Forest Market: Buy and Sell Goods with Crypto

[rockstar_z]

Hi everyone!

I began my crypto journey in 2020. Over the past four years, I've often wondered: why can't we buy goods with cryptocurrency as easily as we shop on eBay? Isn't cryptocurrency supposed to function as a medium of exchange?

After seeing multiple forum posts echoing my thoughts, I decided to take action. As a developer, I've built a marketplace(forestmarket.net) with one clear goal: to provide a reliable platform where users can buy and sell goods with crypto. I believe that when you make something truly for yourself, you're likely creating something valuable for others too.

As of today, you can:
1. buy anything in the marketplace with crypto
2. sell any legal item and get paid in crypto
3. return products if you're unsatisfied and receive a full refund in crypto

We're still actively developing the platform, so we'd greatly appreciate any feedback and support.

more details in our about page: https://www.forestmarket.net/about

[Vod]

Crypto is irreversible.  Your site will be overrun with scammers without a reputation or trust system.   

A couple people try something like this every year.   It's not hard to build a crypto marketplace, it's dealing with the bad actors.

[AlphaBoy]

I don't want you to lose your optimism, but eBay will consider crypto payments soon. Thus, your market will lose immediately. As VOD said, many tried before and failed. The crypto market isn't a safe investment due to the nature of crypto itself. The only real deals that can be made on your market are those with similarity to the crypto concept, such as scripts, Games, AI tools, and non-physicals in general. However, many sites have already started and are still running. Good luck to you, bro.

[SFR10]

We're still actively developing the platform, so we'd greatly appreciate any feedback and support.

• I'm not a fan of the current sign-in options ^{[LNURL-auth is a good alternative or at least give your users the option to use their custom emails]}.
• Do they have to ship returned products to your warehouse or the seller?
• What happens in cases where the seller receives their product, but forgets to confirm their satisfaction?
• Based on the shipping & return fields of the listed products, it appears that this is only limited to the US. Am I right?
• Why Bitcoin isn't supported?

[rockstar_z]

Hey SFR10, thanks for the feedback!

I'm not a fan of the current sign-in options

yup, we will be adding sign in with custom email. LNURL-auth looks interesting, we will look into that as well.

Do they have to ship returned products to your warehouse or the seller?

when a return is requested, an address from the seller will be used for the return.

What happens in cases where the seller receives their product, but forgets to confirm their satisfaction?

i guess you meant buyer forget to confirm their satisfaction? in this case, fund will be released to seller in 7 days automatically. basically we give 7 days of dispute window.

Based on the shipping & return fields of the listed products, it appears that this is only limited to the US. Am I right?

yes and no, so far all the sellers in the marketplace only ship to U.S. But there could be seller coming from other countries like Italy, support shipping within the EU. There could be case that seller support international shipping too. We don't have limit on which country seller can ship their products to.

Why Bitcoin isn't supported?

we will support Bitcoin very soon!

I hope i have answered all your questions.

[obtainhigh]

Does your marketplace have any customer base if we join? Don't want to waste time on empty dead marketplace with zero traffic.

[aioc]

Does your marketplace have any customer base if we join? Don't want to waste time on empty dead marketplace with zero traffic.

Obviously, if you look on the platform, it lacks both customer base and traffic; there are no testimonials and no number of bought items; I notice many of the items only ship in the US; it lacks many features of a real marketplace; I admire OP's effort, but he will have to do better; his Telegram group alone is empty; only 1 member, OP has to work on his social media handles.

[hugeblack]

Does your marketplace have any customer base if we join? Don't want to waste time on empty dead marketplace with zero traffic.

The last login was a month ago so I don't know if @rockstar_z will come back and reply to you.
The problem is that usually these stores are dedicated to Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies and this is wrong as we do not see stores dedicated to Apple cards or PayPal but rather online stores allow accepting payments whether cash or via Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and others. Adding Bitcoin as a payment method would be a good thing but it is difficult to compete in this field.

[robelneo]

As a developer, I've built a marketplace(forestmarket.net) with one clear goal: to provide a reliable platform where users can buy and sell goods with crypto. I believe that when you make something truly for yourself, you're likely creating something valuable for others too.
We're still actively developing the platform, so we'd greatly appreciate any feedback and support.

As a developer, have you done a feasibility study on the competition? or you just create for the sake of creating one that you can call your own, of all the platforms. Marketplace is the hardest thing to do because the market is ruled by big companies like Amazon.
If you're promoting in a specific region, state this on your homepage. There's still so many things that need to be done and added; at the end of the day, its up to you if you want to continue this or just give it up. I'm sure its a learning experience for you, for a big thing in the future.

