Posting an Offer or a Need
Put up something you can do or give, or something you are looking for.
Offer first
In a community with Beans, you must have posted at least one Offer before you can post a Need or take up someone's Offer. Everyone brings something. How many Offers you have up also decides how far below zero you can go. See "Your credit line".
Where there are no Beans, as on the global community, your first post can be a Need.
Before you start
In a community with Beans you need a name and a profile photo. Where there are no Beans, a name is enough. If something is missing, the app asks you to Set up profile first.
Posting
- Tap + ADD POST on the Market tab or the Map.
- Choose Offer or Need. The form opens on the Map.
- Title: a few words, up to 50 characters on the phone. "Sourdough loaf", "Lift to town on Fridays".
- Category: pick the closest one.
- Description: what, when, where, anything people should know.
- Photos: at least one, up to five. Tap Camera, Gallery (which opens on Albums), or Browse files (to choose from any folder on the device). Every Offer and Need needs at least one photo.
- Location: tap My location, or Drop a pin and tap the map, then Confirm Pin. Every member of your community can see the pin, so drop it near you rather than on your front door if you prefer. See "Where your pin goes".
- Price: a number of beans. Tap the unit button to choose Total or / Hr. Tap FREE to give it away. The button also offers / Dy, / Wk and / Mo, but a new post does not keep them yet: it is saved as a total price. Choose Total and say the period in the description.
- Tap Post Offer or Post Need.
Until everything needed is filled in, the button tells you what is missing, like Add a photo or Set a price.
In the web app the steps are a little different:
- Tap the + button on the Map (named New Post), or + ADD POST on the Market.
- To place your pin, tap My location, or tap Drop a pin and then tap the map. There is no Confirm Pin.
- The price is a number box and a unit list. There is no FREE button: type 0 to give it away.
- The title has no 50-character limit.
- The button says Map location required or Fill required fields while something is missing. It also stays grey until you have added at least one photo.
- The form keeps no draft.
On the global community
There are no Beans on the global community, so a post there has no price. The form has no Price: say in the description what you would like in return, or that it is free. Where the price would go, the web app's form, and the phone's form for changing a post, say "🏘️ In a local community this is a price in Beans ›": tap it to see why. See "Beans and the global community".
Visitors to the global community can see this listing's photos and its rough area before they join. They see the post's words and photos and roughly where it is, not your name, your face or the exact spot. In the web app the form says so under the photos. Members of the global community see your spot to about a kilometre.
Showing it on the global community
On your own Offer or Need, for everyone, with a place, you can tick Also show this on the global community. It is off until you tick it, and you can also do it later from the listing's own page, on your phone or in the web app. A lendable Offer counts as an Offer. An enterprise's listing, and one for a group or one person, can't be shown.
Your phone or your web browser posts a copy there with your own key. Your community's server does nothing and learns nothing. The copy has the listing's words, its photos, its place rounded to about 10 km, and its price in words, with this line: "20 Beans in Mullumbimby · You can't buy or take this until Mullumbimby welcomes you." A Need says "You can't answer this" instead. It shows no name, and nobody can message you from it, unless you take questions about it (below).
Nobody can buy it, take it up or start a deal on it there, and the global community has no Beans. Someone who wants it asks to join your community, and it is yours to deal with once they are welcomed. If your community isn't in the directory, the copy shows with no community's name and no way to ask.
Edit the listing here and the copy follows. Pause it, or have it in a deal, out on loan or hidden by reports, and the copy comes down, then goes back up as a new copy when it is back on the board. Remove it, or finish its deal, and the copy goes for good. Stop showing on the listing's page takes it down at any time. All of this runs on the phone or in the browser where you ticked it: it catches up when that app next opens, and a change made in the other one reaches the copy then too. Tick it on both and there is still one copy. Copies count as posts on the global community, with its daily limits for a new account.
