5 ms·

Wigix: A Stock Market for Your Stuff

19 points by dpapathanasiou 18y ago

dpapathanasiou 18y ago
This is an interesting follow-up to the "better Ebay" discussion (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=184988 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=184988). Not sure whether or not they'll get enough users, though.
byrneseyeview 18y ago
Stock and commodity markets work well because one share or contract is pretty indistinguishable from another. A continuous, bid/ask model will only work if they're careful to trade within certain bands of quality. Even then the 'lemons' problem applies. The rest is interesting, though.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  Bingo. That was the major problem I saw with this as well. Your iPod and my iPod may have been bought on the same day and at the same location. But you left your's on your desk for 3 years, and I took mine on my deployment to Iraq. There are two very different values there.
- bdfh42 18y ago
  I suspect that location could be a big factor - we don't all live in the Bay area. How do you value my car against your similar vehicle when they are several thousand miles apart. Plus the Nigerian problem will also raise it's head.If you can't sell a laptop on Ebay any more then will you be able to sell it here?
- eru 18y ago
  Or because they are mathematically distinguishable from each other. E.g. They are certain relations between options with different parameters - an algorithmic trader can then provide the liquidity even for continuous parameters. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case in the exchanges right now. They stick mostly with a carefully restricted set of parameters that was useful in an era of human-only trading.
slvrspoon 18y ago
they need a lot of users to get liquidity to "make real markets work" but if so, they will beat ebay based on its inherent usntructuredness. worth a try.
Kaizyn 18y ago
I would be interested to see if they did any sort of market research into whether people are interested in such a service. It doesn't seem like it will be all that useful for one of a kind/rare items.
- maxwell 18y ago
  You can probably find and get rid of one of a kind/rare items already. What's harder, is dealing with used generic items. I have a bunch of electronics I wouldn't mind selling, and a bunch I would like to have, but it would be more hassle than its worse to go through eBay or craigslist. This thing looks well implemented, with the focus on the type of item, rather than each discrete item in particular (like existing listing sites). This is a good fit for mass produced items, whose differences are basically limited to just condition.
sadiq 18y ago
I'm a little confused as to how they handle different types of products under an SKU. For example, an iPhone with a short, abused life is going to carry a different market price than a nearly new one. Or have I misunderstood the site? edit: It seems they have quality categories when adding a product but they still seem discrete.
breck 18y ago
I think this is pretty awesome. One of the things I do most often on eBay is check completed sales for items I own, to see what the opportunity cost of me hanging on to my stuff is. I was thinking a few weeks ago about how I needed a site that had a list of all my possessions(of the non-sentimental variety) and gave me updated values of their worth. I considered building one myself for about 5 minutes because I knew my skillset wouldn't be a good fit for this type of project. But am very glad to see someone has taken up the challenge. I think for young people and others without a whole lot of income, a site like this is very useful. I think there is a huge market here. Wigix is definitely a site to watch.
- eru 18y ago
  On a somewhat related note: Have you ever thought about re-selling on ebay? Say an item has a really shoddy presentation/page and it is obviously keeping the bids down. You could buy it, make a better site and let the original seller ship it to your buyer instead of you. For example you could ask the original seller for more photographs of the item.
  - breck 18y ago
    Yeah I have an uncle that does that in his free time. I think he makes decent money. It seems like a lot of work though. I've only done about 20 or so transactions on eBay in the 10 years I've been a member. I'd say half of those have been more trouble than it's worth.
    - eru 18y ago
      My mother has sold tons of stuff on ebay since I introduced her to it a few years ago. She has a friend who does dissolving of households - that's where she gets most of her stuff from. People buy the oddest things.
awt 18y ago
Wigix: please get rid of the stock photo on the front.
- mynameishere 18y ago
  You mean this one: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=woman+with+laptop http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=woman+with+lapto... Seems like a pretty good idea, though.
- whacked_new 18y ago
  I find her resembling Hillary Clinton...
dbreunig 18y ago
It's definitely a great exercise to see how much you spend/lose on gadgets and stuff.
hugh 18y ago
I think it's an interesting idea only in that it seems to be a case of throwing a whole bunch of stuff at the wall and seeing if any of it sticks. It allows you to do a whole bunch of things, none of which I want to do. You can sell/buy stuff, but as others have mentioned evaluating quality seems like a huge problem. You can make a list of all the stuff you own and find out what it's worth, but since that's an awful lot of effort and all my stuff is worth less than I paid for it, why would I want to? You can tell everybody about all the stuff you own, but that just seems kind sad. And you can ask people about the stuff they own, but there are plenty of online review systems which make getting the opinion of random people easier. But of all these services, there might be something that's of interest to some subculture somewhere. Maybe obsessive stamp collectors, or obsessive [something] collectors will find one or more of these features to actually be useful, and that might be enough to build a business on.
davidw 18y ago
From the description, it looks a little too "be everything to everyone", but that may well be a mistaken impression.
noonespecial 18y ago
This might be a relic of the industrial age. Every thing I see in manufacturing today seems to be drifting toward the "customized" product. The more options and customizations available to consumers, the less we'll all have "the same thing". Are black macbooks really worth more than the white ones? What if I get mine laser etched or painted red? This depends on everybody having copies of a limited number of mass produced products. I think (and sincerely hope) we're headed for a much brighter future.

