hi, I just put my first offer on bitbay and now I have a few thoughts about it, hopefully this is an appropriate venue to place them 
although I did not become thoroughly well versed with all of the logistics parameters of the system it seems apparent that the use of the DDE requires me to place deposits which are pulled from the wallet as the orders are listed. this is a fundamental hindrance to people listing what they have for obvious reasons, and could become problematic to lift off and adoption. the way it relates to me directly in the now is that I don't have $20,000K worth of bitbay or that much fiat with which to purchase them (if that was the choice) .. However, the inventory of minerals is far greater than that, and even with a half deposit of bitbay (compared to the sale price of the item) I find this to be a relevant limiting parameter.
before starting to list I had guessed that perhaps the bitbay would draw from the balance at the time of the order. So here I am presenting a solution which may be considered for future implementation. with a bit of clever coding it should be no problem to prevent double spend and any other potentially problematic situations as a result of: allow the people listing the items to not be limited to the amount of listings they can place based on their balance. the balance should be left in the wallet where it belongs, not tied up in the bitbay system out of my hands. I can say that this (the current situation) will prevent me from listing much more as the 30,000 bay that I just picked up the other night will come nowhere near allowing me to even get started.
so with this consideration in mind it would be easy to allow a seller to list let's say $100K worth of inventory and the items would not be available for purchase in real-time unless the balance was available. this may mean that the seller can have one transaction 'in the works' which puts all of the other listings on pause (based on the actual available balance in real time) .. once that transaction is success the balance will go back and the other listings would 'unpause' . in this way a seller could build up BAY coins while at the same time allowing for a full inventory to be listed. As it stands I would have to come out of pocket in a relevant way just to support the listings. with some modifications much inventory would be listed while simply not allowing it to be purchased if the coin was not in the wallet. apologies if I am being redundant. no offense but I am seeing this criteria as a critical flaw with the adoption of the system. the system should allow people to build up their wealth (coins) from a starting point, not a huge investment of real money into the system just to list things.
I would very much like to use bitbay and continue to list items but I have drawn the line at what I am willing to invest at this time. I will guess that for anyone approaching this system they will likely have a similar perspective.
I was going to laughably suggest a bot to draw people (sellers) from ebay using their messaging system and invite them with some sort of promotional to sell on bitbay! ha ha but ebay does not charge the people money when they show up. they simply will allow the accounts to function in a 'probationary' mode which limits the total listings they can place and also (paypal) does not pay them until the customer releases the payment (with positive feedback). in this way the new people who show up to ebay do not have to 'buy in' and although slowly and with great taxation they are allowed to build trust.
although I did not become thoroughly well versed with all of the logistics parameters of the system it seems apparent that the use of the DDE requires me to place deposits which are pulled from the wallet as the orders are listed. this is a fundamental hindrance to people listing what they have for obvious reasons, and could become problematic to lift off and adoption. the way it relates to me directly in the now is that I don't have $20,000K worth of bitbay or that much fiat with which to purchase them (if that was the choice) .. However, the inventory of minerals is far greater than that, and even with a half deposit of bitbay (compared to the sale price of the item) I find this to be a relevant limiting parameter.
before starting to list I had guessed that perhaps the bitbay would draw from the balance at the time of the order. So here I am presenting a solution which may be considered for future implementation. with a bit of clever coding it should be no problem to prevent double spend and any other potentially problematic situations as a result of: allow the people listing the items to not be limited to the amount of listings they can place based on their balance. the balance should be left in the wallet where it belongs, not tied up in the bitbay system out of my hands. I can say that this (the current situation) will prevent me from listing much more as the 30,000 bay that I just picked up the other night will come nowhere near allowing me to even get started.
so with this consideration in mind it would be easy to allow a seller to list let's say $100K worth of inventory and the items would not be available for purchase in real-time unless the balance was available. this may mean that the seller can have one transaction 'in the works' which puts all of the other listings on pause (based on the actual available balance in real time) .. once that transaction is success the balance will go back and the other listings would 'unpause' . in this way a seller could build up BAY coins while at the same time allowing for a full inventory to be listed. As it stands I would have to come out of pocket in a relevant way just to support the listings. with some modifications much inventory would be listed while simply not allowing it to be purchased if the coin was not in the wallet. apologies if I am being redundant. no offense but I am seeing this criteria as a critical flaw with the adoption of the system. the system should allow people to build up their wealth (coins) from a starting point, not a huge investment of real money into the system just to list things.
I would very much like to use bitbay and continue to list items but I have drawn the line at what I am willing to invest at this time. I will guess that for anyone approaching this system they will likely have a similar perspective.
I was going to laughably suggest a bot to draw people (sellers) from ebay using their messaging system and invite them with some sort of promotional to sell on bitbay! ha ha but ebay does not charge the people money when they show up. they simply will allow the accounts to function in a 'probationary' mode which limits the total listings they can place and also (paypal) does not pay them until the customer releases the payment (with positive feedback). in this way the new people who show up to ebay do not have to 'buy in' and although slowly and with great taxation they are allowed to build trust.
Hey so let me explain why it is a bad idea to allow listing of items without forcing the reservation of funds. The reason is of course because of double spend but also because the limited number of inputs in an account. The BitBay Halo software breaks coins into multiple denominations of inputs for exactly this purpose so users can enjoy small and large orders without tying up their entire balance. Bitcoin itself works like a cash system so it's not possible to deduct X from your account without tying up inputs greater than that.
The thing is, when you say you have something for sale and you aren't reserving those inputs, then you might not actually have those inputs when the time comes. If you have multiple orders, all competing for the same input, logistically you would not be able to handle the incoming offers anyway because the inputs are stuck broadcasting. Also the seller wouldn't potentially have the money for the deposits anyways in that case.
What you will end up finding is the coding is very clever and designed for this exact purpose. This was definitely considered in advance, to handle lots of volume. Indeed it is other market designs that will not handle the volume when we will.
Now here is another thing and this is fairly important. When you list using custom contracts, you have no ability to set quantity. However in Cash for Coins, you do. That is because the templates are designed for a much more advanced user interaction with the markets.
So if you had a large volume of gems, instead of reposting them over and over, you can have a single order with quantity and inventory. Thus all the orders that come in could be bids.
A trusted seller may also not be asked to put 50%. Even 25% is a pretty good amount because he will be the one to ship first, putting him out the item and the amount placed to prevent extortion. Since the sellers deposit is to prevent extortion and bad quality items.
Nobody would want to wait for a seller to be on hold or pause while waiting for an escrow to clear either. The reason is when you are shipping something it can take up to a week. The buyer will want to review the item make sure it is as described before even thinking to release escrow.
As a seller you might want to consider your daily volume. If a seller has high volume chances are he will quickly get the BitBay he needs for deposits.
I would say a seller starting out if buyers wanted to take the "risk" so to speak the seller could offer a 25% deposit on his end and that at least binds him in some way.
So I also would say setting a quantity in the Buy/Sell anything template essentially does what you are describing since all offers come in as counters and bids and the buyer would only be able to accept if he had enough inputs for those. Perhaps it is best to understand how Bitcoin actually works and see how inputs and outputs are structured. We have a video sort of scratching the surface to explain it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJfxHWJ576c
By the way thanks for the feedback. We will get there one step at a time.
And actually I took your order for the tourmaline. This way you can get used to the process. Also you mention lack of photos in your order I should point out that I do think the description field allows basic HTML and also you might consider a link to imgur with more photos.
we need more bay enthusiasts on this board ....please stick around and don't vanish to slack