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Interesting to see this move by eBay - we've found that high fees for casual sellers is a huge pain point. By focusing their fee structure towards power-sellers

Interesting to see this move by eBay - we've found that high fees for casual sellers is a huge pain point. By focusing their fee structure towards power-sellers they also happen to be alienating a large group of casual sellers. We're trying to solve this problem (among others) with our product SellSimple. Free app, free postings, and 5% if it sells. Check it out, would love to know what you think: http://sellsimple.com http://sellsimple.com Disclosure: co-founder of SellSimple

minouye 14y ago
High fees are bad, but so is low sell-through. How do you drive traffic to listings?
- Jsarokin 14y ago
  Few ways currently, and more to come in the next few months. Basically: 1. Sharing your listing on social networks (good, not great for driving traffic). 2. Ability to list on multiple marketplaces, so you don't NEED to sell it through SellSimple - you can still list it on ebay, craigslist, etsy, etc. If it sells on one of those marketplaces, we'll auto-delete your item from SellSimple and all the other marketplaces. You're also not charged any SellSimple fee if it sells somewhere else. 3. Retention features on iOS - can't compare to eBays network, but downloads are growing quickly and users are buying items. This is more a long-term strategy help to help us overcome chicken - egg. If we can exist long enough for that to happen through a free posting tool - we'll be able to (eventually) have enough traffic on our own listings to generate a high sell-through rate.
  - MarkMc 14y ago
    Here's an idea to really drive traffic: Your fees are 5%, eBay users will soon be charged 13% (including PayPal fee). So give your sellers the option to list on SellSimple for a price 5% less than eBay. For example, a $100 item on eBay would sell for $95 on your site. Then in the ebay listing description add some key phrase like "Heyy Folks Be Quick" - the buyers will quickly learn that such a phrase means "get a 5% discount by making your purchase through SellSimple".
    - itsprofitbaron 14y ago
      Your idea is against eBay's Link Policy[1] and eBay actively remove listings (and in some cases limit users ability to sell on eBay) as their Policy states if you link to non-eBay sites where other items are offered for sale. Likewise, adding a phrase which may even suggest purchasing for less on another marketplace will probably lead to them editing or removing the listing from eBay as well. If you are going to do that idea then, do it as a marketing campaign, not on eBay listings. [1] http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-links.html http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-links.html
  - jbrowning 14y ago
    What are you doing to help attract sellers? Any plans for auction-style listings?
mateuszf 14y ago
Do you handle Bitcoins? If not then I can imagine it could get you lot of attention.
- Jsarokin 14y ago
  No Bitcoins yet - but it's definitely something I'm personally interested in and when the time is right would consider implementing. Still a bunch of un-tested use cases IMHO. Right now we're using Balanced (awesome product - http://balancedpayments.com http://balancedpayments.com) to process payments & escrow funds. Do you know of any API's that are similar to Balanced but for Bitcoins?
- mateuszf 14y ago
  Unfortunately no. How about other HN + BitCoin users?
cynix 14y ago
Not available in the Australian app store :(
- Jsarokin 14y ago
  Limited to US only for now - our main limitation is on the payment processing / bank account side. Once our processor (balanced) is ready for international payments we should be able to jump in pretty quickly (they're working hard on it now - hopefully its ready soon!)
  - tempestn 14y ago
    You could get a quick start worldwide by accepting Bitcoin, then add alternate payment methods later.
assholesRppl2 14y ago
looks like a good product, downloading now - always willing to try a sales competitor! quick typo in your App Store update description, though! separate. anyone have an easy mnemonic for that?
- pfranz 14y ago
  I always look for "a rat" in separate.
- unclebucknasty 14y ago
  I've always just mispronounced it mentally: se-par-ate. "par" is pronounced as in golf and emphasized. Now that I'm typing this, it sounds a little crazy, but it's always worked for me.
rohansingh 14y ago
Any plans for an Android implementation?
icelancer 14y ago
I looked at it; very interesting. But why does someone have to sign-in to buy? That is a major turn-off. I can't use something that people need to register an account for to buy. Just take a CC and shipping info and pass it to me.
- jbrowning 14y ago
  Seems to be a fraud deterrent. I once had an eBay listing that was "purchased" by a Nigerian scammer. Buyers need to have a reputation system as well in a viable eBay replacement.
  - Jsarokin 14y ago
    Yup - I think from a technical aspect we could totally have a user purchase before creating an account / signing in, however this limits us when it comes to dealing with fraud as well as brings up problems with the escrow system. Since all payments enter escrow, without an account, the buyer can't release the payment to the seller.
- gallerytungsten 14y ago
  >But why does someone have to sign-in to buy? How would eBay enforce "your bid is a contract" for auctions without user authentication?
  - eli 14y ago
    By requiring a credit card to bid?
Spooky23 14y ago
This is their way of dealing with seller-side fraud -- drive out the small sellers. eBay has more leverage over the big guys anyway.
brink 14y ago
Cool, though I wouldn't use it because of the listing page. Your formatting is great for an image search if how the image looks was my only criteria I was looking for. But to find out the price, where it's shipping from, who's selling it, etc. I have to hover over each and every item, and that's rather daunting when it comes to hundreds of results. I'd really want to be able to scan over hundreds of results in seconds. Not tediously hover over each and every result to see what it's worth. It takes too long.
unclebucknasty 14y ago
What are you doing for fraud? I can tell you from (too much) experience that as soon as you gain any traction in being the "broker" between parties in transactions, you will become a magnet for a non-stop, cat-and-mouse, painful game of fraud. After years of fighting and with a dedicated team, eBay is still losing that battle. And, as the "conduit" for this fraud, you will be blamed by both buyers and sellers, which is obviously no good for your brand. Not to be negative, but fraud can literally put you out of business.
- Jsarokin 14y ago
  Totally valid points and it's something we're building for everyday. We've already encountered a bunch of fraud early when our system was less developed. Luckily we caught all of those and have had time to grow / build a plan of attack. We'll never be able to eliminate fraud - but we can make it a pain in the a for a black-hatter to use SellSimple over the hundreds of alternative places. Few ways: 1. Escrow via Balanced 2. Shipment Purchasing, Tracking & Confirmation all in-app. 3. QR code scanning to release payments for meetups. 4. Verified sellers. 5. Fraud API's - https://siftscience.com/ https://siftscience.com/ & https://www.signifyd.com/ https://www.signifyd.com/ If they do get passed all of the systems, there is still large chance they screwed up somewhere and it will be pretty obvious to us what happened. That said - its an uphill battle.
  - unclebucknasty 14y ago
    Good to see that you're trying to get out ahead of it. It's unfortunate because as a small startup, you'd rather put your time into building the business. But, fraudsters are relentless and they come in waves. You beat them back, all goes silent, then they come back with a vengeance. It never stops and they are inventive. Much of the fraud comes from outside the U.S. as well (China-big time in our experience), so there's virtually zero chance of prosecution. So, these guys have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If they get busted, they just don't get their money. It's all upside for them. BTW, I used to think that raising the bar so they'll go elsewhere would be sufficient. It definitely helps, but it's not how it works. If there is any opportunity, there will be parties who persistently work you to find it, such that it will be a constant fight for you. In any event, you are right that you will most likely be able to detect them at some point. It's just the cost/time involved and the damage to your brand/customers as they keep changing tactics. One thing you should assume is that whatever you put in place, they will defeat at some point. It is guaranteed. Finally, services like siftscience also help, but they tend to just raise the signal and/or help you to corroborate suspicions. It can still take quite a bit of effort and invariably human interaction to interpret those signals. Not that it can't be done. Just encouraging you to brace yourself for the fight ahead. While you may be starting out to build a marketplace, you will likely find that you spend more time in the fraud-detection business. Good luck and kudos on your progress to date.

