I have been using eBay for years selling mostly clothes and shoes. Last year was the first year I was sent a tax form due to my total sales [>$20,000] and number of transactions [200+]. Paying monthly selling fees is really starting to become an issue. For the products that I sell eBay takes 10% of the proceeds. Same goes for Paypal.. Every transaction that is sent thru Paypal is hit with a 2.9% fee including a transaction fee of $.30. The combination of these two results in approx. 13% deduction of fees which I believe needs to be stopped. The way that these companies have positioned themselves with smaller sellers / people who don't run an e-commerce website, there really is no way around using their services.
When selling an item valued at $50, after deducting fees [10% + 2.9% + .30 transaction fee] you are left with $43.25. A total of $6.75 in cost. And shipping is another thing. This loss of profit is the root of my question.
I am not super familiar with any current project that could solve this problem for sellers so I am reaching out to the STEEMIT community. Is there a decentralized eBay-like project on the way? How long would you guess that something of this nature would take to be adopted? I believe that there is a YUUUGEE market for product. Maybe there is something already in the works that I am not aware of lol.
Do you feel that a decentralized marketplace would breed scammers? Would prescreening sellers help prevent this? How can a decentralized marketplace gain the trust of current eBay buyers and sellers?
Comment down below if you have any information for me, insight, or even more questions like I do! Would love to hear from you guys on this topic. I'm new to the STEEMIT community and strive to be a new active member. Looking forward to see what you guys have to say.
Openairapps are building a subscription based platform. You pay like 8 bucks a month and you have what is called a 'trader-space' its essentially a profile where you can buy sell auction loan goods and services from and the merchant can accept any payment type including cryptos. No transaction fees go to OAA. Released in couple of weeks.
Now would this be like an alpha release? Or is this project ready to go?
Alpha. First part is called openairfarming all the trader spacers ate categorized for producers small medium and large. Youll get micro farmers borrowing stuff off medium and consumers buying stuff off them all. Traderspaces are very cool.
Where should I be searching for news on this ? They have a website?
Yeah openairapps.com down for dev. Set to launch in September. Ill keep you in the loop.
This does sound like an amazing opportunity. Certainly the ebay/paypal vultures are making more money than they should.
By the way, I see you're super new to steemit, so I gave you a follow! Keep the thought provoking posts coming. Also, I just made a post about real estate photos gone wrong, you might enjoy it.
Thanks for the follow. I will do the same! Ill go look at your post! Cheers
The issue with a completely decentralized marketplace is the potential for scamming. I think the idea to avoid that is an escrow system where both partys + a third party have to agree the transaction went through with the alternative being the escrowed money just gets destroyed or is donated during a failed transaction.
I think Open Bazaar is going in the right direction and then you just have to trust the feedback system.
I imagine 9 out of 10 times everything will go great but there are bad actors out there.
Because so many people are working on decentralized marketplaces I've been developing a centralized marketplace this past year. We recently launched at Coinsen.com Being centralized we're able to offer dispute resolution, buyer guarantees, and more integrated features for the whole buyer/seller process.
As a side note I sell on eBay/Amazon myself and remember losing money in my early attemps when I didnt realize how high the fees were.
Hey man! Just saw this. I am going to have to check out your website. Would love to an improvement on the selling experience. I really appreciate the time you took to post this. thanks :)