OpenBazaar , a failure ?

[Carlsen]

I must say I have not used openbazaar.
But I think there is one general problem: Bitcoin is a currency that draws much of its strength out of its anonymity.
When you order real goods from openbazar, you must get them somehow, mostly they are sent to you.
So the seller needs your address what is kind of the opposite of anonymity.
Maybe this is one reason why the project is not growing as expected.

[1715698177]

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[Senor.Bla]

I must say I have not used openbazaar.
But I think there is one general problem: Bitcoin is a currency that draws much of its strength out of its anonymity.
When you order real goods from openbazar, you must get them somehow, mostly they are sent to you.
So the seller needs your address what is kind of the opposite of anonymity.
Maybe this is one reason why the project is not growing as expected.

on what do you spent your bitcoins? if you buy something with them, people will know your address or your face (if you buy at a store) or if you want to cash out to a bank.
it is just like fiat in this way and people do not bother buying on amazon or ebay.

[Pursuer]

I must say I have not used openbazaar.
But I think there is one general problem: Bitcoin is a currency that draws much of its strength out of its anonymity.
When you order real goods from openbazar, you must get them somehow, mostly they are sent to you.
So the seller needs your address what is kind of the opposite of anonymity.
Maybe this is one reason why the project is not growing as expected.

anonymity is a big feature with bitcoin but it is only contributing a very small amount to the strength of bitcoin. the main thing in my opinion is the decentralized feature and the fact that you are your own bank and control your own money so much easier than using any other method.
also don't forget about the fees, which are so small. for example if you want to buy something that is worth $1000 you still have to pay 10 cents or less for the transaction fee but using any other method you will have to pay a lot more.

[Carlsen]

I must say I have not used openbazaar.
But I think there is one general problem: Bitcoin is a currency that draws much of its strength out of its anonymity.
When you order real goods from openbazar, you must get them somehow, mostly they are sent to you.
So the seller needs your address what is kind of the opposite of anonymity.
Maybe this is one reason why the project is not growing as expected.

on what do you spent your bitcoins? if you buy something with them, people will know your address or your face (if you buy at a store) or if you want to cash out to a bank.
it is just like fiat in this way and people do not bother buying on amazon or ebay.

The stuff I buy is mostly online stuff. One-click-hoster accounts, vpn, porn... just those kind of things I want nobody to know that I have them. Especially not my wife.
That's the main reason why I got into bitcoin. And I'm sure for a lot of others as well.

[Senor.Bla]

I must say I have not used openbazaar.
But I think there is one general problem: Bitcoin is a currency that draws much of its strength out of its anonymity.
When you order real goods from openbazar, you must get them somehow, mostly they are sent to you.
So the seller needs your address what is kind of the opposite of anonymity.
Maybe this is one reason why the project is not growing as expected.

on what do you spent your bitcoins? if you buy something with them, people will know your address or your face (if you buy at a store) or if you want to cash out to a bank.
it is just like fiat in this way and people do not bother buying on amazon or ebay.

The stuff I buy is mostly online stuff. One-click-hoster accounts, vpn, porn... just those kind of things I want nobody to know that I have them. Especially not my wife.
That's the main reason why I got into bitcoin. And I'm sure for a lot of others as well.

that is what i thought might be for some the reason, but you do not spend much i guess or are there any expensive services? many have a lot of money invested and want to the moon to buy nice things. for them this anonymity thing could become a problem. but anyway, i guess many do not mind to buy and give up some of their anonymity. and if you keep separate accounts/wallets then you can still be anonymous with your online stuff. my point is that i do not think this is the holdup with openbazar. 

