Ebay-like websites with Bitcoin: Why haven't they taken off? - page 2.

tvbcof

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Quote from: Littleshop on January 13, 2012, 09:20:16 PM

Understood. But under those rules I would not play. Figuring out who is a bum buyer is just too tough.

Fine. It's a free market, but you'll be throwing away a lot of business. You have both a history to look at (just as does a buyer), and a situation where there is very little reason for a buyer to screw you unless you totally fail to deliver. Your call.

Littleshop

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Quote from: tvbcof on January 13, 2012, 09:13:22 PM

Quote from: Littleshop on January 13, 2012, 08:53:31 PM

Quote from: tvbcof on January 13, 2012, 07:37:30 PM

Quote from: Littleshop on January 13, 2012, 07:17:45 PM

Quote from: tvbcof on January 13, 2012, 06:57:12 PM

Quote from: RodeoX on January 13, 2012, 03:04:58 PM

I think fraud and abuse are big issues. I have never been scammed personally, but I have had bidders just decide to not pay. What then? My only recourse was to have him kicked out of the bidding site. Not much of a penalty.

I'm exclusively a buy-side user.

I have enough trouble getting my merchandise out of sellers even with chargebacks, especially lately for some reason. A fair percentage of sellers will screw you even when they when chargebacks ensure that there is a minimal chance that they will end up with the buyer's coin. Without them, I shudder to think of what the fraud rate would be.

If a seller will ship me the merchandise before I send them my BTC, I'm in.

That is why I like a tracking # based escrow. They have to ship to get the coin. A feedback system would give negative feedback to sellers who ship empty boxes or bad product.

Combined a tracking/escrow/feedback solution with the ability for the buyer to destroy the BTC associated with a transaction if the shipment is unsatisfactory, and I'll think about playing.

Once you start things like that, buyers start to negotiate price after receipt of product. Yes, the product is exactly as described but has a small scratch or other minor ailment that does not effect use for a used product. Buyer then asks for half off or seller gets no BTC. There is a whole bunch of game theory based on similar scenarios but now buyer ALREADY has product so they have nothing to loose.

When you have a GOOD feedback/rating system in place, the seller treasures their positive rating and will address most valid concerns so as not be loosing rating. Add a system in where buyer can get a financial reward for complaining and the number of complains will rise dramatically. This is also a headache for the customer service of the auctions site.

I disagree. A seller would be leery about doing business with a buyer who had a history of causing issues, so a buyer would be reticent to cause needless grief. If/when I am a seller, I'll specify that only buyers with a certain percentage are qualified to bid.

Also, I did say that the BTC would be destroyed. e.g., sent to a black hole address in the event of a dispute. Thus, the only way to game things would be for the buyer to release the funds and trust that the seller (who had just been a victim of buyer fraud) would send him back the 50% or whatever that the buyer just extorted. Unlikely unless there was a good-faith agreement.

I would anticipate that in a vast majority of the times funds were black-holed, it would be clear that it was the seller's fault.

Understood. But under those rules I would not play. Figuring out who is a bum buyer is just too tough.

tvbcof

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Quote from: Littleshop on January 13, 2012, 08:53:31 PM

Quote from: tvbcof on January 13, 2012, 07:37:30 PM

Quote from: Littleshop on January 13, 2012, 07:17:45 PM

Quote from: tvbcof on January 13, 2012, 06:57:12 PM

Quote from: RodeoX on January 13, 2012, 03:04:58 PM

I think fraud and abuse are big issues. I have never been scammed personally, but I have had bidders just decide to not pay. What then? My only recourse was to have him kicked out of the bidding site. Not much of a penalty.

I'm exclusively a buy-side user.

I have enough trouble getting my merchandise out of sellers even with chargebacks, especially lately for some reason. A fair percentage of sellers will screw you even when they when chargebacks ensure that there is a minimal chance that they will end up with the buyer's coin. Without them, I shudder to think of what the fraud rate would be.

