I like it too! Streetware, fashion: its like the new liquid asset right now. The part where buyers can "bid" on price is particularly compelling. I'd also like to see the "sell" side of the interface: in other words the data you are going to present to retailers and brands since ultimately they are the ones you will be selling this product to ;)
Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you
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Re: Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you
#12This concept is really solid. There’s a massive gap in the market to help standardise the 'want to buy' posts. I'm constantly manually searching across multiple selling platforms when i want to pick an item up for that best possible price - usually just scrolling away..! That and checking prices for items i already own & could be tempted to sell, I even got pm'd with a ridiculous offer on some old beaters i posted on…
Thanks for the feedback Toby! Yeah for sure we're looking to control how much people purchase things for so people can actually follow through with their WTB requests - by not allowing silly 'want to buy' amounts for example.
Cheers!
Re: Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you
#13I like it too! Streetware, fashion: its like the new liquid asset right now. The part where buyers can "bid" on price is particularly compelling. I'd also like to see the "sell" side of the interface: in other words the data you are going to present to retailers and brands since ultimately they are the ones you will be selling this product to ;)
Thanks! Controlling the price 'want to buy' requests will be important. Currently, on Facebook Groups people advertise that they would pay a much larger figure than they intend to which is extremely frustrating for sellers as well as other interested buyers.
I agree, with scale a catalog of what people want to buy and how much they want to pay for it turns us into a market research company of sorts!
Re: Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you
#14eBay tried this feature (which they called "Want it now"), but they shut it down. Why will your service fare better?
Re: Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you
#15eBay tried this feature (which they called "Want it now"), but they shut it down. Why will your service fare better?
Great question!
Process - Although I never got a chance to use it, we have looked into this and it seemed like eBay's service was hard work for buyers. The whole process of creating a 'wanted item' listing and then eventually purchasing that item seemed to be fairly ugly and involved entering auctionId's or setting up new auctions to complete the purchase... not fun!
Fees - eBay fees are sky high at 10% + listing fees. Instead of charging fees we're looking to generate revenue through referral, not charge the buyers/sellers directly.
Product discoverability - We're not bound to one platform. From scraping top retailers such as Amazon, Etsy, Alibaba and eBay we've got a wider search area to find exactly what buyers want.
Community - We're building this for the Facebook Group community because we would love to have something like this ourselves - it would make our lives buying/selling so much easier. As a result, the ability to chat with sellers within the app (not email) and share WTB listings to Facebook Groups gives our users much more power to find what they want, fast!
Re: Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you
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Re: Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you
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Re: Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you
#18What do you see as your strategy for handling unsatisfactory transactions passing through the platform?
For example, items not as advertised, credit card chargebacks, or out right fraud?
Re: Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you
#19What do you see as your strategy for handling unsatisfactory transactions passing through the platform? For example, items not as advertised, credit card chargebacks, or out right fraud?
Like any marketplace we're employing a feedback system where users can rate/report transactions to combat dissatisfaction.
On top of that, when a user sells an item they must take a photo on the spot, not choose from their photo library. The photo is tagged with their username and date so the buyer is confident the item they're purchasing belongs to that particular seller.
Payments can only be sent/received using PayPal to start with since this is standard practise with our beachhead segment - Facebook Groups.
Authentication service - for items over a certain price we're looking to offer an authentication service where we can act as the middleman for the transaction. This way we can ensure premium goods are legitimate before sending them onto the buyer.
Of course, with marketplaces there's risk, however, we feel these steps will help to minimise this risk.
Re: Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you
#20This is cool. I tried to do something when Groupon was hot. I had a site that was a Groupon just for travelers. As we already had all the tools, we thought it would be easy. The idea was to bring together many people who wanted to buy something and then try to negotiate a better price with the dealer. Neither worked. Do something with big scale is very complicated. I think only two people negotiating could work. As p…
We were thinking of expanding into something similar eventually related to group buying. Were you focused B2C? We were considering looking into B2B but as you say, I can imagine the complications involved!
B2C and small organizations. The problem is that some people don't like to pay, or change their mind. And some people promise things that they can't deliver. Similar to problems that Kickstart has.