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Bonanza.com (the site I've been building for about four years now) has become one of the largest non-eBay marketplaces by scooping up sellers like you & the OP.

Bonanza.com (the site I've been building for about four years now) has become one of the largest non-eBay marketplaces by scooping up sellers like you & the OP. We're now up to 25,000 active sellers and 4 million listings by virtue of having seller-friendly policies. Admittedly, there is enough gray area in marketplace transactions where determining "right and wrong" can sometimes prove difficult. But I like to think that we start from a neutral POV, rather than the "buyer is always right" mentality that eBay has increasingly gravitated toward.

propercoil 14y ago
it's clean and looks kinda cool..
callmeed 14y ago
You run Bonanza? Cool, I have a bill for you. 2 years ago I caught a lady selling handbags (that she didn't really have) from your site. I caught her because she was having people pay through an account with our service (nextproof.com). Guess who had to eat the chargeback fees? I did Guess who had to call other people, inform them the handbag they ordered as a Christmas gift was bogus, then listen to them cry? I did All that to say, if you (or anyone else) has a successful marketplace, shady folks will swarm to you and you will have no choice but to figure out buyer and seller protection policies.
- mcantor 14y ago
  Wow. It never occurred to me that when you provide a service like that, someone could use it to literally ruin Christmas. That is heavy.
  - mertd 14y ago
    Don't make critical purchases from random people on the Internet? We should never blame the victim, nevertheless everyone should be thaught a basic level of "Internet street smarts".
nym 14y ago
You should work with Brian Armstrong to allow sellers / buyers to use bitcoins on the site. The advantage is that bitcoin does not allow chargebacks. Their interface is very close to PayPal, and makes it much easier to get started with. http://coinbase.com/ http://coinbase.com/
- pseudonym 14y ago
  Don't you think that "no buyer protection" is just heading too far in the opposite direction? Especially with callmeed's post[1] above... [1]http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4730281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4730281
  - btilly 14y ago
    With bitcoin you can do some surprisingly complex things. Such as move money into a fund that the other people can verify are there, which only pays out on a trigger condition.
    - rohamg 14y ago
      An escrow account? :)
      - btilly 14y ago
        Yes, but totally verifiable and automated. Which means less trust than a regular escrow account.
        DrStalker 14y ago
        What triggers it being paid? Surely that part can't be automated, someone (or combination of someones) has to have power to say pay/don't pay.
    - nanodeath 14y ago
      Where's the best place to learn more about this?
adgar2 14y ago
Based on replies, it seems like you may not have done a better job than eBay. What data do you have to support your belief that you're doing a better job?

propercoil 14y ago

it's clean and looks kinda cool..

callmeed 14y ago

You run Bonanza? Cool, I have a bill for you. 2 years ago I caught a lady selling handbags (that she didn't really have) from your site. I caught her because she was having people pay through an account with our service (nextproof.com). Guess who had to eat the chargeback fees? I did Guess who had to call other people, inform them the handbag they ordered as a Christmas gift was bogus, then listen to them cry? I did All that to say, if you (or anyone else) has a successful marketplace, shady folks will swarm to you and you will have no choice but to figure out buyer and seller protection policies.

mcantor 14y ago
Wow. It never occurred to me that when you provide a service like that, someone could use it to literally ruin Christmas. That is heavy.
- mertd 14y ago
  Don't make critical purchases from random people on the Internet? We should never blame the victim, nevertheless everyone should be thaught a basic level of "Internet street smarts".

nym 14y ago

You should work with Brian Armstrong to allow sellers / buyers to use bitcoins on the site. The advantage is that bitcoin does not allow chargebacks. Their interface is very close to PayPal, and makes it much easier to get started with. http://coinbase.com/ http://coinbase.com/

pseudonym 14y ago
Don't you think that "no buyer protection" is just heading too far in the opposite direction? Especially with callmeed's post[1] above... [1]http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4730281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4730281
- btilly 14y ago
  With bitcoin you can do some surprisingly complex things. Such as move money into a fund that the other people can verify are there, which only pays out on a trigger condition.
  - rohamg 14y ago
    An escrow account? :)
    - btilly 14y ago
      Yes, but totally verifiable and automated. Which means less trust than a regular escrow account.
      - DrStalker 14y ago
        What triggers it being paid? Surely that part can't be automated, someone (or combination of someones) has to have power to say pay/don't pay.
  - nanodeath 14y ago
    Where's the best place to learn more about this?

adgar2 14y ago

Based on replies, it seems like you may not have done a better job than eBay. What data do you have to support your belief that you're doing a better job?