Topic: If only we had a crypto version of Ebay that could save us the hindrance of fee (Read 676 times)

The closest solution to your problem now, is a decentralized marketplace called.. OpenBazaar https://openbazaar.org/ but unfortunately this never really took off, because I think the project is simply too complex for the general public.

The developers normally over engineer a project and the final project seldom address the "user-friendly" needs of the end user and OpenBazaar is one of those project.  

In any way, I hope someone listen and they create something that are actually user friendly enough to compete with eBay and Amazon..  

If PayPal finally add the Cryptocurrency features in their platform buyers can now buy from merchants participants, and it will open merchants to Cryptocurrency holders and buyers, we don't need Ebay for this, it's good if we have out own Crypto Ebay and it could possibly start if merchants finally accept Crypto through Paypal.

Okay, I accept your rant. But I was a bit surprised because in the link I provided in the last post I read that OpenBazaar had addressed this criticism using IPFS and "search providers" from version 2.0 on.

Well, the system is open source and can be forked. That's not a criticism to you, but this way it becomes open for others who want to improve it.

I don't know the merchants' perspective, only the perspective of a consumer sometimes searching at OB and then closing it again because there are not enough products in my region. I run it generally from an old machine from 2013 with 3 GB RAM. It performs not lightning fast, but not slow enough to not be able to be run permanently, even if I run it in parelell to other heavyweight applications.

What I wonder however if there is no command line app which could be used by merchants to minimize resource usage. Technically that should be no problem, OpenBazaar is normally working very similar to BitTorrent.

PS: Yes, there is a command line app, openbazaard. I can't say anything about its resource usage though.

You seem to be a merchant, do you have negative experiences that you're so upset?

OpenBazaar 2.x, they write, should use IPFS to mitigate that problem. But anyway, if I were a professional merchant I would ensure that I'm always online. It should not be so difficult, either have a cheap low-energy device (old laptop, Raspberry Pi ...) running 24h or pay a cheap VPS (which you'll have if you're selling on other platforms, too). If IPFS is used IPFS pinning could also be an option.

It is also not impossible to develop a search technology to at least find stores that are currently completely offline and sharing the list (via website or even via a P2P app).

Of course, most data on P2P apps need to be mostly public. But something seems to be possible to be hidden via Tor.

I'm sure LN could be relatively easily be integrated into OpenBazaar or other similar platforms. But it seems this would accentuate the problem of vendors needing to be 24/7 online and thus they currently don't want to add it.

This only applies to centralized platforms which follow the eBay model closely, like Bitify.

In decentralized platforms like OpenBazaar, the infrastructure is maintained by the users - it's a P2P program which each user is running on his computer. The only service which requires a fee typically on OpenBazaar is fees for the escrow service. But these can be lower than typical fees on centralized platforms, because there are no infrastructure costs, and there is a free market of escrowers which compete, so the owner doesn't have a "monopoly privilege" on the platform. OpenBazaar however is struggling with development funding, but that is because they adopted a for-profit model which is not really convincing. If it was a pure nonprofit open source project, funded by donations (e.g. from shop owners, which save fees using the platform), then it should do well.

There has to be fees when you're being provided services. Who is going to pay for the platform, the returns services, the maintenance, maybe you want the platform design to develop as time passes and offer new functionalities. Without a business model, you don't really have a way to fund all this. If you look at Ebay annual reports on the stock exchange you will see the huge amount of funds taht are being spent.

It will takes some years for that to happen, right now Paypal will integrate Cryptocurrency in their platform and will allow access to their millions of merchants, I think it's better this way that a big company integrate Cryptocurrency than build one, the hardest thing is starting out with Paypal everything will be set up..

I said that if Ebay may decide to add cryptocurrencies, other attempts from competitors would turn into a huge, huge loss. As we see, PayPal decided to integrate cryptocurrencies. Right now you can only buy virtual bitcoin but in 2021 you'll be able to fully use crypto service.
Btw bitcoin will still be taxable because according to IRS it's treated like property.

Have a look at this article: Will PayPal’s crypto offer turn into a tax nightmare?
And at this: How Taxes Will Complicate Crypto Payments On PayPal

While you can save on the deals with the already given discounts during a sale (maybe festive sale or patriotic one), you would not prefer to go for crypto when there are not enough vendors who are willing to discount you in terms of crypto. Those people who are/are not willing to sell are the ones who make/break the entire online shopping industry and considering the fact that crypto does have fees and these companies can't go for btc due to its volatile nature where its price may go anywhere the next day as well as the fees also spike with it (and I truly believe that this is the only thing that has kept BTC stabilized, to keep the fee levels intact).

If I could remember correctly, there are some projects that have tried to come up with this market place concept but most of them are dead, and some other struggling to survive.
I think the reason why starting this Kind of project will be a bit of a hassle is because fiat is still very much dominant over crypto and the moment, imagine the users paying in crypto for the item they purchased, and the owners of the platform going through the hassle of converting crypto to fiat in order to pay for the maintenance of the platform.
More projects like this will have a higher chance of success when crypto becomes much more dominant over fiat.

I agree a one-layer system may be enough for most transactions with a small-to-medium amount of money involved. However, the problem here can be clearly selective scamming - the untrustworthy escrower would wait for people getting confidence, and in a bigger transaction he cooperates with a scammer (or he stages everything himself using different identities, which isn't that hard in decentralized networks).