This is an interesting follow-up to the "better Ebay" discussion (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=184988 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=184988). Not sure whether or not they'll get enough users, though.

byrneseyeview 18y ago

Stock and commodity markets work well because one share or contract is pretty indistinguishable from another. A continuous, bid/ask model will only work if they're careful to trade within certain bands of quality. Even then the 'lemons' problem applies. The rest is interesting, though.

run4yourlives 18y ago
Bingo. That was the major problem I saw with this as well. Your iPod and my iPod may have been bought on the same day and at the same location. But you left your's on your desk for 3 years, and I took mine on my deployment to Iraq. There are two very different values there.
bdfh42 18y ago
I suspect that location could be a big factor - we don't all live in the Bay area. How do you value my car against your similar vehicle when they are several thousand miles apart. Plus the Nigerian problem will also raise it's head.If you can't sell a laptop on Ebay any more then will you be able to sell it here?
eru 18y ago
Or because they are mathematically distinguishable from each other. E.g. They are certain relations between options with different parameters - an algorithmic trader can then provide the liquidity even for continuous parameters. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case in the exchanges right now. They stick mostly with a carefully restricted set of parameters that was useful in an era of human-only trading.

slvrspoon 18y ago

they need a lot of users to get liquidity to "make real markets work" but if so, they will beat ebay based on its inherent usntructuredness. worth a try.

Kaizyn 18y ago

I would be interested to see if they did any sort of market research into whether people are interested in such a service. It doesn't seem like it will be all that useful for one of a kind/rare items.

maxwell 18y ago
You can probably find and get rid of one of a kind/rare items already. What's harder, is dealing with used generic items. I have a bunch of electronics I wouldn't mind selling, and a bunch I would like to have, but it would be more hassle than its worse to go through eBay or craigslist. This thing looks well implemented, with the focus on the type of item, rather than each discrete item in particular (like existing listing sites). This is a good fit for mass produced items, whose differences are basically limited to just condition.

sadiq 18y ago

I'm a little confused as to how they handle different types of products under an SKU. For example, an iPhone with a short, abused life is going to carry a different market price than a nearly new one. Or have I misunderstood the site? edit: It seems they have quality categories when adding a product but they still seem discrete.

breck 18y ago

I think this is pretty awesome. One of the things I do most often on eBay is check completed sales for items I own, to see what the opportunity cost of me hanging on to my stuff is. I was thinking a few weeks ago about how I needed a site that had a list of all my possessions(of the non-sentimental variety) and gave me updated values of their worth. I considered building one myself for about 5 minutes because I knew my skillset wouldn't be a good fit for this type of project. But am very glad to see someone has taken up the challenge. I think for young people and others without a whole lot of income, a site like this is very useful. I think there is a huge market here. Wigix is definitely a site to watch.

eru 18y ago
On a somewhat related note: Have you ever thought about re-selling on ebay? Say an item has a really shoddy presentation/page and it is obviously keeping the bids down. You could buy it, make a better site and let the original seller ship it to your buyer instead of you. For example you could ask the original seller for more photographs of the item.
- breck 18y ago
  Yeah I have an uncle that does that in his free time. I think he makes decent money. It seems like a lot of work though. I've only done about 20 or so transactions on eBay in the 10 years I've been a member. I'd say half of those have been more trouble than it's worth.
  - eru 18y ago
    My mother has sold tons of stuff on ebay since I introduced her to it a few years ago. She has a friend who does dissolving of households - that's where she gets most of her stuff from. People buy the oddest things.

awt 18y ago

Wigix: please get rid of the stock photo on the front.

mynameishere 18y ago
You mean this one: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=woman+with+laptop http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=woman+with+lapto... Seems like a pretty good idea, though.
whacked_new 18y ago
I find her resembling Hillary Clinton...

dbreunig 18y ago

It's definitely a great exercise to see how much you spend/lose on gadgets and stuff.

hugh 18y ago

I think it's an interesting idea only in that it seems to be a case of throwing a whole bunch of stuff at the wall and seeing if any of it sticks. It allows you to do a whole bunch of things, none of which I want to do. You can sell/buy stuff, but as others have mentioned evaluating quality seems like a huge problem. You can make a list of all the stuff you own and find out what it's worth, but since that's an awful lot of effort and all my stuff is worth less than I paid for it, why would I want to? You can tell everybody about all the stuff you own, but that just seems kind sad. And you can ask people about the stuff they own, but there are plenty of online review systems which make getting the opinion of random people easier. But of all these services, there might be something that's of interest to some subculture somewhere. Maybe obsessive stamp collectors, or obsessive [something] collectors will find one or more of these features to actually be useful, and that might be enough to build a business on.

davidw 18y ago

From the description, it looks a little too "be everything to everyone", but that may well be a mistaken impression.

noonespecial 18y ago

This might be a relic of the industrial age. Every thing I see in manufacturing today seems to be drifting toward the "customized" product. The more options and customizations available to consumers, the less we'll all have "the same thing". Are black macbooks really worth more than the white ones? What if I get mine laser etched or painted red? This depends on everybody having copies of a limited number of mass produced products. I think (and sincerely hope) we're headed for a much brighter future.