posts - so be sure to include the price, dates of the sale, how they can get it, and as much information as possible.  Be sure to include keywords related to the product in the thread title and post content.  Do your best to have the most commonly expected questions answered in advance with your posts.
5. Respect the flow of conversation for best effect.  Necroposting (posting to threads 6+ months old since the last response) and thread hijacking (redirection of a topic subject discussion to your product or service) are disallowed.
6. Be conscious of the line between rivalry and bashing when it comes to competitors. You are welcome to respectfully compare and contrast your products or services with those of your competitors, but please keep discussions regarding comparisons to rival offerings civil and factual.
7. Resolve any disputes with members who are customers personally and succinctly.  Vendors may encounter customer and member disputes over products and services on the subject of refunds, defects, or issues. For individuals, work to resolve the dispute via private message or through emailed details to the appropriate department or offline.  For broader-based issues, use public threads and posts in response to demonstrate customer service and product expertise to potential customers who may be researching how your company responds to consumers.
8. Report any problems with users to the Moderators on the site using the “Report” function at the bottom of the post or thread. Any issues that are technical in nature or cannot be addressed within the scope of the moderators should be raised directly with your customer service contact with VerticalScope.