We're quite unique. It is very unique for a business person to ask it's customers what price it would like to pay for services. My style has always been one of collaboration. I am a consensus seeker and I like to think that I act on the best interest of all the parties involved. Therefore, I asked my vendors to tell me what a vendor should pay for QFLEA.com and had faith in their feedback.

The variety of responses was wonderful, although in truth, many sat silently on the sides, perhaps just waiting to hear the amount. The range of annual fees ran from $0 to $120 a year. Most people who gave a dollar figure said $5 or $10 a month. There were some other interesting responses. Someone raised the term "barter" and I thought to myself "Hey, I like that. I could be paid in jelly and candles and soaps and crafts and all kinds of goodies". There is actually some appeal to that, because I love jellies and soaps and stuff.

The topic of "how often" was also interesting. I heard everything from monthly to annually, with an emphasis on monthly. I hated that idea. The last thing I wanted to be is a bookkeeper and chase down 400 people every month for the fee. Even quarterly would be a pain. But I think my final decision solved that problem.

The silence from many members was disappointing. Too many vendors did not respond, which means they were either not paying attention (not a good thing) or not saying anything because they believe that a decision was already made, or just waiting to hear the amount and reacting.

A major factor in my decision was the fact that our vendors really are the small businesses of the Internet. While there is good traffic from QFLEA to their individual sites, I thought it was important to consider that many of our vendors are not getting rich from their businesses and in general, added costs are not something they can support. Some can ... but most cannot.

I have gotten to know my members and I think we've developed a relationship that I happen to like. They trust me and treat me with respect. They gave me good feedback. Therefore, my feedback to them was also good. The fee for listing at QFLEA.com will be free and remain so for as long as I can manage it. While I reserve the right to someday change my mind, I want QFLEA to remain a free service. I love the distinction of owning the largest free virtual flea market on the planet.

I've added some advertising on the site in order to generate a small revenue source to help defray the costs of maintaining QFLEA. I've also added an optional premium service known as FIND, the Fleamarket Internal Navigation Device for which there is a small fee. These revenue sources have been enough to cover operating costs and allow us to do a small amount of advertising.

So, QFLEA.com remains a free service. But like I said, we're quite unique.