How much to require before a advertiser can place an ad?

The signup process

[adamnichols45]

Would having to register in order to place an advert on a site put you off?

Also once registered then you have to submit another form for your advert! would this put many people off?

Thanks for your input!

Adam

[lorax]

Customers expect to have to supply some personal information to facilitate the transaction. The bare minimum of financial info plus some contact info such that you can contact them if something goes wrong. They also expect to give up an address if something is to be shipped.

Requiring a customer register - which often requires much of the same information as the above plus a user name and password or more - is often viewed as a inconvenience. I can think of two reasons for this:

1) the more unnecessary information you ask from your customers, the longer you make them wait to get what they came for.
2) asking for more information than is absolutely necessary to complete the transaction and ensure delivery of the goods or services can be seen as an intrusion of privacy

Now, all this being said. In the case of buying advertising, I think an assumption is being made in the case you describe. The assumption is the buyer will want to buy more than one ad or will want to come back and change their existing ad. If that is the case then it makes sense to me to at least offer the ability to create an account (register). But my preference would be to let the customer just buy their ad with the minimal information I need to complete the deal. In this case, 1 form, contact info, financial info, and ad info.

[adamnichols45]

Thanks for the feedback - i feel i have just about thw right balence now actually, i wont change anything then . cheers - Adam