Bitcoin Forum

Has anyone here sale something in OpenBazaar2?
Is it working?

While I haven't sold anything there yet, though I attempted to, it works as a platform. It's just that not much people are actually looking up for stuff to buy on that platform due to the sole reason that the user experience isn't that good in contrast to looking for and buying stuff on sites like Amazon or eBay.

I gave it a shot as buyer like two months ago, and I was actually surprised by how convenient it really is. I initially had the impression that it was a hassle to use and whatnot based on experiences of people on social media, but I think that people mostly say that because they have heard others say so, likely also people who haven't used it.

I think the main problem here is that the demand for a decentralized market place isn't really there at this stage, because most of what's being sold on OB doesn't require anyone to skip centralized market places for. Another aspect is that it lacks marketing, which in crypto is very important if you want to gain ground.

I really wish OB to gain more ground but if it hasn't been able to do so in the previous years, chances are that it won't take off in the forthcoming years.

The inconvenience in my opinion is mostly that you'd have to actually download and sync a client to be able to use OB(though it's decentralized so using a software client is not surprising), in contrast to eBay/Amazon that you simply login on a website on whatever device you have. Last time I tried OB was like half a year ago though, looks like I need to check out what things are new. The buying side is fine in my opinion, but the last time I tried to sell stuff? Even if I think I'm decently tech savvy, there were a few things that made me a bit confused(though I really don't remember what those were).

Exactly! Want to buy some earphones? Why buy from OpenBazaar if you can grab them easily from Amazon? Want to pay using BTC? Pay through Purse.io!

Though I really like the concept of a decentralized marketplace, unfortunately I really doubt it gets any traction in the long term for the masses. Unless everyone just suddenly becomes privacy conscious.

The idea that any significant numbers are ever going to use it is laughable. It's the essence of a solution in search of a problem.

Drugs and guns, sure. Would I want to download and run a client with a useless search facility and will largely have a sprinkling of ancient listings instead of one click stuff elsewhere? Um, not really.

It could work in places with little to no conventional ecommerce but I dunno where they are. 

That's actually a major inconvenience I haven't taken into consideration yet, thanks for pointing out. It's another problematic aspect that adds yet another obstacle for the average joe to actually utilize it. There is no possible way for average joes to freely open their browser and have a first look at what is being offered, and if it is of any use to them.

I'm pretty sure that a site can be built to offer people remote access, but that defeats the whole purpose of OB as decentralized market place.  :-\

I know a lot of people in this space for years now, but never have I seen any of them use it after their initial test transactions. If Bitcoiners don't use it, why would average joes use it?

I've downloaded it about 4-5 times over the years. I deleted it in disgust no more than an hour later every single time. I'm sure it would be more wieldy if they could make it so. Even if it were as slick as something like Telegram on PC the incentive to use it doesn't really exist.

That pretty much sums it all up. Darknet markets sort of flourished because of people buying and selling illegal and shady stuff and I assume people barely used the darknet markets for buying stuff that you could easily buy on Amazon/eBay or on nearby local stores. While the darknet markets isn't decentralized, OB is pretty much just the more "legal" version of it.

I tried using it a couple times but never found any good deals, or anything that I needed at the time, so I never bought anything there. Inconvenience is the least of all problems to me.

I mean there's an issue with any market that is accepting a cryptocurrency, and that issue is that not everyone has crypto. The larger market is in accepting credit card, debit card, etc. Most people in the US have one of these, while most don't have crypto.

And even going into the people who have crypto -- they most likely aren't going to be spending it daily. Most are just going to be holding for capital appreciation.

Open Bazzar -- most likely is going to be accepting btc as well, which is going to cause some issues when it comes to tx fees and tx confirmation times that people aren't going to be used to. People -- while not knowing that credit cards also incur fees for the merchant -- don't like fees are passed onto them. No one is going to want to pay even 25 cents for their transaction to be sent when they've never had to pay for this sort of thing.

Yep. Not only that though, assuming the day comes that bitcoin adoption is very high already, whereas people globally are actively using bitcoin for payments. Sure, OB can probably gain a bit of traction then, but what happens when big eCommerce sites like Amazon and eBay suddenly accepted bitcoin? Poof goes OB's traffic once again.

Bitcoiners tend to glorify everything just because it's decentralized, while completely ignoring the fact that you don't need everything to be decentralized. Centralization isn't an issue everywhere.

