Decentralized distribution network?

[Elwar]

It looks like OpenBazaar is on the right path as a decentralized retailer. But could it be used for decentralized distribution?

Say someone has a big empty garage/basement and some free time. They could put an advertisement out as a distribution for a certain sized order and charge a fixed amount for handling.

This way you might have some investor that's willing to buy 1000 cell phones at $100 each wholesale, they have the boxes of cell phones shipped to the distributor and a retailer on OpenBazaar sells them for $200 each. If they each take a 33% cut, they make $33k each. There would just need to be a mechanism for distributing the funds for each sale.

You could even use BitPools for the investors, have 100 people invest $1000 each into this and get $1333 return once all are sold.


And no I'm not talking about distributing illegal items, people would know in advance what they are distributing.

I know plenty of people that would love a work from home job and this would be a pretty simple way of doing that. You could even have multiple distributors and ship from each based on location and shipping costs. Even having a distribution to distributors to the point that you have a distributor in every city, then you could provide same day delivery. Maybe even have a decentralized method of delivery, someone with a truck willing to go between two cities on a regular basis with cargo.

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[cloverme]

Sort of like an uber for warehousing and distribution?  Sort of makes sense if you think about it in a disruptive innovative way. The only factor I see being an issue (which is the same as uber faces as well) is trust and availability. The person providing the service needs to have some stake in the game though so that the 1000 iphones get to where they need to get to.

Similarly as to how bitcoin disrupted the conventional banking business, and uber the taxi business, this would disrupt the logistics industry. The US has laws that go all the way back into the 1700's and 1800's about warehousing and transportation of goods. Most have to do with bonding and what not, but there are some state laws that have to do with facilities and storage (think donated food, etc). The logistics industry is one that can be rather shady and filled with all sorts of nonsense (like those weigh stations on the highways). Again, more traditional systems that need to be broken up due to long term corruption and centralized control. Damn it, I'm sounding like a libertarian here, but you get my point

Anyway, it's a great idea...

[Elwar]

Sort of like an uber for warehousing and distribution?  Sort of makes sense if you think about it in a disruptive innovative way. The only factor I see being an issue (which is the same as uber faces as well) is trust and availability. The person providing the service needs to have some stake in the game though so that the 1000 iphones get to where they need to get to.

Yes, trust is an issue for OpenBazaar too. They are working to address that with a decentralized WoT type of setup.

The guy with the 1000 iPhones would likely either be paid per shipment (a handling fee) or get a cut from the retailer of each sale. The investors do the least amount of work but get the most reward precisely because of that risk. The lower the risk, the lower the return, and the distributor would likely get more money for lowering that risk.

It would be great if distribution was wide enough and organic enough that you could have next day delivery from source to the door for many things including food from the farm.