If a seller will ship me the merchandise before I send them my BTC, I'm in.

That is why I like a tracking # based escrow. They have to ship to get the coin. A feedback system would give negative feedback to sellers who ship empty boxes or bad product.

Combined a tracking/escrow/feedback solution with the ability for the buyer to destroy the BTC associated with a transaction if the shipment is unsatisfactory, and I'll think about playing.

Once you start things like that, buyers start to negotiate price after receipt of product. Yes, the product is exactly as described but has a small scratch or other minor ailment that does not effect use for a used product. Buyer then asks for half off or seller gets no BTC. There is a whole bunch of game theory based on similar scenarios but now buyer ALREADY has product so they have nothing to loose.

When you have a GOOD feedback/rating system in place, the seller treasures their positive rating and will address most valid concerns so as not be loosing rating. Add a system in where buyer can get a financial reward for complaining and the number of complains will rise dramatically. This is also a headache for the customer service of the auctions site.

I disagree. A seller would be leery about doing business with a buyer who had a history of causing issues, so a buyer would be reticent to cause needless grief. If/when I am a seller, I'll specify that only buyers with a certain percentage are qualified to bid.

Also, I did say that the BTC would be destroyed. e.g., sent to a black hole address in the event of a dispute. Thus, the only way to game things would be for the buyer to release the funds and trust that the seller (who had just been a victim of buyer fraud) would send him back the 50% or whatever that the buyer just extorted. Unlikely unless there was a good-faith agreement.

I would anticipate that in a vast majority of the times funds were black-holed, it would be clear that it was the seller's fault.

Littleshop

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Activity: 1386

Merit: 1004

Quote from: tvbcof on January 13, 2012, 07:37:30 PM

Quote from: Littleshop on January 13, 2012, 07:17:45 PM

Quote from: tvbcof on January 13, 2012, 06:57:12 PM

Quote from: RodeoX on January 13, 2012, 03:04:58 PM

I think fraud and abuse are big issues. I have never been scammed personally, but I have had bidders just decide to not pay. What then? My only recourse was to have him kicked out of the bidding site. Not much of a penalty.

I'm exclusively a buy-side user.

I have enough trouble getting my merchandise out of sellers even with chargebacks, especially lately for some reason. A fair percentage of sellers will screw you even when they when chargebacks ensure that there is a minimal chance that they will end up with the buyer's coin. Without them, I shudder to think of what the fraud rate would be.

If a seller will ship me the merchandise before I send them my BTC, I'm in.

That is why I like a tracking # based escrow. They have to ship to get the coin. A feedback system would give negative feedback to sellers who ship empty boxes or bad product.

Combined a tracking/escrow/feedback solution with the ability for the buyer to destroy the BTC associated with a transaction if the shipment is unsatisfactory, and I'll think about playing.

Once you start things like that, buyers start to negotiate price after receipt of product. Yes, the product is exactly as described but has a small scratch or other minor ailment that does not effect use for a used product. Buyer then asks for half off or seller gets no BTC. There is a whole bunch of game theory based on similar scenarios but now buyer ALREADY has product so they have nothing to loose.

When you have a GOOD feedback/rating system in place, the seller treasures their positive rating and will address most valid concerns so as not be loosing rating. Add a system in where buyer can get a financial reward for complaining and the number of complains will rise dramatically. This is also a headache for the customer service of the auctions site.

tvbcof

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Quote from: Littleshop on January 13, 2012, 07:17:45 PM

Quote from: tvbcof on January 13, 2012, 06:57:12 PM

Quote from: RodeoX on January 13, 2012, 03:04:58 PM

I think fraud and abuse are big issues. I have never been scammed personally, but I have had bidders just decide to not pay. What then? My only recourse was to have him kicked out of the bidding site. Not much of a penalty.

I'm exclusively a buy-side user.

