Hi, everybody.
I have an idea to create a new service: crypto marketplace for goods, where as well as on ebay you can buy and sell goods for cryptocurrency. Users will be able to conduct transactions using smart-contracts.
What do you think about this idea?
I've already seen several platforms like that.
https://neverfiat.com/ is just one of them
So there is market for such a service, how big this market is though I don't know. The only people who will use it are the ones who have some crypto already.
The market is pretty small I think, I've seen many of these sorts of websites come and go after running for a year or so.
Take Openbazaar for example, their sales figures are really nothing to write home about.
Okay, with Openbazaar people need to actually install an app, so that's an additional action that many people aren't willing to take.
Not that e-bay like websites for crypto are doing any better though, just look at some of the listings on these websites.
https://forra.io/ (not launched yet)
https://bitify.com/ -- crap listings
https://itcoinbay.com/ -- LOL, their featured listings don't even have any bidsHa-ha funny funny... It may be humorous to you that we don't have any bids, or that many auctions for that matter, but it's a little disappointing to say the least for us. We think that there are two primary reasons that we haven't established much traction as of yet. 1) HODLers don't want to spend their bitcoin & 2) People that aren't HODLers don't really understand even how to use bitcoin. We have had some bids, but mostly from non-bitcoin users. One lady bid 1 BTC last year for an item that was priced at a fraction of a bitcoin. We had to explain to her that
https://itcoinbay.com/ is a bitcoin only auction site and that one bitcoin was the equivalent of thousands of dollars, so she freaked out and ask us to cancel her bid which we of course agreed to. She said that she would have to look into Bitcoin before placing another bid, but she apparently had the impression, based on what she said, that Bitcoin is some kind of scam. Another lady 'purchased' a Seller membership, but obviously had no clue how to use Bitcoin because she asked us "where do I pay?" It's frustrating to say the least.
Anyway, before we started this site we did some looking around and at the time (summer of 2017) we were unable to find any bitcoin auction sites. Not long after starting our site, we did stumble on to a few and even tried to use them, one being Cryptopia, which although it looked really nice, in reality, at least as far as auctions, was a joke. We listed an item for a very low price but got bids that were 1/1000th or less of what we were asking. I think Cryptopia is no more.
In addition to the two reasons listed above, another difficulty with a bitcoin auction site is the volatility in the market. When bitcoin was down before the recent spike, some of our auctions were real steals, however no one took advantage of the opportunity even though we didn't adjust the auction prices. When the market swings upward, there is a solution for bidders with the Best Offer option which we encourage our Sellers to implement due to this exact reason.
Exposure of course is another major factor in our situation.
In spite of all of the above, and all other issues, we don't plan on going anywhere. We are working slowly but surely at building our user-base and listings and maybe someday there will be enough Bitcoin users and or Bitcoin will stabilize at a level where HODLers don't mind spending a little, until then we will bide our time.
Many have suggested that people are reluctant to pay a membership fee, but we don't believe that is necessarily the case as we have made many special offers from time to time with very few takers. For instance, we are new here at this forum and so we offered a free Seller membership the last two days and only a few people signed up. At the moment we are offering half price through the weekend for anyone listing bitcointalk as the Referrer. It appears that most people don't even take the time to look at what they could gain. As soon as we have 100 Sellers, we will give away some very nice prizes in our New Member Contest (drawing). Grand Prize is a drone worth almost $2000, 2nd Place is .1
BTC, etc. So in these offers, for absolutely nothing, except for the effort of taking a few moments to read, then register and 'purchase' (for free) a Seller membership with us, much could be gained. Maybe people are so used to scams in the cryptocurrency arena that they don't even take the offers seriously? We don't make false promises as so many companies/people soliciting investors etc. do, but in addition to the possibility of buying and selling with us, one could win in our Contest and actually earn bitcoin in our referral Program. We pay the Referrer .001
BTC for each paying Seller they send us.
The reason of course for the fee is to serve as an escrow for auctions, and since "we at itcoinBay.com do not attach ourselves nor our members to fiat currencies, bank accounts or credit cards, we have developed a fee-based system for the purpose of accountability. In the age of $1000 cell phones, $5+ coffee and Washington, D.C., we don’t feel at all apprehensive about this fee." The fee is also sort an entrance exam of sorts (do you know what Bitcoin is and not only how to actually use it but do you have the capacity to use it--do you have a wallet?), and the vast majority so far have failed the test unfortunately.
"Also, at our site, no 3rd party payment or conversion systems, downloads, platform installs, special wallets, etc. are required. We use only Peer to Peer transactions as envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto. After all, is this is not how Bitcoin was intended to be used?"
This is perhaps a long-winded response to your jab, but at least you spelled our name right.
Thanks for noticing us!
