Hello,
In principle your idea sounds good, but there are some concerns I would have from a business perspective.
First, ask yourself if you would risk your job for $200. If the answer is no, then read on. If the answer is yes, skip down the bullet points below
1) These products need to be shipped somewhere. Either that is to you, in which case you have to ship them out again, or it is to someone else, in which case you lose anonymity, risking your job.
2) You add further risk to your job, as the end user does not care at all about you - but there is a paper trail back to you. For example, "I bought this laptop from XYZ site, and now it isn't working and the warranty isn't being accepted - I was scammed!" <-- whether true or not, you just opened yourself up to corporate scrutiny, and likely lost your job.
3) Someone who lost their job has the ability to scam you (and the site) by pretending to still offer / accept selling. Your only feasible means of protection in this case involves an escrow type service, which just adds cost.
To take the example of a Dell computer, let's say that you are offering 15%, where I can likely get at least an average 5% street discount (which wouldn't generally be accepted in conjunction with your employee discount). That gives your discount aware shopper a 10% discount (because that is what the average Bitcoin user will be).
On a product valued at $1,000, with free shipping, the buyer will effectively save $100 over what someone might have otherwise paid. In most cases, reshipping that product will cost you $50, so the seller must either ship direct (risk his/her job), or eat the $50 in shipping (the end users still saves $100, so they remain on the site).
Since the site passed 10% to the buyer, that left 4% to the seller, and 1% to the site. In a case where the seller had to re-ship the product, the site and the seller are literally making nothing at all for the service, yet shouldering the entire risk. Where the product is shipped directly, the seller still shoulders the lion's share of the risk, making $10 for the site, and $40 for the seller.
Scammers will latch onto this and scam packages from you. You can PM me for some examples (I might not immediately respond, as I am not on here every day).
Then there is the issue of your initial cost outlay, which is reasonable, but perhaps not quite enough to get it off the ground.
These items below just set up the site. SSL adds $25 or so per year, as you need a static IP to host the SSL Certificate, plus the cost of a certificate.
- $10-15 for a domain name
- $50-100 for a real host, not some crap like Bluehost or Hostgator
- $50-60 for a professional quality WordPress Template
- $100 for 5+ hours of someone's time who knows what they are doing ($20 an hour)
These figures are based on using someone from the US, as our rates are a bit lower than you have in the UK - so you save a bit there without compromising on the quality of work. Alternatively you could source someone elsewhere, but there are additional layers of complexity added in those cases.
Once the site is set up, populated with content, proofed, and ready to go, you then need to program and test the system to make sure it works. This adds another 10 to 20 hours minimum. You're talking about something like a site that allows users to register, exchange BTC for products, and then ship or transfer those products. A huge level of trust is implied. Further, you're actively participating in what any of the primary corporations would view at best as abusive, and at worst as illegal. Throw in the fact that you're involving the post, and at least in the US you've just upgraded yourself to wire fraud - all to make $10.
Also, every major company I have ever worked with that offered discounts like that has a system of checks and balances in place to prevent abuse. For example, if I worked for Dell and ordered 100 laptops a year, they would likely get suspicious (15% discount over 100 laptops at $1,000 equals $15,000 in lost revenue for Dell).
Realistically you could get about five sales per person before folks started losing jobs. In that case, using the Dell figures I originally cited, your seller earns about $200, and you get $50. More if there aren't shipping issues, but less if there are returns.
Now I feel like a party pooper. Sorry about that. Just looking at it from a business perspective, and evaluating the risks and associated rewards. At no point do I see a reward structure that benefits you (the company) enough to be worth it. You risk legal action from both the seller and the buyer.
A far better option would be for you, with your discounts, to advertise on eBay or similar sites. In this case, if you wanted to set up your own site, you would use the information above in terms of costs, and then have a trusted third party register a LLC or similarly structured company to protect yourself and provide anonymity. That would then be used to set up the site and pay gateway (PayPal, for example). Then people would 'order' the products from you, at which point you would order them and then ship to the end user.
The issue of warranties and such would still fall on your shoulders though.
If you found this helpful or beneficial, donations are welcome at: 15xDTwKdU2FE8GeKfbZyGhTd3KKB9BVU8f
If you want hosting or site templates, PM me. This post was more about helping you make the best business decisions for your project and less about selling hosting or anything else.
Cheers.