I honestly find that marketplaces like eBay are doing an exceptional job providing the uttermost convenience for those buying with a solid service of buyers protection. You don't need this to be decentralized. It works better centralized.

I know of people who have been misled by sellers on eBay and they got their money back swiftly after having provided all the info eBay demanded. This gives buyers a lot of confidence to shop online with peace of mind.

I downloaded openbazaar years ago as I just wanna try it. It allows users to search for merchants nearby.  If they intend to make people use it I guess they have to develop a mobile app for it. People wants to use to convenient tool to operate so maybe average bitcoiners will try using it. 

Contrarily, sellers continue to suffer losses due to the bias towards buyers.

Scammers know how to exploit that system and there hasn't been much done to defeat them because these market places are too afraid to lose customers. Payments through PayPal can be reversed months after the transaction was conducted. It really sucks for sellers to see PayPal debiting the whole amount from their balance.

We don't necessarily need a decentralized market place, but more Bitcoin adoption on existing centralized market places would suffice too. Just having that option is power to the people.

Fair enough, but the whole point is that people have a choice, and despite sellers being in a clear disadvantage pretty much on any marketplace, sellers go where the buyers are, and that's something we can't change.

People who are interested in weed for example, they will use a darkmarket, where people interested in buying something more commonly used such as a pair of shoes, they can do that on eBay or Amazon. No problem to be solved here.

All that buyer protection comes at a cost. Endless eBay sellers have been screwed over (https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/may/21/ebay-accused-failing-sellers-buyers-manipulate-system-protection) by fraudulent buyers over the years. That's the main reason why I'd never sell anything on there. eBay just assumes every buyer is honest. OB is much better for sellers in that sense.

I've sold tens of thousands of pounds' worth of crap on Ebay and have never had one single problem.

As a buyer I would've been ravaged many, many times if it were a free for all. Since it isn't I was alright.

I seem to recall some sort of escrow ish system with Openbazaar. Can anyone fill in its details?

Probably depends on what you sell. Maybe it's better nowadays, but I've met a fair amount of people who were scammed trying to sell ('item not delivered') more expensive items, from electronics to Casascius coins. I wonder if requiring signature is enough, or is there still a possibility eBay will side with the buyer.

I think it is very category dependent.

Most of my stuff has been photography which will attract a more wholesome crowd than others.

All the same I've sold enough phones and computers too.

Maybe I've been jammy. From reading the experience of others as a seller you have to work pretty hard to get them to see sense when scammed but they often come through.

I never bothered with OpenBazaar because it required downloading and installing a client. Too much hassle, plus I didn't really trust the software and I never heard great things anyway.

Is there a browser-based version yet?

It's pretty retarded for anyone to even consider selling Cas coins through Ebay. What usually happens with these coins is that the owners list their coins just for the sake of getting that exposure, then settle the transaction in real life or in a different manner, everything but through the regular way items are usually purchased through Ebay.

There was a stunning 10BTC Cas listed on Ebay for $300,000 not that long ago. Not sure if it got removed because it sold outside Ebay or that the owners removed the listing because the price went down.

In UK Ebay any attempt to list a Casascius coin for auction or buy it now is flat out rejected. You can only list it as a classified ad. I can see why to an extent but it's a pain up the arse if you have an empty one and fancy auctioning it.

Other Ebays seems to allow the usual formats.



I've seen browser based searches but there's no way the project itself would support a full browser version. No one would bother running the client so the whole thing would seize up.

People who are invested in the platform -- OB1 and its investors, vendors who depend on the platform for sales, maybe even a few buyers who want to support the network -- would run the client.

I'm not sure exactly how OpenBazaar's P2P networking works but in theory, a lite browser-based version that pings nodes should be possible. They should consider something to make it more accessible.

I agree with increasing accessibility and the obvious way is a no client approach, but anything that requires charity or centralisation rather than necessity isn't going to last. Of course if it was browser usable usage would go considerably higher.

I guess the most viable is requiring sellers to run it. I presume that might screw up whatever escrow/moderator system it has if buyers aren't an integral part too.

There is browser version! Though it does not yet support buying, that functionality is in development now. The goal here is to eventually have OpenBazaar completely browser-based. https://openbazaar.com

Also newly released is a mobile experience for OpenBazaar called Haven: https://gethaven.app

Happy to answer any questions anyone has about the platform & various clients, I am the Marketing & Communications Lead at OB!