[ekoice]

People see Bitcoin as an investment for future rather than spending it for buying goods. It will take time for open bazaar to succeed. In future, it may become like ebay or any other online shopping website

[gulachov]

People see Bitcoin as an investment for future rather than spending it for buying goods. It will take time for open bazaar to succeed. In future, it may become like ebay or any other online shopping website

You are probably right. I have used eBay for 11 years. Every time they came up with new idea or policy restriction I was telling myself - time to move out. With shipping, PayPal fees, eBay fees, whatever you resale -> add 20% for them, and there are so many restrictions now, only buyer is protected. So I finally did it. Installed OpenBazzar today, took AWS on amazon for a year free and fallowing manuals (0 to none programming skills) got it working in an hour or so. Planning to gradually filling it up with thousands of items I have laying around. Will anyone buy it? I am pretty sure not too soon. But what do have I to loose? Time? eBay charges me $70 a month for 300 items listed. I would rather invest my Time in the future. #F-KeBay.

[ObscureBean]

People see Bitcoin as an investment for future rather than spending it for buying goods. It will take time for open bazaar to succeed. In future, it may become like ebay or any other online shopping website

You are probably right. I have used eBay for 11 years. Every time they came up with new idea or policy restriction I was telling myself - time to move out. With shipping, PayPal fees, eBay fees, whatever you resale -> add 20% for them, and there are so many restrictions now, only buyer is protected. So I finally did it. Installed OpenBazzar today, took AWS on amazon for a year free and fallowing manuals (0 to none programming skills) got it working in an hour or so. Planning to gradually filling it up with thousands of items I have laying around. Will anyone buy it? I am pretty sure not too soon. But what do have I to loose? Time? eBay charges me $70 a month for 300 items listed. I would rather invest my Time in the future. #F-KeBay.

That's pretty awesome, would be great if you could keep us updated on how that works out for you, your feedback would be invaluable to the community and devs. I haven't tried OpenBazaar yet but I would love to hear how it compares to eBay and how easy it is to manage. Especially coming from an experienced eBay seller like yourself. Good luck! 

[Herbert2020]

People see Bitcoin as an investment for future rather than spending it for buying goods. It will take time for open bazaar to succeed. In future, it may become like ebay or any other online shopping website

You are probably right. I have used eBay for 11 years. Every time they came up with new idea or policy restriction I was telling myself - time to move out. With shipping, PayPal fees, eBay fees, whatever you resale -> add 20% for them, and there are so many restrictions now, only buyer is protected. So I finally did it. Installed OpenBazzar today, took AWS on amazon for a year free and fallowing manuals (0 to none programming skills) got it working in an hour or so. Planning to gradually filling it up with thousands of items I have laying around. Will anyone buy it? I am pretty sure not too soon. But what do have I to loose? Time? eBay charges me $70 a month for 300 items listed. I would rather invest my Time in the future. #F-KeBay.

thanks for the detailed reply, i am very interested in knowing what you are selling, and how things will turn out to be like for you.
so if you like, i suggest that you open a new topic in the services discussion board maybe, and fill us in on the progress like how many customers you get each month in this one year that you have this amazon AWS for free and running openbazaar on it.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

People see Bitcoin as an investment for future rather than spending it for buying goods. It will take time for open bazaar to succeed. In future, it may become like ebay or any other online shopping website

You are probably right. I have used eBay for 11 years. Every time they came up with new idea or policy restriction I was telling myself - time to move out. With shipping, PayPal fees, eBay fees, whatever you resale -> add 20% for them, and there are so many restrictions now, only buyer is protected. So I finally did it. Installed OpenBazzar today, took AWS on amazon for a year free and fallowing manuals (0 to none programming skills) got it working in an hour or so. Planning to gradually filling it up with thousands of items I have laying around. Will anyone buy it? I am pretty sure not too soon. But what do have I to loose? Time? eBay charges me $70 a month for 300 items listed. I would rather invest my Time in the future. #F-KeBay.

Awesome, I'll follow your story with interest. Please keep us updated gulachov, Open Bazaar promised so much but has so far delivered, well, not much.

Hopefully you can be a success story though & get people here interested in following your lead.

[gulachov]

Thank you guys for a warm words, but I must say I don't expect much from OB within 2-3 years. Having inventory that big, I will just start slowly listing everything I have for sale. As I said, 0 fees and considerable level of anonymity will eventually catapult it. I'll try. Got nothing to loose.