I have enough trouble getting my merchandise out of sellers even with chargebacks, especially lately for some reason. A fair percentage of sellers will screw you even when they when chargebacks ensure that there is a minimal chance that they will end up with the buyer's coin. Without them, I shudder to think of what the fraud rate would be.

If a seller will ship me the merchandise before I send them my BTC, I'm in.

That is why I like a tracking # based escrow. They have to ship to get the coin. A feedback system would give negative feedback to sellers who ship empty boxes or bad product.

Combined a tracking/escrow/feedback solution with the ability for the buyer to destroy the BTC associated with a transaction if the shipment is unsatisfactory, and I'll think about playing.

cunicula

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Quote from: RodeoX on January 13, 2012, 03:04:58 PM

I think fraud and abuse are big issues. I have never been scammed personally, but I have had bidders just decide to not pay. What then? My only recourse was to have him kicked out of the bidding site. Not much of a penalty.

This is partially due to the format. It makes no sense to denominate bids in bitcoin. After the auction ends, bidders will refuse to pay if BTC prices have gone up and sellers will refuse to sell if BTC prices have gone down. Denomination in bitcoin makes fraud more profitable than it normally would be. I think the most likely winning model is a site that operates in dollars, accepts credit cards, but offers a very small discount for payment in BTC. Once you strip it down to this, you can see it will be very difficult to make a successful site. The very small discount is unlikely to rope in many users.

Littleshop

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Quote from: tvbcof on January 13, 2012, 06:57:12 PM

Quote from: RodeoX on January 13, 2012, 03:04:58 PM

I think fraud and abuse are big issues. I have never been scammed personally, but I have had bidders just decide to not pay. What then? My only recourse was to have him kicked out of the bidding site. Not much of a penalty.

I'm exclusively a buy-side user.

I have enough trouble getting my merchandise out of sellers even with chargebacks, especially lately for some reason. A fair percentage of sellers will screw you even when they when chargebacks ensure that there is a minimal chance that they will end up with the buyer's coin. Without them, I shudder to think of what the fraud rate would be.

If a seller will ship me the merchandise before I send them my BTC, I'm in.

That is why I like a tracking # based escrow. They have to ship to get the coin. A feedback system would give negative feedback to sellers who ship empty boxes or bad product.

tvbcof

legendary

Activity: 4760

Merit: 1283

Quote from: RodeoX on January 13, 2012, 03:04:58 PM

I think fraud and abuse are big issues. I have never been scammed personally, but I have had bidders just decide to not pay. What then? My only recourse was to have him kicked out of the bidding site. Not much of a penalty.

I'm exclusively a buy-side user.

I have enough trouble getting my merchandise out of sellers even with chargebacks, especially lately for some reason. A fair percentage of sellers will screw you even when they when chargebacks ensure that there is a minimal chance that they will end up with the buyer's coin. Without them, I shudder to think of what the fraud rate would be.

If a seller will ship me the merchandise before I send them my BTC, I'm in.

Littleshop

legendary

Activity: 1386

Merit: 1004

Quote from: Serge on January 13, 2012, 05:46:04 PM

the biggest hurdle to overcome in such platform is setting up and establishing effective dispute system which would protect the business, sellers and buyers
associated risks would probably add-on ebay like commission rate.

Step 1 (the hardest in the bitcoin community):
Do reasonable steps to positively identify sellers and eliminate fake registrations. That could be with a copy of an ID and a small bitcoin payment. If you do not prevent people from making fake registrations and giving themselves positive feedback through multiple accounts you will have too much fraud.

Step 2:
Tracking # based escrow. Funds are released when a valid tracking # goes from seller zip to buyer zip. This does not stop all fraud, but it stops a good deal of it. A feedback system can provide a rounded protection for the buyer.

Step 3:
Fees. Please charge, but not too much. This stops spam/junk auctions. Make it be MUCH less then ebay but just enough to stop crap from being posted. Maybe 10 cents (in BTC) to list and 1% final price.

