Why has no-one done a crypto Ebay?

[Galahad]

I'm sick of the fees on Ebay it's become totally unprofitable for some items due to the massive fees. I use Facebook marketplace but that's more for local sales.

With crypto Ebay you could have near zero fees and have a decentralized marketplace model. I know there are things on TOR etc, but I just wouldn't trust it tbh..

[odolvlobo]

What do you mean? There are (or have been) several. Here's a decentralized one: https://openbazaar.org/

[Galahad]

What do you mean? There are (or have been) several. Here's a decentralized one: https://openbazaar.org/

Maybe I could have said "are there any" really because there's bound to be something just not something which is necessarily making it on a big scale.

[tyz]

First of all, a "crypto Ebay" would not be feeless. Handling with Bitcoin costs always fees.
Secondly, crypto Ebay's already exist in the Dark Web. There you can find many marketplaces and Ebay clones where you can buy all things and stuff (legal and illegal) with Bitcoin and cryptos like Monero.

[Galahad]

First of all, a "crypto Ebay" would not be feeless. Handling with Bitcoin costs always fees.
Secondly, crypto Ebay's already exist in the Dark Web. There you can find many marketplaces and Ebay clones where you can buy all things and stuff (legal and illegal) with Bitcoin and cryptos like Monero.

I just meant feeless from the Ebay perspective. They charge huge ammounts of money to sell things. Crypto transactions can be tiny.
Like I said I don't want to use the darkweb. This isn't about doing something illegal it's about having a cheaper and more viable alternative to Ebay.
There is also Ebid but nobody really uses it so it's always about having that critical mass I suppose.

[GreatArkansas]

I already used Facebook Marketplace too, the only downside of Facebook Marketplace is some people may not accept cryptocurrencies, depends on  what mode of payment they are accepting. But to be honest in our country or just in our local area, most of the people here don't really use Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency. That's why when I will use Facebook Marketplace, I am converting my Bitcoins to our own currency (Philippine Peso (PHP)).

[ampu]

There are many ways to reach cryptocurrencies and which environment is better people will use. Trading cryptocurrencies on EBAY has a lot of fees and people don't like it.
Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, advertising on OTC-enabled exchanges will be better.

[mk4]

What do you mean? There are (or have been) several. Here's a decentralized one: https://openbazaar.org/

Sadly after checking it out again a few months ago after not using it for years, it seems to still not get any decent traction. As expected, unfortunately having something to be decentralized or non-custodial significantly hurts the UX.

[Yogee]

What do you mean? There are (or have been) several. Here's a decentralized one: https://openbazaar.org/

Maybe I could have said "are there any" really because there's bound to be something just not something which is necessarily making it on a big scale.

So there are peer-to-peer marketplaces on the internet. The question that we should really ask is why are they not gaining traction? Why do traders like Galahad still prefer to use centralized platforms like Ebay that charges excessive service fees to their users?

Instead of looking for something that is "big scale", maybe start supporting the existing platlorms like Openbazaar so that it will be big one day? No matter how many "crypto Ebay" you put up, it will die if there will be no users.

[charlesmichel1]

The idea of "crypto ebay" isn't something brand new. You can buy different goods with Bitcoin now. For example, Purse.io is probably the most popular solution for buying on Amazon.com using Bitcoin. Overstock and Newegg also accept Bitcoin.

[mk4]

The idea of "crypto ebay" isn't something brand new. You can buy different goods with Bitcoin now. For example, Purse.io is probably the most popular solution for buying on Amazon.com using Bitcoin. Overstock and Newegg also accept Bitcoin.

Those are definitely alternatives if you want to pay with bitcoin, but it's safe to assume that OP is asking for a platform that accepts bitcoin in a seller's perspective as he's complaint is about the unprofitability due to the hefty fees.

[pooya87]

What do you mean? There are (or have been) several. Here's a decentralized one: https://openbazaar.org/

Sadly after checking it out again a few months ago after not using it for years, it seems to still not get any decent traction. As expected, unfortunately having something to be decentralized or non-custodial significantly hurts the UX.

anything decentralized that has to have the user do everything is going to suffer from pretty much the same problems and the biggest one is that people don't use them as much so that they can be improved (with their reports, etc.). OpenBazaar is similar to decentralized exchanges with the difference that unlike DEX people are less willing to spend their bitcoin than they are trading it.

[grabpopcorn536]

Amazon did that, no need for eBay.
eBay is a private exchange and people need to pay a fee for advertising. Profits from trading crypto are certainly not high since almost all exchanges can exchange crypto, trade OTC. Paying an ad for eBay is wasteful and impractical. It is more of a promotion than sales.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I was actually thinking that too, recently. Even if most of the people that have bought cryptos are just holding them, there should be an eshop for those that want to keep their anonymity when they'll pay. I don't understand why ebay does not allow their users to accept bitcoin. (with their own responsibility)

Amazon did that, no need for eBay.