[joniboini]

I decided to check the market and the UI is quite lacking. Maybe a minor problem if OP wants to improve it further. When I visited the website, they claimed to have 20 active sellers but when I decided to check out some products all of them led to a profile called "Forest Market". I'm not sure if the stat is wrong or if you're just using a placeholder for the seller profile. If it's the later it needs improvement since there's little to no info on the seller page when a user clicked on it. CMIIW.

[rockstar_z]

Does your marketplace have any customer base if we join? Don't want to waste time on empty dead marketplace with zero traffic

TBH, we don’t have a lot customers yet. However, we are definitely not dead….yet. We are still actively improving the platform and trying to reach more people.

Btw we just added support for bitcoin! Please check it out.

His Telegram group alone is empty; only 1 member, OP has to work on his social media handles.

Totally agree, I am more of a nerd enjoying programming, and suck at marketing. I don’t have much experience on building a social profile, but would love to hear your suggestions.

The problem is that usually these stores are dedicated to Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies and this is wrong as we do not see stores dedicated to Apple cards or PayPal but rather online stores allow accepting payments whether cash or via Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and others. Adding Bitcoin as a payment method would be a good thing but it is difficult to compete in this field.

Not just planning to compete with bitcoin or a few crypto currencies, but with any available coin on the market. Imagine we can pay with whatever coin we own(potentially unlimited options), then it will be a different story. As crypto is getting more popular and more people will own their majority asset in crypto, wouldn't it suck to buy any physical goods and have to go through crypto off-ramp first?

they claimed to have 20 active sellers but when I decided to check out some products all of them led to a profile called "Forest Market". I'm not sure if the stat is wrong or if you're just using a placeholder for the seller profile.

the number is correct, but you are right that most product are sold from "Forest Market", as it's currently our biggest seller. hopefully we will have more sellers joining soon!

[joniboini]

the number is correct, but you are right that most product are sold from "Forest Market", as it's currently our biggest seller. hopefully we will have more sellers joining soon!

I see. Does that mean the products on the homepage are sorted by most sold/most popular? I wonder if this affects other sellers though. Won't their product get buried if there are more users on your platform?

Btw I realized that one of the users is called "Alibaba", although I doubt it's an official account for the Alibaba marketplace. Do you have any protection mechanism for people who scam by impersonating popular users/platforms? I find the lack of info very bad for the users because of this.

[rockstar_z]

I see. Does that mean the products on the homepage are sorted by most sold/most popular? I wonder if this affects other sellers though. Won't their product get buried if there are more users on your platform?

no we don't sort products based on popularity at this point, currently the sorting priority is
1. discounted product
2. product listing time in descending order(new listing will be shown first)

in the future, we are planning to add new pages for best sellers and trending products, hopefully that will help your concern.

I realized that one of the users is called "Alibaba", although I doubt it's an official account for the Alibaba marketplace. Do you have any protection mechanism for people who scam by impersonating popular users/platforms? I find the lack of info very bad for the users because of this.

sorry we don't have restriction on how user can set their name, nor the capability to verify user. However the way we protect user is to hold the fund until the buyer is satisfied with what they received, otherwise they get their money back. Another feature we are planning to add is reputation score based on their on-chain activity and selling history, which can give user more confidence in purchase. 

[SFR10]

Another feature we are planning to add is reputation score based on their on-chain activity and selling history, which can give user more confidence in purchase. 

Are you planning to hire someone for this specific task or will you rely on a certain AML software to automate everything? If it's the latter, you might end up with software that intentionally alters the result ^{[some of them tend to abuse their power because of their ulterior motives]} when it finds a connection to certain exchanges and those inaccurate reputational scores could hurt the potential sales of affected sellers.

[Vod]

Another feature we are planning to add is reputation score based on their on-chain activity and selling history, which can give user more confidence in purchase. 

Are you planning to hire someone for this specific task or will you rely on a certain AML software to automate everything?

1) I doubt rockstar will hire a person to review blockchain transactions - our minds are not made for long streams of random digits, and a person will make mistakes.

2) Even if the software works perfectly, what stops bots from building positive reputation?   As soon as his algorithm is discovered (or suspected), the bots will be reprogrammed to beat it.

This reputation score will be one of the most important things on the exchange.  It needs to be done correctly.

[rockstar_z]

Another feature we are planning to add is reputation score based on their on-chain activity and selling history, which can give user more confidence in purchase. 

Are you planning to hire someone for this specific task or will you rely on a certain AML software to automate everything?

1) I doubt rockstar will hire a person to review blockchain transactions - our minds are not made for long streams of random digits, and a person will make mistakes.

