Topic: Ebay-like websites with Bitcoin: Why haven't they taken off? (Read 5077 times)

posted by robkohr:

I'd keep an eye on this page.   eBay is actually quite draconian about payment methods; although they have backed off a little bit since then, for a while they had a long list of alternate currencies specifically named as prohibited.  It wouldn't suprise me if they added Bitcoin to that page at some point.  Of course, that sixth item on the "Payment methods not allowed on eBay" might well be interpreted to include Bitcoin. 


Frank

I have bought and sold things in the auction section of this forum. It seems to work well.

Wait! What? You talking about the BitcoinTalk forum being used as the auction site?

Just use ebay, and put "bitcoin accepted" in the body.

Other than that, the forum works well as an auction site.

posted by zer0:

This is inaccurate.  A few years ago eBay got rid of negative feedback from sellers towards buyers, thus giving buyers one more opportunity to fuck over independent sellers on eBay (who do not generally have the resources or margins to coddle problem child buyers.)  This change was heralded (by eBay) as a huge step forward in consumer protection, and that no longer would eBay buyers have to be afraid to leave negative feedback when they got ripped off or were otherwise disappointed. The eBay selling community kind of shook its collective head and said, "Wait, what?"   But aside from that, the practical response was that eBay sellers started suing buyers over feedback -- cases have been few and far between, but you can find them via a Google search, and the unifying feature among the cases is that they seem to have all come about since feedback from sellers to buyers was eliminated.   


Frank

Ebay is a natural monopoly. As a seller, I'd prefer to list on eBay, even with 10-15% fees, than list elsewhere regardless of the fee (ie, even if the fees were 0 elsewhere). Just one more bid on my item could easily be worth an extra 15%....it's a no-brainer; I'm going where the volume is.

As someone said earlier in this thread, the only way to effectively breech that effect is with LOTS of capital. You have to drop the fees into negative territory for sellers on competitor auction sites; ie, actually *pay* sellers to list. But that's freakin' expensive. Very unlikely that an individual will risk millions on such a venture, and obviously you'd get laughed out of a VC meeting with such a model.

The meta-site idea seems potentially viable from a high-level, though you have:
1) Many annoying logistical issues to solve
2) You've introduced an additional layer of friction (ie, fees) into the system. So people could still transact cheaper directly on eBay.

we need a meta site that searches many auction sites including ebay to break the monopoly(ebay) and associated monoplolies(paypal)

Price!

Done (just pay using paypal through spendbitcoins.com).

I see your points but what are the alternatives? There needs to be some mechanism for buyers to rate sellers.

I like this site but the feedback model is completely outdated and risky to yourself. What if I leave negative feedback and claim the guy scammed me. Ebay had to get rid of 'negative feedback' because of legal threats. The seller can launch legal action against you with a few lawyer forms from some fly by night Florida internet lawyer and sue you for defamation of character for the negative feedback.

This is what I mean by a whole new model needs to be though up. Right now your site is doing fine but if you get larger and start getting bigger sellers they will do whatever they can to scam their bad feedback away through lawyers. Just my $0.02

In an effort to promote our auction site we are currently running a promotion where users can earn up to 10 free bitcoins:

**Top Seller**
Whoever auctions off the most products on MokiMarket by January 31, 2012 at midnight will receive 5 bitcoins. Posting auctions is free and can be physical or virtual goods. Must mark all won items as shipped by deadline and maintain a positive feedback rating.

**Top Bidder**
Whoever wins the most products on MokiMarket by January 31, 2012 at midnight will receive 5 bitcoins. All items must be paid for by deadline.

Our site has a feedback rating system to weed out reputable sellers, we have been around for almost 4 months with very minor issues. Check us out.

I used to work for ebay way back in the day. The model is totally outdated somebody needs to think outside ebay's monopoly and build a unique site.

Since bitcoin price fluctuates every few seconds you can't list everything in BTC, it has to be in a currency that when you go to checkout generates the current price of BTC and asks you to transfer that. Then people can list any currency they want.