Take questions about this on the global community sits under that tick, in the form and on the listing's page. It is off until you tick it, one listing at a time. While it is off, nobody on the global community can see who posted the copy or write to you from it. Tick it and members of the global community see your name there and can send you one message. It waits under Message requests at the top of Chat, with no alert, until you accept it, and accepting makes nobody a friend. If your phone or browser is on your own community, the same row says how many wait on the global community and takes you there, but only on the phone or browser where you ticked it. On any other, or after you sign out and back in, that row stays away until you tick it there, so a message can wait unseen. To see what waits, go to the global community and open Message requests in Chat. Visitors still see no name, and nothing can be bought or paid for on a copy either way.
Untick it and your name comes off at once. A message already sent stays yours to accept or decline, and anyone can still write to you on the global community if they have your key, as they can to any member there. An event has no such tick: to go, people ask to join your community.
Not sure what to charge?
On the phone, tap Not sure what to charge? under the price. In the web app the form has no such line: open 💡 Pricing Guide on the Market instead. A rough guide: 40 beans is about an hour of someone's time. The Community Pricing Guide has estimates for many everyday things. On the phone, tapping one fills in an Offer for you. In the web app, tapping one opens the New Post form on the Map without filling anything in.
Below the price you see what you will receive after the 1.5% market fee. Gifts have no fee.
Tags
Tags help people find your post. They are optional, and they are public with your post.
- Tap + Add under Tags, on the phone and the web app. Start typing and the app offers tags from its library.
- If none fits, type your own. Tap Add “#…”, press Enter, type a comma, or tap Done. A word that is already in the library picks that library tag.
- A post can have five tags from the library and five of your own.
- A tag you type is 2 to 30 characters and four words at most. It can't be an email, a phone number, a web address or an @name. The app says why before anything is sent.
- A tag you type stays in your own words. Nobody translates it, so people find it by those words. A library tag is found in every language.
- To take a tag off, tap it. With the box empty, backspace takes off the last one.
Extra choices
- Repeatable: the post stays up after each deal, and several people can take it at once. Good for a weekly lift or bread every Saturday.
- Cash also needed: tick this if you also need some cash, for fuel or materials. The app never handles cash; you sort that out between you.
- Where does this travel? Only if your community trades with other communities: keep the post here, or share it further.
On the phone, the app keeps a draft as you type. If you leave and come back, it asks whether to Continue or Start fresh.
Posting only to a group
Open Commons, then Groups, then your group, and tap Post to and the group's name. Only that group sees it. On the phone this shorter form has no location, and needs at least one photo like any Offer or Need. In the web app it opens the usual form on the Map, set to the group.
Changing or removing a post
Open your post. If no deal is under way on it:
- Edit Post changes the words, category, price and photos. Tap Save. The location cannot be changed; delete the post and post it again instead.
- Pause Offer hides an Offer for a while. Activate Offer brings it back. Needs cannot be paused.
- Delete Post removes it. Anyone still asking for it sees their request marked declined.
If you keep an enterprise, you can change its Offers and Needs the same way, or pause and resume an Offer (Edit Post, Pause Offer, Activate Offer). It stays the enterprise's. See "Projects and enterprises".
While someone is asking for your post, you can still change its words and photos, but not its price: the app says so. While beans are held on a post, you cannot edit it at all. The exception is a Repeatable post (it can have several deals at once): you can still change its words and photos, but not its price. To change the price, decline or cancel that deal first.
In a local community, posts do not expire. Delete them when they are done.
On the global community, a listing is archived 90 days after it last changed: it comes off the Market and its photos are deleted. Saving it with Edit Post keeps it for another 90 days. See "The global community's limits".
When you first join a local community from the global community, the phone app offers to post your listings there too, with their photos. See "More than one community".
Related
- A deal, step by stepFrom asking to getting paid, for an Offer and for a Need, and leaving a review.
- Your dealsOne place for every trade you are in, every post you have up, and your past trades.
- What the map showsThe pins on the Map, what their colours mean, and the buttons around them.
- Your credit lineHow far below zero you can go, and how it grows.
The same guide is in the BeanPool app, and works there without a connection: open Settings, then "Help & how it works" under BeanPool. Every other rule, guide and manual is in the Help Centre. Guide version 165.