Bitcoin Forum

I've read quite a bit about eBay and PayPal cancelling peoples sales and outright banning people for using Bitcoin. Why doesn't someone create a site where people could buy and sell new or used items with Bitcoins?

Is this the next million dollar idea? We need to get people using Bitcoin and this is a great way to do it.

If eBay had some competition, it would force their hand. Isnt this the type of activity Bitcoin was created to do? Would Bitcoin payment be an improvement to the payment systems for eBay and Paypal? The money of the internet. The internet of money. Bitcoin is made for this.. We've all been sitting around waiting for them to get in the game. Why not do this ourselves? Who needs em.


my first post. Nice to meet you guys. You have provided some great reading. Thank you.

Wouldn't be that hard to build, there are already ebay clone scripts readily available, just need to integrate btc payments.  in sure more than one person is building a bitcoin based auction site as we speak.

Hey you guys would have a place to sell your old rigs... or a coffee mug lol

there was "bitmit", but there was too much issues eg:
selling illicit stuff that had to be removed alot
many scammers trying to abuse the system
wasnt programmed as well as ebay

i think the owner gave up in the end and closed it for good.

that is the problem with most bitcoin start-ups. they are set-up by naive basement dwellers and ran like hobby projects instead of actual legit businesses. They are looking for opportunities to make money with little to no work and as such, instead of employing or selling their project to enthusiastic and hard working people that want services to succeed, they end up just closing it down.

bitcoin doesnt need just a ebay clone, but a ebay clone with enthusiasm, drive to succeed and ethics.

Yes, anyone who tells you that setting up an ebay competitor shouldn't be too hard is living in cloud cuckoo land.

It's a heck of a lot of work. I'm working on a Bitcoin project right now, a very simple one, and it's a lot of work - mainly because I insist that it is done right. I do intend to introduce a market place, but it's a way off yet.

IMO, it's really just this. If someone with enough initial capital with some vision wanted to do this they probably could, but currently nobody really has enough drive or wants to front up the money to make the project a success. Plus the initial expenses would be pretty high especially if you had to find someone to code and as the site expands to get some support staff. However, I'm pretty sure if they just took a % it would cover the costs and be a pretty good revenue stream.

You mean BitPay ?
https://bitpay.com/

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=bitbay

BitPay is the payal of the two. BitPay could act as the third party and be the dispute security of the auction site.

It would be a lot of work, and time. If/when you succeed and have a successful site, chances are eBay will start taking bitcoin. You lose your USP and your site has no role any more, so it dies. It'd be better to invest the effort into an idea with long-term prospects.

People who say eBay will never allow bitcoin are being naive, in my view. It's just another currency for them. If anything, their buyer-wins adjudication policy is even more important as a layer over Bitcoin because raw Bitcoin transactions are not reversible. If you want an eBay-like that doesn't have that policy, that favours the seller, then it might have long-term prospects but it's not actually specific to Bitcoin. (And it's not clear that the business will succeed, because you arguably need buyers more than sellers and buyers are less likely to use a site they don't trust because it favours sellers.)

Even though bitcoin is not reversible, couldn't a system be put in place to handle disputes similar to how eBay handles them now? Im sure if you put your thinking cap on, someone could come up with a way to handle this where both buyer and seller are protected.

Is eBay going to accept this? Or they want to come up with their own version? Seems like to me they have taken a stance against it just like apple. They want to keep control of the money.

https://cryptothrift.com/
^^^^
Excellent auction site.

I know; I was merely conveying to OP that such a service already exists with the name BitPay

Thanks! Wonder why this site does appear on my google search results

need to popularize the link more or pay ads

It is coming ...please wait a few more days

Wow someone says is coming, dont have realistic goals, for one thing I should be opening a ebay competitor but in order to do this , you need better concepts then Ebay, you cant just start an ebay competitor without any ammo.  Many have tried to do this already and failed and worse of all now there are companies accepting bitcoin, you will have to beat them as well.   Plus you will need about 10,000 USD for SEO alone monlthy.  If you wanna reach out and have a good marketing team. 

So they finally took a decision .! still can't say how much they mean it..
http://www.coindesk.com/ebay-adds-new-virtual-currency-category-us-site/

Feathercoin also has a ebay style market: https://feathercoinmarket.com

There are already such sites. All of them would have hard times though at point when ebay (sooner or later) decide to accept bitcoin.

they are already taking steps in that direction..!

Are they? allowing it to be sold is different that accepting it as payment.

Silk Road had the USP - that's where the focus should be. A really well developed free market place running in a Tor hidden service, or maybe making one work in the blockchain of something like NXT.

I think a fully decentralised market could be a money spinner. They need to get away with bonds and holding money on their servers though. It's a bog security risk and only a matter of time before it gets hacked or goes missing.

In general I do not think a thor browser or blockchain powered marketplace will apply to the mainstream merchants and buyers. Thor browsers are for the special interested and general regards to buyers security its not appealing to buy from someone you not can track or find. Would you buy expensive goods from a shop that you new tomorrow is in a other town or country or disappeared....with you hard earned money. What if you not receive, or there is something wrong with the product?

But to create a marketplace that take cryptocurrencies and fiat money, but gives lower rates to trading with cryptocurrencies could might work. But in general the service must appeal to the masses to get reveneau enough to staffing and developement.

it would be a hard fight to change the power balance in the online world. A long and expensive fight. what I think will happen when bitcompanies are beginning to get a big succes, is that amazon, ebay/paypal, google, facebook or other big companies actual buys in or entire companies. Its happened before, and happens again. Bitpay for example will before or later be bought by a bigger investor, why in general. because the investors that invested initially are after growing their money. Thats why the invest in start up companies to have the possibility to grow the money huge.

Is there a possibility that someone could revive the now-defunct Bitmit?

U have raised some nice points. These are gonna be addressed... well not in the USD 10k/month way ;)

The problem is paypal can control money and reverse transactions. With Bitcoin, what's gone is gone and they little to no control if they implemented it.