For those who don't know, Peerhub allows users to buy and sell things using Steem Dollars as a currency. Yesterday, I wrote a blog post about how my record business is now accepting Steem payments. I mentioned I'd love to list them on Peerhub, but given the current limitations, it's not a viable option. This post will explain what will make listing on there workable.
Let me start off by saying, I don't know what @steemrollin's vision is for Peerhub, so this proposal may not align with the company's goals. However, I can tell you that this proposal will drastically increase the number of items Steem Dollars can buy.
"That sounds great, why wouldn't we want this?"
I can think of a couple of reasons:
- Give Peerhub time to grow relatively slowly and get all the bugs worked out.
- If your goal is to have it remain a place where Steemit users sell products to each other, this may not be a route Peerhub wants to go. It will bring in some sellers who have and want nothing to do with Steem; many will cash out immediately after making sales.
"That makes sense. Why should we want professional merchants to adopt Peerhub?"
In the first week after launch, while a listing contest was running, users created 118 new listings. That's a good start, but we could accelerate growth much more by adding a bulk-listing feature. If this feature were added, I could have 13,000 items on there today.
A bulk listing tool would allow Amazon merchants and eBay sellers to start listing there. In addition, I could reach out to my contacts in the physical music industry (cds, vinyl records, etc.) and likely have 10s of 1000s of items listed on there within days. These merchants are always on the lookout for new marketplaces since every sale counts, and they're generally fed up with PayPal and the fees that come with it.
I believe the more items STEEM and Steem Dollars can purchase, the closer we get to a system where government-issued currency becomes irrelevant, subsequently nearing a system where central banks lose their power.
How can we go about adding a bulk listing tool?
Many online merchants are in a similar position to me. We have 1000s of items in a spreadsheet and need a simple way to turn that spreadsheet into listings online. Listing these products individually just isn't feasible. Here's a sample of my spreadsheet:
The music marketplace MusicStack is an excellent easy-to-use example that could be followed. When I go to upload my inventory, this is what it looks like:
It then allows me to "map" all the columns in my spreadsheet to the appropriate information, such as: Artist, Title, SKU, Image URL, Genre, etc.
This post is focused on music since that's what I'm most familiar with. But it can be applied to other item categories as well. Ebay's file exchange could be used as a starting point for other categories. I hope these suggestions will be useful for Peerhub or perhaps another Steem-inspired marketplace.
Great thanks @shenanigator!
I agree 100%.
We will add a seller admin and bulk uploader tool. We need it for our Store as well... (I uploaded over 1,000 listings just to fill op the platform a while back.. and yes it's a pain.) Your suggestions are great. Was just planning to do research on this and will start with Ebay file exchange as you suggest. Probably will look at Amazon, Etsy, Alibaba etc.. (I'm also going to compare with regular retail shopping platforms like Shopify and web platforms like Squarespace/Weebly). Just need to do a lot of research to find a flexible and easy-to-use admin/uploader tool.
Thanks for the informative post!
I've used Amazon's bulk uploader quite a lot, and it's a nightmare from a usability standpoint. Most people I know who have tried using it gave up before being able to upload a single item. Musicstack's is the simplest one I've used, which is why I utilized that layout as my example.
Awesome thanks for the info! Yeah we want to make usability a core value proposition... Even reading Ebay file exchange instructions is intimidating.. it will be interesting to see how flexible we can be while maintaining usability for many business types. I'll reach out to you sometime. Thanks!
Sounds great, I'd be happy to lend a hand!
Has there been an update on how many steemers are actually buying from the site using steem?
I'm not sure. I haven't heard any numbers.
Hi, great post. I am focusing on WHAT people actually want to buy online with STEEM. Please help me get answers to my market survey presented here: https://steemit.com/steemit/@claudiop63/what-would-you-like-to-buy-with-your-steem-sbds-please-take-my-market-survey
Fantastic Idea.