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Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

openship.org

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Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#241

Post by pabs3 »

Sounds like your business model is managed hosting of the open source project.

Is that subject to change?

Are you planning on additional revenue streams (like open core)?

Are you aware of the incentives with the managed hosting model? If not, it is that you're incentivised to make it harder to install, so people choose your hosting and to make it harder to move to self-hosted, so people can't leave. How do you plan to mitigate those issues?

Are you planning on adding something like whitelabeling, which would allow other companies to also sell Openship hosting, competing with your hosting? Would you prevent someone from contributing that to the main codebase?

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#242

Post by acidioxide »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #159
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

18 hours is a pretty stupid selling point IMO. You either need something immediately or you can wait. Rarely do I need anything 18 hours from now. I think many sellers would love to not be locked into Amazon and at least use something like this as an additional alternative. I'm on the other side of the table where I avoid buying from Amazon as much as possible.

18 hours is overnight. Last night "Hmm. Toothpaste almost gone. Let me check the linen closet. Nope. Excuse me while I whip this out. (gasp) Swipe, tap, tap, t-o-o-t-h (autocomplete), scroll, tap, tap, tap. Done." Used the last this morning, new toothpaste delivered at noon. I shop online exclusively because one of my first jobs was in retail and it is my solemn duty to do everything I can to annihilate the brick and…

It is crazy how things are different around the world. I can't imagine buying something online what I can just walk 6 mins and buy in a shop.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#243

Post by presentation »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #114
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #44

Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago. Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant. Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.

18 hours is a pretty stupid selling point IMO. You either need something immediately or you can wait. Rarely do I need anything 18 hours from now. I think many sellers would love to not be locked into Amazon and at least use something like this as an additional alternative. I'm on the other side of the table where I avoid buying from Amazon as much as possible.

Lol Amazon would disagree and are laughing their way to the bank.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#244

Post by presentation »

marban wrote: post #55
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #44

Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago. Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant. Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.

18 hours — Or ~ 4 hours if you're in Japan.

It’s sweet, definitely helps that most people live near one of a handful of cities.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#245

Post by eternityforest »

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm just a dev, I don't have any clue about business.

But as a dev working for small groups, my big concern is usually avoiding too much in house tech.

Will this be usable by sellers without any IT staff? As I understand it Amazon does a lot for sellers.

Also, will digital asset sales be a focus? That seems more accessible.

I've had several project ideas(Never seriously focused on, I really don't want my own business) where it would be helpful to have an easy way to sell license keys, or an basic subscriptions API to query whether someone was a paid subscriber.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#246

Post by eternityforest »

cfiggers wrote: post #201
Thorentis wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just goes to show that for all of HN's hyper ad awareness, we still fall for basic click bait in our own territory.

Another way to frame it (from the opposite direction) is a collective failure on "our" part (if there is such a thing as "us") to explore and promote genuinely interesting things just because they lack the sparkle of click bait on the outer surface. Maybe it isn't that we "fall for" click bait, it's that we very loudly ignore stuff that isn't.

An open source order management system is interesting to a certain number of people, but probably doesn't affect me personally. It sounds like another open web storefront builder if i had to guess based on the title.

An open source Amazon is a big deal, it implies that it aims to do what Amazon does, not just a repo you can clone and build an online store, and I might be placing orders there someday.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#248

Post by UncleEntity »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #44

Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago. Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant. Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.

> Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.

A little while ago I drove past a giant blue pyramid dedicated to the grand and wise Jeff Bezos where I can only imagine The Great God of Online Commerce conducts his human sacrifice rituals on unwitting union organizers. Pretty sure they are currently keeping the management indoctrination ceremonies low key being Labor Day weekend and all that.

And people thought the Long Beach shipping container height restrictions were lifted over practical concerns…

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#249

Post by drKarl »

lowwave wrote: post #228
swyx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the branding "open source Amazon" is just way too ambitious/big. invites a lot of confusion/criticism if Amazon is different things to different people.

I would be down for an open source AWS services. Shouldn't be to hard to make web front end to the fire cracker instance, but make everything in the backend open source, so any one can run the community edition. Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, and then you run your "open source AWS" on AWS xD. I believe what you mean it's called Open shift, kind of.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#250

Post by candiodari »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #227
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantage of a great logistics network is predictability. If I order from Etsy, I will drop $100 on a product and shipping. But when will I get it? I don’t know. Will it even arrive? Who knows? With Amazon I know what I order is coming this week. That’s why I buy from them and no one else. It doesn’t matter that half their website is styled like it’s 2003 and I’m probably getting a counterfeit product.

how is it not kind of stupid to prioritize getting something asap over being genuine?

The growth potential and the customer satisfaction.

The sad reality is that a large majority of people don't actually use products they buy. They want the satisfaction of getting a new "quality" product and imagine it gives them status.

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