Thus I believe that if the "Level 2" authority has some stake in the system - like it seems to be the case with OB1 with respect to OpenBazaar, because if OB1 was known to scam OpenBazaar customers or to be too lax when selecting moderators, then their sources of income might dry up - then it can provide some additional value to the escrow system.

Regarding the Bitcointalk trust system, take into account Bitcointalk has still a centralized authority which acts as a "moderator of last resort", even if the trust system itself isn't moderated directly, the staff can ban those who abuse it too hard. In a P2P app like OpenBazaar it's much easier for scammers to infiltrate such a system (this is at the end why we need Bitcoin and a "money transfer web of trust" - imagine Ripple without a blockchain - isn't enough).

I agree however that the additional information which are possible in Bitcointalk's system (like a link to a "reference", risk taken, amount etc. ) would also be very useful for OpenBazaar and similar sites.

We're faring alright here at Bitcointalk without people having to verify their escrow each time they win an auction, mainly because the escrows here can be trusted. So it's not like having a trustworthy transaction with one layer escrow is not practical.

Having a service that moderates escrows won't be very helpful because these Level 2 verifiers may themselves be untrustworthy which pauses you to bring Level 3 verifiers to check them, and so on. Then it becomes a bureaucracy just to use escrow.

A trust and flag system like the one we have here would be very useful for decentralized auction sites, instead of a rating system, because it would let them detail the trade they made, how much risk they took, how soon it was delivered, etc. Then decision power shifts to those users who the community trusts the most, and those on their trust lists.

Trolling trust feedback can be for the most part stifled by not having a discussion forum for the auction site for trolls to interact on.

The problem in this case is obviously the same as with Amazon: fake reviews. OpenBazaar, as far as I know, already has a customer review system. But it's hard to imagine it cannot be abused, if the seller can simply sell goods to himself.

Maybe it could help if the customers are also reviewed by the sellers - while this can also be abused, it would be easier to spot "circlejerk" networks of identities constantly reviewing each other but never receiving a review from outside of that circle. But even in this case, selective scamming could be a problem.

The kind of postal service I have in mind would be a regular company, which would be responsible to protect the data of the customers (buyers and sellers) just as all these services are. Basically, the additional service would consist in something like a photo being taken of the content of the package by the postal service, which would be shared only with buyer, seller and escrower (obviously, both must agree to that). The postal service itself wouldn't be involved in the payment process so it would not be obliged to register as a "financial institution".

Obviously this limits the usage to legal and "unproblematic" goods, and it can't detect all sorts of scams (e.g. sellers sending defectuous electronic devices) but it already would offer more security than a simple tracking code. And it could be combined with e.g. the seller providing the option to return the shipment in the case the buyer doesn't like it (well, in theory in this case the buyer can scam the seller, but then again, this service of taking a picture of the content of the package would make some scam attempts (e.g. returning an empty package, or an inferior good than the one originally sent) impossible or very hard without being detected.

I think that having one built offshore would be a good idea. A truly open platform where people could list and sell anything.

Your estimate is so far from reality it brings into question the competency of your leadership.   :/

that's a good point which i wasn't thinking about, whenever i think about decentralized marketplaces i see them from the perspective of the seller/shop not the buyer/customer. @stompix pointed this out to me in another topic.

in any case i think this issue could be partially solved by a rating system. for example an old shop that has been around for a long time could have reviews and points given to them by their customers. it could even be stored in a blockchain (maybe a side-chain even). although it is not a fix but it can lessen the severity of issues.

i think that requires some sort of record of such trades which also goes against the privacy that people may seek while using a decentralized marketplace instead of a centralized one. this could also bring regulations and taxation and with that limitations.

This will definitely happen, more solutions are coming at a speedy rate, in the near future, there will be one that will address this challenge. Crypto is still young but we are making progress.

Unfortunately I see a second problem with these decentralized marketplaces, and that is trust. Many people like it when they can rely on a centralized authority when something goes wrong with a trade. On OpenBazaar, there is the option to use an escrower (moderated payment), but if the escrower (moderator) fails in assess the situation correctly (e.g. if a vendor presents him fake proof about an item that was sent) or is untrustworthy, all they could do is to call the police - and depending on the good they purchased, or privacy reasons, they may not want to do that.

I read from a service from a business called OB1 who "verifies" OpenBazaar moderators. However, even totally trusted people can be fooled by good scammers. Thus, in reality what would be needed would be some kind of insurance for the escrowers, but this is currently (probably) unrealistic.

Thus I think there is a niche for e-bay like crypto marketplace websites like Bitify. A big problem however could be - depending on the country they operate - that these sites must register as a financial institution if they offer escrow, or limit themselves to provide means of communication.

PS: Just got an idea I may develop further: One of the problems of decentralized marketplaces seems to be the communication with the postal service, because it's difficult to prove a vendor didn't send the correct item. What about a crypto-friendly postal service which offers an option to verify the content of a shipment? Problem may be that such a service could be costly, but what I have in mind is that the vendor should pay an additional fee which he gets back if the buyer doesn't request dispute resolution ... Is for now a very immature idea, maybe it already exists.

This can work well with advanced escrow system on a decentralized marketplace.
 If you have a contract with your seller and the goods turn out to be different from what the seller claims in the agreement, you lay complaints with proofs on the decentralized marketplace. Qualified arbiters go through the complaints, if you have a good case, you return the goods and automatically get a refund.

It's a good start, but we need something that will cater to multi coins holder these marketplace is great but they only cater to specific coin we need something that can accept popular coins in the market and as big as Amazon, those on DappRadar are unheard of or not popular marketplace, somebody has to start this.