Step 4:
Advertise and promote a series of absolute auctions (shipped by auctions site itself) of items people want. There will be some money loss involved. Space them at one every other day for a month. This will generate lots of traffic.

Littleshop

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The market is not yet mature enough. More people are on this board then on any of the bitcoin auction sites yet it is still hard to sell many non-bitcoin related items here. This is not because people here are bad or cheap, it is just the number of people in the audience. I put things here at a 10% discount to my ebay prices as about 1/4 of them sell. I then take the item and sell i on ebay, in most cases it sells for 10% higher dollar value. I price most items so they sell in a few days or one auction cycle.

That is the difference when on here 200 people who are really not specific buyers versus eBay where 2000 people specifically seeking to buy exactly what you are selling.

kwukduck

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It's not the sites that are to blame,
just look at the other topic on how many bitcoins people have, most have 1000+
bitcoin has become exactly what we oh-so didnt want it to become, just a pump n dump, if 1% is using btc as a currency or commodity i think it's a lot.

Jan

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Quote from: barbarousrelic on January 13, 2012, 02:37:31 PM

This seems to be a prime use for Bitcoin: A place for online auctions but without the Ebay restrictions and fees. A few have been made, like Biddingpond, bitbid, and a few others I can't remember, but none of them seem to have more than a small handful of auctions at any time.

What is missing from these websites that would make them take off?

Customers!

Serge

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the biggest hurdle to overcome in such platform is setting up and establishing effective dispute system which would protect the business, sellers and buyers
associated risks would probably add-on ebay like commission rate.

fm1234

member

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posted by DeathAndTaxes:

Quote

A company with deep enough pockets can subsidize the venture. ... It can be done but it takes some real capital.

Even capital and market clout didn't help Overstock.com or Amazon.com ... it's a much harder market to tap than people realise.

Frank

Nesetalis

sr. member

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i've seen alot of them start and die..
Really, the more that start, the worse off this is. If you want to start one. Stop, instead try to get involved with one already made, and make it better. Try to advertise it.
Without a critical mass of people selling and buying, then it won't work.

Rassah

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Network effects (people go where there are already other people), and currency risks (5 day auction could result in you paying twice as much, value-wise, as you originally intended to, if bitcoin value spikes up in price). It may be near impossible to take out eBay even if/when bitcoin stabilizes due to the networking effects, since even higher fees will be outweighed by more bidders competing for your product.

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

An auction sites becomes exponentially more valueable as the number of products and number of buyers increase.

Given ebay already exists it is very tough to bootstrap one from nothing. Likely it is going to require some real capital and no two college guys w/ a shared hosting account and a willingess to write some php is not capital.

A company with deep enough pockets can subsidize the venture. They could do things like create a browser plug in so if you go to ebay it will notify you if that is available on the bit auction site. They can advertize. They can run promos (like $10 off your first bid). They can hire companies to create volume (mass sellers).

It can be done but it takes some real capital. Right now Bitcoin is just too small.

Tuxavant

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Bitcoin Mayor of Las Vegas

support bitmit and me... i have some cool vinyl stickers up for sale... "Bitcoin: In Crypto We Trust" Tshirts comin too.

RodeoX

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The revolution will be monetized!

I think fraud and abuse are big issues. I have never been scammed personally, but I have had bidders just decide to not pay. What then? My only recourse was to have him kicked out of the bidding site. Not much of a penalty.

mokimarket

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Quote from: barbarousrelic on January 13, 2012, 02:37:31 PM

This seems to be a prime use for Bitcoin: A place for online auctions but without the Ebay restrictions and fees. A few have been made, like Biddingpond, bitbid, and a few others I can't remember, but none of them seem to have more than a small handful of auctions at any time.

What is missing from these websites that would make them take off?

Please add mokimarket.com to your list as we are currently the only penny auction site that accepts bitcoins

Topic: Ebay-like websites with Bitcoin: Why haven't they taken off? - page 2. (Read 5077 times)