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Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box

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Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box

#61

Post by knome »

capecodcarl wrote: post #53
jarrett wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the biggest hurdle to selling my personal items online is flaky and/or malicious buyers. On Craigslist, buyers tend to be extremely flaky. Every time I've sold something there, I've wasted substantial time with people who arrange meeting times and don't show up. This happens many times per item. It's also overrun with scammers, although those are easy to spot if you know the signs. (Bad grammar, being unreali…

What would be nice is a package escrow service for one-off purchases here or there that are not time critical. You sell your item on eBay (or wherever) as normal, but the buyer pays the escrow service. Then when they confirm payment, you ship your item to the escrow service who then unpacks the item, verifies the contents are as described and functional, and then repacks it and ships it on to the buyer. Then they rel…

Wouldn't these guys be acting as an escrow service anyways? If they bother with the minimal process of photoing and tracking packages, it seems it would be much harder to claim fraud against them.

Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box

#64

Post by philsalesses »

I tried to post an iPhone but got stuck when I didn't post enough description. They emailed once reminding me but then that mail got buried and I forgot. They have an opportunity to fix that problem creatively, by maybe using different interfaces for different products, where each post screen is uniquely tailored to posting that specific product optimally.

They're definitely in the right path, but I think like any startup, they have some wrinkles to iron out. Luckily they have an amazing team and I think they'll do just fine in time.

Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box

#65

Post by wtvanhest »

georgemcbay wrote: post #52
downandout wrote: post #46

The problem they are trying to solve is real. Many people don't know or want to know how to market things they don't want anymore. They just want to sell them. This is the same reason that Google now offers assistance with Adwords campaigns - many businesses don't want to have to become Internet marketing experts, but need customers. I think that without a local presence where items are screened, fraud/product misrep…

"The problem they are trying to solve is real." It is absolutely real for me. I've got like two closets full of older but perfectly fine stuff (like the laptop I replaced with the laptop I bought this year) that I would feel bad throwing away but I don't want to bother selling through normal means (and none of my immediate friends is interested in having). I would absolutely use this service to get rid of the stuff e…

The problem is real for me too. What is really crazy is that I may actually be too lazy to snap a picture and email it.

When I had more time and less money I would buy camera equipment from people on CL, and resell it for huge mark ups. Most people just wanted it gone and were willing to get a little cash.

I bet they do a lot more volume than people are giving them credit for. I also think a smart phone app that allows you to take a photo and immediately send it to the company would increase their potential merchandise.

Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box

#66

Post by zwily »

wtvanhest wrote: post #65
georgemcbay wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The problem they are trying to solve is real." It is absolutely real for me. I've got like two closets full of older but perfectly fine stuff (like the laptop I replaced with the laptop I bought this year) that I would feel bad throwing away but I don't want to bother selling through normal means (and none of my immediate friends is interested in having). I would absolutely use this service to get rid of the stuff e…

The problem is real for me too. What is really crazy is that I may actually be too lazy to snap a picture and email it. When I had more time and less money I would buy camera equipment from people on CL, and resell it for huge mark ups. Most people just wanted it gone and were willing to get a little cash. I bet they do a lot more volume than people are giving them credit for. I also think a smart phone app that allo…

They have an iPhone app which makes the whole process very slick, including taking pictures. I haven't tried selling with it yet, but it looks nice.

Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box

#69

Post by eru »

jroseattle wrote: post #56

Interesting concept, but I question how defensible this service would be. It seems both Amazon and Ebay could simply offer this as an add-on service, and really...who is going to be better positioned to develop recommendation algorithms for marketing products?

Customer service will make a huge difference. So that could be their moat.

Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box

#70

Post by eru »

dxbydt wrote: post #17

Send me an empty box ? Why not send me a Google Glass. I'll put on the glass, look at the object I want to sell, and say "Glass, Sell!". It will then take a picture of the object, upload to cloud, run a few ML algos to figure out a competitive price point & vendor site ( ebay, amazon, niche ) & list my item on vendor with a auto-generated description ( standard summarization algos ). If it were smart enough, it would…

If the item is small enough, the tacocopter could take it on its return journey.
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