Since paypal is basically it's own escrow system buyers on ebay trust that they won't get scammed, since they can easily get their funds back should they receive something they didn't order so said auction site would have to use escrow but fuck me I would *not* want to be the unlucky admin in charge of such a site. You can' t imagine the endless legal threats and scams you would have to battle. There's nothing stopping me from ordering a digital camera off a bitcoin auction site, then claiming I received something else in the mail with zero way to prove it. This kind of scam runs rampant on ebay, same with feedback scamming/threats, sellers making syndicates to wipe out new competition by fraudulently ordering the new guy's items and making all sorts of claims to shut their account down...

What would work is a live auction but you'd need establish buyers to make it worthwhile. Ritchie Brothers Auction is a good site to learn how to do an auction, ignore ebay.

Such a site would certainly have to be hosted outside the US, outside their domain yanking control as well. A bulletproof host in China or something so if some guy starts selling fake/stolen louis vuitton bags you don't end up arrested for running the site

Bitmit.net is geared up to fill this role...

Here is my referring link, http://bitmit.net/en/?ref=1310

I love this site, check out my xbox games and related auctions.  I sold a video card and a game so far, the site works great.  Please support me by using the referring link 

The issue here is fairly simple. It's business 101. Payment method is only one part of the package, even if a Bitcoin auction site has the most convenient and cheap payment method with the lowest fees, it's not everything. That site is still competing with eBay and other major sites in every other aspect as well.

It's not enough that I, as a Bitcoin-enthusiast, want to use Bitcoin. There needs to be actual goods there that I really need and thus want to buy. eBay and the equivalent over here in Finland simply have exponentially larger supply of goods and users willing to bid on my goods. The convenience that comes from this overrides the advantages of Bitcoin.

Not that I use auction sites a lot anyway, but this issue is universal with all Bitcoin merchant startups. I don't expect "bitmit" to ever become anything other than a niche site, because it isn't offering enough to attract even most of the Bitcoin community, let alone anyone else.

I've said this before, but I think that the key is finding convenient ways to buy with bitcoins at already established major sites. Either directly when they add Bitcoin as a payment option or through a site such as spendbitcoins.com. New BTC startups could work out though, but there has to be some other significant benefits from using that site other than accepting Bitcoin. A good example is Casascius, who is selling unique Bitcoin-products and doing quite well I think.

A Bitcoin merchant startup is ahead of its time right now if it is dreaming of becoming anything other than a small site. But in the years to come, this could obviously change. Bitcoin could become significant enough that it in itself becomes a big deal from a marketing perspective.

On bitmit.net/ you already have $$ and BTC. I noticed the problem of rising BTC only after launching some 30d auctions. Bitmit seems to have some bug where the highest bit doesn't update depending on the exchange rate, which is bizarre anyway. Imagine one offers 6$ the other 1BTC for an item that was at 1$ before. First the $-bidder would get it for 1.05$ The BTC bidder would get it for 1BTC (worth 6.05$) but then rate drops and the $-dude is back in business? Will all auctions be updated with each trade at gox? I mean on the one hand I like the idea of a multi-currency auction platform (please add EUR and IRR) but on the other I'm not sure if this is fun to maintain on the long run.

Anyway, I like bitmit. I like the escrow feature. I hope they tackle those fraud issues besides from the bugs this young and promising site still has.

Two reasons. Volume and userbase.

Amazon is making inroads in fixed price listings.  Allowing third parties to use amazon shipping and thus be able to offer "prime shipping" is starting to pay off.  Amazon third party sales continue to grow.

Still you are right.  I mean there is a reason this dynamic is called "the ebay effect".  Alt-coins suffer from the ebay effect due to Bitcoins larger size and first mover status.  There likely will never be much demand for them unless they carve out a niche (which none other than namecoin have tried). 

How?  The only way you suggested is that the buyer extorts the seller into cutting the price.  But then it is in the hands of the seller to pay the extortion money out of the goodness of his heart.  That might happen for penny-ante little shit where the value of a positive rating is a noticable fraction of things, but for big ticket items it seems pretty unlikely.

I do not agree.  The buyer can be paid for screwing the seller, so there is a huge reason for the buyer to screw the seller in that case.