[choppork]

I've stumbled across OpenBazaar's thread before and I didn't know that they are still even around anymore. I don't see any advertisement at all. No advertisement means no users. No users means the project will eventually shut down. I guess most people around here haven't heard of OpenBazaar before and don't even know that it exists. If someone funds OpenBazaar's advertising, then maybe that chart will gradually rise up.

[TastyChillySauce00]

honestly openbazaar is really having problem when going to compete with another huge company such as amazon or ebay,openbazaar have disadvantage on its simplicity when the other is as simple as you just clicking on stuff you need and then put CC numbers and proceed to pay
and openbazaar also lack of advertisement that make people didn't even know what it is,just from my opinion

[Cashew]

Yes, I consider it as a failure, considering that I've not heard anything about it since the release. I've even forgot about it !

[bitbunnny]

Maybe the problem of OpenBazaar could be the fact that they offer legal but also ilegal products. So, they don't have cleary defined customers and some people are avoiding it for the reason that they might have problems with the law.
They PR to atract the users could also be better.

[BitcoinHodler]

Maybe the problem of OpenBazaar could be the fact that they offer legal but also ilegal products. So, they don't have cleary defined customers and some people are avoiding it for the reason that they might have problems with the law.
They PR to atract the users could also be better.

this is happening anywhere that there is a Bazaar for selling stuff, specially when it is online and has a certain level of anonymity to it. you think all the trades on the internet even on the popular places are legit?!

[Monnt]

i think it is such a good idea and we cannot call it as a falier, it just need some extra effort, struggle and hard work with good management and advertisement, hope that the result will be totally different,

The idea is great but you need sellers and buyers for it to work and not just a few either. Using the marketplace is not as straightforward as using eBay, you need to run special software. Plus there isn't a lot of incentive for sellers to use the service, why would you go through the hassle of setting up a store on there only to be visible to a couple of hundreds of buyers when you can be on eBay and be seen by millions?

Thats true, every business do not want to start from scratch on the platform, the would prefer to go for an already established marketplace where they will simple put in their products or services and seen by as many peope as possible to make the most out of it. For this reason, they need to put more effort and make the marketplace a better one.

[gulachov]

Yes, I consider it as a failure, considering that I've not heard anything about it since the release. I've even forgot about it !

OpenBazaar Ecosystem: Cyberfunks Alliance – Bitcoin Awakens
October 24, 2016  Jenn Cloud

OpenBazaar 1.1.8 Released; New Features Added
October 20, 2016  OB1 Team

OpenBazaar at Scaling Bitcoin Conference in Milan
October 19, 2016  Chris Pacia
https://blog.openbazaar.org/

They are actually doing very good promoting this platform here and there. I installed it just for fun when it came out few months ago, and I must tell you the latest version is way better. I have also found mobile version for android on my phone today (buy-sell). The idea is not that bad. It is implemented already. Persistence is the key here. Give it time.

[CrimBit]

thats wat they said about Bitcoin until i started using it xD

put it on android already

that's a good idea, i think openbazar must have not full nodes android aplication , like electrum wallet on pc or mycellium in android aplication, so everyone can running openbazar without download big data, he just need download small aplication.

[Yakamoto]

i think it is such a good idea and we cannot call it as a falier, it just need some extra effort, struggle and hard work with good management and advertisement, hope that the result will be totally different,

The idea is great but you need sellers and buyers for it to work and not just a few either. Using the marketplace is not as straightforward as using eBay, you need to run special software. Plus there isn't a lot of incentive for sellers to use the service, why would you go through the hassle of setting up a store on there only to be visible to a couple of hundreds of buyers when you can be on eBay and be seen by millions?

Thats true, every business do not want to start from scratch on the platform, the would prefer to go for an already established marketplace where they will simple put in their products or services and seen by as many peope as possible to make the most out of it. For this reason, they need to put more effort and make the marketplace a better one.

Not a lot of companies want to make that investment, though, and with good reason. It can be a gambit and there isn't necessarily a good representation or estimate available for the return on investing in said marketplace. This discourages companies, and honestly, considering the niche of OpenBazaar, I likely wouldn't make that investment.