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Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
101–110 of 309 posts
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#102Since this is an open source Amazon I’m curious to know how you are building out your product recommendations and suggestions for users?
My experience is that Amazon.com has never once recommended or suggested anything sane to me, beyond that it loves to "recommend" the items that I just bought. It's worse than the YT recommendation algo, in that way. If flushing the Amazon browse history wasn't such a monster PITA, I'd do it daily
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you're setting limits on another human being, likely because you're intimidated by them even having the stones to go through with it (and you won't/can't). Folks like you are a dime-a-dozen and they are always hollow souls who can't accomplish a fraction of the people they push down. > what sort of grilling do you think the OP will be subjected to when they rock up at a bank or VC fund looking for a few hundred m…
Quoted post unavailable.
It's amazing how many people condescend to others on here and then are surprised when someone else defends them.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#104A few points I'm skeptical of: simply connect to the seller’s infra instead of locking them in. One of the value-adds of Amazon is there's a whole bunch of tech sellers don't need to know how to write, run, and maintain. You'd need to understand how big the niche "technically literate to run their own e-commerce business, but selling on Amazon for other reasons" is, then how your operation would answer those "other r…
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.
Probably for this crowd anyway. My first thought at seeing the title was AWS, not the store front.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#105I've been thinking about a clone of amazon marketplace that can be run/operated by small cities/towns to support local commerce. Anyone have any thoughts on this or seen any other similar projects?
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#106Are you building it in AWS?
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#107Seems like there are two ideas here.
1. A way to keep your data/parts of your business after you've been kicked off a platform. I say parts because amazon is much more than just OMS, CMS, support platform. 2. Tools to build a marketplace. Which, besides being open source, how is this idea different than https://www.sharetribe.com/?
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#108Wouldn't it be more interesting if there was a federated way to take orders and see deals? Something like RSS for but for stores.
I think the bigger issue is just how much work it is to deal with the spam on any marketplace.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#109I also work with basically every Amazon selling platform globally: Vendor Central (Direct PO) in the US and EU and Seller Central in the US, CA, MX, UK, DE, FR, IT, ES, TR, PL, NL, JP, AU, and SG.
The software is (generally) not the issue. The software is great. The service is great. FBA can be a game changer in many regions.
The real problem with the Amazon, from a seller/brand/manufacture perspective is support. If you get banned—if there is a hiccup, or if there is a problem of any kind—it is a nightmare (or straight up impossible) to resolve.
I don't really want to own the software. I want to talk to a human when something goes wrong. I want to talk to someone who will ban a seller infringing on my trademarks. I want to talk to someone who will give me control of my listings when someone else hijacks them.
Amazon is, for better or worse, where the customers are. I have a good product and I don't have to pay for advertising. I don't want to have to pay for advertising to get people to go somewhere else. I just want to be able to talk to a human on occasion to resolve issues. I do millions of dollars of business every year with Amazon and reaching a human—let alone a human who can actually do something—is the most frustrating part of Amazon.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#110I think it's fantastic.
Growth will be slow. This is something like xmpp or mastodon, people will use it for sure, it will grow over time, but you're not going to see an explosion of use like amazon did. Keep at it, your work is much needed and this system you're building is wonderful.
Don't concern yourself with monetization too much. I know you need to eat, HN is populated largely by people in startups (because it's run by a sv startup accelerator) and you'll have a lot of replies asking you how you'll monetize and giving you advice on that. Don't do anything too hasty, don't break what you're building by being short sighted. You can run storefronts as a service to people who don't want to, that's in your back pocket (or front pocket, I don't know your plans), so changing the open dynamic of this thing is not necessary and it would end the whole value proposition of what you're building.
I don't know if you are familiar with OpenBazaar, if you aren't take a look at it and see if you can get any ideas from it, or even if you think what you're building could improve on it. I think it's cool but lacking and I think what you're putting together could actually be widely useable.