When did amazon do that? I can still see that it only accepts paypal, bank transfer and gift cards.

With crypto Ebay you could have near zero fees and have a decentralized marketplace model. I know there are things on TOR etc, but I just wouldn't trust it tbh..

Of course you shouldn't trust it. 99% of the dark web's marketplaces are scams. Guess why, because you can't catch them.

[kryptqnick]

First of all, a "crypto Ebay" would not be feeless. Handling with Bitcoin costs always fees.
Secondly, crypto Ebay's already exist in the Dark Web. There you can find many marketplaces and Ebay clones where you can buy all things and stuff (legal and illegal) with Bitcoin and cryptos like Monero.

I just meant feeless from the Ebay perspective. They charge huge ammounts of money to sell things. Crypto transactions can be tiny.
Like I said I don't want to use the darkweb. This isn't about doing something illegal it's about having a cheaper and more viable alternative to Ebay.
There is also Ebid but nobody really uses it so it's always about having that critical mass I suppose.

I don't use Ebay, but don't some of those fees cover the taxes? I mean, as far as I know if you're selling something on Ebay, the taxes are considered paid, it's all legal. I also came accross this discussion that seems to confirm my hypothesis. So my point is, it's not only Ebay getting rich from the fees they impose (even though they are), but it's also the fees associated with the whole buying-selling business their fully legal. Darkweb markets are obviously not paying taxes (right?), and if a version of ebay accepted cryptos and did everything to remain legal, it would probably impose fees like that as well.

[meanwords]

We might have near zero fee (assuming that the cryptocurrency used is not Bitcoin or ETH), but isn't this more dangerous that centralized platform? because we can't deny that even centralized are prone to fraudulent activities, what more if a decentralized and anonymous platform for ecommerce is created? decentralized ecommerce platform will be hard to implement to be honest.

[AicecreaME]

First of all, a "crypto Ebay" would not be feeless. Handling with Bitcoin costs always fees.
Secondly, crypto Ebay's already exist in the Dark Web. There you can find many marketplaces and Ebay clones where you can buy all things and stuff (legal and illegal) with Bitcoin and cryptos like Monero.

I agree. With bitcoin, I think the fee might be lessen only a little bit if ebay will accept it as a method of payment. Also, adding that feature on their store needs a proper survey, because they will spend money on it if they want to put it on their store. If the survey turns out that there are less people who are willing to pay in Bitcoin, then there's no point on adding it on their feature, simple as that.

[DougM]

I'm sick of the fees on Ebay it's become totally unprofitable for some items due to the massive fees. I use Facebook marketplace but that's more for local sales.

With crypto Ebay you could have near zero fees and have a decentralized marketplace model. I know there are things on TOR etc, but I just wouldn't trust it tbh..

As an interesting historical footnote Satoshi himself was considering an 'eBay like marketplace' use-case for bitcoin when he first designed it and even had an partial framework coded in his initial release. His rational for even attempting it further illustrates his amazing vision/brilliance:

Satoshi Nakamoto <satoshin@gmx.com> Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 7:39 PM
To: Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net>

There's an unfinished part of the protocol that deals with setting up publisher/subscriber channels for distributed routing via the network. What was the purpose of this? Was the idea to have a p2p market or did it have some kind of lower level function, like perhaps broadcasting expected tx fees?

I was trying to implement an eBay style marketplace built in to the client. Publish/subscribe would be used for broadcasting product offers and ratings/reviews. Your reviews would be weighted by the blocks you've generated. I rightly abandoned it in favour of JSON-RPC, so other authors could implement it externally. The publish/subscribe "meet in the middle" mechanism was an interesting concept, but nothing remains that uses it.

It was part of writing code to explore the most technically demanding use cases and make sure Bitcoin could support everything that might be needed in the future, given the locked-in nature of the rules once the block chain started.

[gamer4156]

To my knowledge, there are several online sites that offer cryptocurrency as their payment system. A big problem is that it is not approved by any government which is why many are afraid to do it. There are some social media based sites where you can be able to buy daily necessities but you have to pay fee. I know about some of the crypto ebay sites but I don't trust them.

[GideonGono]

First of all, a "crypto Ebay" would not be feeless. Handling with Bitcoin costs always fees.
Secondly, crypto Ebay's already exist in the Dark Web. There you can find many marketplaces and Ebay clones where you can buy all things and stuff (legal and illegal) with Bitcoin and cryptos like Monero.

Maybe OP didn't know about it or had forgotten about how crypto became famous in the dark web for something like that,
And we still carry it till this day because some still see's crypto or Bitcoin only as a money for illegal activities because it was once known for that purpose.