2) Even if the software works perfectly, what stops bots from building positive reputation?   As soon as his algorithm is discovered (or suspected), the bots will be reprogrammed to beat it.

This reputation score will be one of the most important things on the exchange.  It needs to be done correctly.

Vod is right, i don't think it would be a good idea to have someone to manually review the gigantic blockchain dataset. We have some initial idea to integrate with karma3labs, plus AI. Can't share too much details tho, as we are still very early for that.

[Floxynice]

3. return products if you're unsatisfied and receive a full refund in crypto

In this case, how will you handle volatility? Or are you going to work with only stable coins?

We're still actively developing the platform, so we'd greatly appreciate any feedback and support.

As SFR10 suggested, provide an option for users to sign in with their custom email without typing in their emails manually.

[rockstar_z]

3. return products if you're unsatisfied and receive a full refund in crypto

In this case, how will you handle volatility? Or are you going to work with only stable coins?

no matter how much was paid at checkout, would be refunded in full. we don't handle volatility.

We're still actively developing the platform, so we'd greatly appreciate any feedback and support.

As SFR10 suggested, provide an option for users to sign in with their custom email without typing in their emails manually.

you meant OAuth? signin with gmail? you can signin with any email you want right now.

[OfficialGratejoy]

Another feature we are planning to add is reputation score based on their on-chain activity and selling history, which can give user more confidence in purchase. 

Are you planning to hire someone for this specific task or will you rely on a certain AML software to automate everything?

1) I doubt rockstar will hire a person to review blockchain transactions - our minds are not made for long streams of random digits, and a person will make mistakes.

2) Even if the software works perfectly, what stops bots from building positive reputation?   As soon as his algorithm is discovered (or suspected), the bots will be reprogrammed to beat it.

This reputation score will be one of the most important things on the exchange.  It needs to be done correctly.

You have really done well by building a market place,why not tell us more about the market place you builded

[qzl9199]

Hello, mate.
I truly admire and am excited about your project (Forest Market)!
You can check out many of my posts on Bitcointalk—I have always dreamed of a scenario where one can purchase real-world goods using cryptocurrency!
Yes, your project has shown me a glimmer of hope.
Unfortunately, since I am in China, I am temporarily unable to enjoy your services.
However, I hope to participate in your project.
You know, the online shopping market in China is extremely thriving. Platforms like Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo, and Vipshop are world-class shopping sites, and I am an avid online shopper myself. Moreover, I started researching online shopping during my university days—even my graduation thesis was on this topic.
Here are some of my in-depth thoughts on your project. If you are interested, we can continue our discussion.
First, there are aspects of your project's credibility that raise doubts. You have not disclosed your registration information, team details, logistics information, or offline office address. This is an extremely dangerous signal and may lead people to believe that this is a scam website. After all, even when shopping online, people need to know — who am I buying the goods from, to whom is my money going, and from where will the goods be delivered? If these issues are not addressed, people will refuse to become your customers. I hope you can make all the convincing information public to eliminate doubts, so that the project can develop on a normal track.
Second, as a Chinese person, I am accustomed to using mobile devices for shopping, but it seems that your project has not developed a mobile app. Is this part of your future plans? Or do Americans prefer to purchase goods through websites? I believe that the information flow on mobile devices is smoother and more convenient.
Third, it seems that you have only set up one customer service email. My suggestion is to create a dedicated customer service channel for each product—ideally hiring live agents to respond to customer inquiries and needs in real time. This would provide an excellent experience, acting as an online “sales assistant.”
Fourth, the product descriptions are too simplistic and lack a standardized template, including details such as specifications, models, and physical demonstrations.
Fifth, logistics — which is the core of online shopping. I am not clear which logistics company your project is partnered with. How is your warehousing arranged, and what are your transportation and delivery processes? Logistics is the most critical competitive edge, and customers need to know the delivery process clearly, including timelines, transportation routes, and delivery personnel details.
Sixth, there is no bulk purchasing option—only single-item purchases are possible. This seems particularly disadvantageous on a blockchain, as the gas fees for single-item purchases exceed those for bulk purchases.
Seventh, similarly, since your project is based on a crypto platform, you should disclose your wallet address and transaction details.
Eighth, regarding the model of Forest Market, it should be a combination of B2C and C2C. I think it can be differentiated into two markets: one being a B2C market based on the United States, and the other a C2C market that allows for global expansion and enables merchants from around the world to join.
These are some of my thoughts. I wonder if you agree or if you have any deeper insights? I look forward to your reply, and I very much hope to join your project to realize my dream.