Purse to Launch Marketplace to Compete with eBay and OpenBazaar

[btcjamtom]

Did you guys see this?

Purse to Launch Marketplace to Compete with eBay and OpenBazaar

From CoinJournal:
http://coinjournal.net/purse-to-launch-marketplace-to-compete-with-ebay-and-openbazaar/

Purse has become one of the more exciting companies in the Bitcoin space due to their dedication to creating use cases for mainstream users. While many other Bitcoin-related businesses are focused on trading or wallet software, Purse has created a reason for people who don’t care about Bitcoin to go out of their way to use the peer-to-peer digital cash system. The large discounts on Amazon purchases provided by Purse have opened the eyes of the general public when it comes to why they may want to use Bitcoin, and the company will soon be expanding their platform to allow anyone to sell goods for bitcoin on a new marketplace.

A Balance Between eBay and OpenBazaar

Purse Co-Founder and CEO Andrew Lee recently provided CoinJournal with a few extra details on the upcoming marketplace, and the company’s vision for this new ecommerce platform seems clear. Lee was able to sum up the main point of the new ecommerce solution with the following statement:

“We use Bitcoin to enable anyone to shop, earn bitcoins, or sell items without approval from banks or payment processors.”

The Purse marketplace will allow anyone to sell their goods online without the need for a merchant account from a payment processor because Bitcoin (and other altcoins via ShapeShift) will be used for payments. Unlike the other marketplace options coming out of the Bitcoin space, such as OpenBazaar and BitMarkets, Lee noted that Purse is focusing on “ease-of-use and customer satisfaction instead of total anonymity.”

Purse will also be taking advantage of the blockchain and multisignature addresses to act as an escrow agent for all transactions on their new platform. As Lee noted, this is an area where the company already has more experience than anyone else in the world:

“Purse is not only the largest consumer marketplace in the world for Bitcoin but also the most experienced blockchain escrow agent. We’re leveraging our reputation system, network, and payments mechanism to expand the platform.”

Overcoming eBay’s Network Effect

One of the main issues when competing with eBay is that the online auction giant enjoys a ridiculous network effect from its time in the early days of ecommerce. Having said that, Purse may have a unique opportunity to drive new users to their platform in a short period of time. In addition to the goods and products sold by users on the platform, Purse will also display Amazon products with the discounts that their users have come to appreciate over the past year. The shopping experience has been simplified to look as if the user is shopping on a normal retail website, and Purse has released a video to illustrate just how easy it will be to shop on this new platform:

A Real Bitcoin Use Case for Mainstream Users

When combined with Coinbase, Circle, or fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, it’s possible that this new marketplace could be a huge step forward for the adoption of Bitcoin by the general public. Users are able to hold US dollars on Coinbase (in some states) and Circle, which means that they don’t even need to know that they’re using Bitcoin to get the discounted Amazon goods or products posted for sale by other users. Instead of telling their friends and family members about Bitcoin, it could make sense for bitcoin enthusiasts to talk about the apps built on top of the platform such as Coinbase, Circle, and Purse. At the end of the day, Average Joe cares about useful apps more than a base protocol.

Andrew Lee is currently doing an AMA on Roger Ver’s Bitcoin.com.
https://forum.bitcoin.com/ama-ask-me-anything/i-m-andrew-lee-co-founder-ceo-of-purse-ama-t2327-10.html

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[coinpr0n]

This looks pretty cool. I've never used Purse myself, but I think that integrating Amazon products into their listings is definitely a win for them. I wish them the best and hope they can really build this without running into too much trouble (I wonder what Amazon will think).

[NorrisK]

This looks pretty cool. I've never used Purse myself, but I think that integrating Amazon products into their listings is definitely a win for them. I wish them the best and hope they can really build this without running into too much trouble (I wonder what Amazon will think).

I guess amazon wouldn't really mind as the stuff will still be sold through there site right?

That way they can still earn money through the sales.

[BitcoinNewsMagazine]

Clever how new accounts are always announcing AMAs on Ver's competing forum to try to gain traffic.

[SFR10]

As to the Purse upcoming marketplace lunch, it's really a great news for all of us, more choice for shopping, more flexibility, less limit and hassle, less fee paid and everything with bitcoin so it's going to be fun how the outcome will be and as to the AMA stuff popping out lately, I think his overdoing it (Roger) and it's not a professional way either, IMHO it's like begging for traffic to his forum

[Digit-0]

I hope that when they do it do it for all the world, i mean that is not the first time that i want to check some new services and they are not available on europe ( for example ).

About the service i'm pretty sure that there is lot of people waiting for a similar service, buying and selling for crypto, it will have a good acceptance for sure.

[Mickeyb]

As to the Purse upcoming marketplace lunch, it's really a great news for all of us, more choice for shopping, more flexibility, less limit and hassle, less fee paid and everything with bitcoin so it's going to be fun how the outcome will be and as to the AMA stuff popping out lately, I think his overdoing it (Roger) and it's not a professional way either, IMHO it's like begging for traffic to his forum

They must be paying well, honestly a person every day for 30 days right? No way they got that all scheduled like that for free.

It's actually longer. The whole November and pretty much whole December. So almost 2 months.

Now about this Purse announcement, this is a very nice news. This is exactly what we need to get this baby of the ground. More and more services that will offer advantages to people and where we will be able to spend our bitcoins!

[franky1]

"The Purse marketplace will allow anyone to sell their goods online without the need for a merchant account from a payment processor"

"Purse will also be taking advantage of the blockchain and multisignature addresses to act as an escrow agent for all transactions on their new platform."


translation.. purse will be the manager of the funds... lets call them paypal, a merchant account payment processor. because without purse/paypal.. you cant escrow..

secondly, " their new platform." lets call that ebay.

im guessing to give ratings, people are going to need to have a username and password to advertise their goods. and that usernname will be linked to the escrow part.. hmmmm can anyone else say 'merchant account' especially when delivery details need exchanging

much easier to have a system where people can just post their adverts to facebook, twitter, craigslist. with a direct link to an escrow service, purely for the payment handling.

[Arcteryx]

They already have a huge client base so they will be good competition for the market leader in the online seller realm.

[tokeweed]

I don't see why people are really excited about it.  

Also, how can you compare Purse's market place with something like OpenBazaar?  OpenBazaar is gonna be like a social movement on its own.  The authorities would really have a hard time catching up to stop it.

[BitcoinNewsMagazine]

Clever how new accounts are always announcing AMAs on Ver's competing forum to try to gain traffic.

That was probably the whole point of this thread, they really are trying to get us to switch over.

Ver is a clever guy. Makes me wonder why he set up a forum using phpBB that is so visually blah and unappealing. Normally if you are trying to copy a successful forum you use the same forum software so new users feel comfortable. I visit his forum once in a while but damn, that is one butt ugly forum.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

This looks promising. Anything that can compete with & hopefully ruin ebay is good in my world. Ebay fees are a joke plus PayPal then charge you too - SCAM.

[doublemore]

This looks promising. Anything that can compete with & hopefully ruin ebay is good in my world. Ebay fees are a joke plus PayPal then charge you too - SCAM.

Yeah totally but i think ebay will die off, google would probably want many market places in competition to pay more ad revenue.

[ShetKid]

Kind of a stupid move and will likely not succeed . To counter it, all Amazon or ebay has to do is start accepting bitcoins and they will win over all the customers.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Kind of a stupid move and will likely not succeed . To counter it, all Amazon or ebay has to do is start accepting bitcoins and they will win over all the customers.

They're unwilling to do that at the moment which is probably why OpenBazaar & Purse have a window of opportunity to open & become respected before Ebay & Amazon start accepting bitcoin.

I know what you're saying but many companies around the world go bust because they become complacent & don't move with the times.

[European Central Bank]

The more the merrier. Open Bazaar sounds very interesting but I don't think it's going to be a big deal if you have to run it as a program on your computer. Maybe there'll be portals for it. I hope this one can be accessed through your browser.

[Carlton Banks]

Clever how new accounts are always announcing AMAs on Ver's competing forum to try to gain traffic.

That was probably the whole point of this thread, they really are trying to get us to switch over.

Ver is a clever guy. Makes me wonder why he set up a forum using phpBB that is so visually blah and unappealing. Normally if you are trying to copy a successful forum you use the same forum software so new users feel comfortable. I visit his forum once in a while but damn, that is one butt ugly forum.

Interesting also how Roger Ver has been sitting on the bitcoin.com domain name for several years now, and he chooses to start using it for a political purpose, now. I keep calling this: Roger can provide as many examples of how "libertarian" he is as he likes. Advocating the big banks to essentially run the Bitcoin dev team, bloat the blockchain away to centralisation, ban privacy tools etc is completely anathema to free-market & libertarian principles. He's a fraud.

[XCASH]

Kind of a stupid move and will likely not succeed . To counter it, all Amazon or ebay has to do is start accepting bitcoins and they will win over all the customers.

They're unwilling to do that at the moment which is probably why OpenBazaar & Purse have a window of opportunity to open & become respected before Ebay & Amazon start accepting bitcoin.

I know what you're saying but many companies around the world go bust because they become complacent & don't move with the times.

When ebay started up nobody thought it would be a success. It was one of the first innovators to run auctions through a website, and that gave it first mover advantage. Now its become an established pillar of the internet it's stopped innovating. Refusing to accept Bitcoin could be its downfall, and innovators like OpenBazaar & Purse could get the first mover advantage this time and steal ebay's thunder.