minouye 14y ago

High fees are bad, but so is low sell-through. How do you drive traffic to listings?

Jsarokin 14y ago
Few ways currently, and more to come in the next few months. Basically: 1. Sharing your listing on social networks (good, not great for driving traffic). 2. Ability to list on multiple marketplaces, so you don't NEED to sell it through SellSimple - you can still list it on ebay, craigslist, etsy, etc. If it sells on one of those marketplaces, we'll auto-delete your item from SellSimple and all the other marketplaces. You're also not charged any SellSimple fee if it sells somewhere else. 3. Retention features on iOS - can't compare to eBays network, but downloads are growing quickly and users are buying items. This is more a long-term strategy help to help us overcome chicken - egg. If we can exist long enough for that to happen through a free posting tool - we'll be able to (eventually) have enough traffic on our own listings to generate a high sell-through rate.
- MarkMc 14y ago
  Here's an idea to really drive traffic: Your fees are 5%, eBay users will soon be charged 13% (including PayPal fee). So give your sellers the option to list on SellSimple for a price 5% less than eBay. For example, a $100 item on eBay would sell for $95 on your site. Then in the ebay listing description add some key phrase like "Heyy Folks Be Quick" - the buyers will quickly learn that such a phrase means "get a 5% discount by making your purchase through SellSimple".
  - itsprofitbaron 14y ago
    Your idea is against eBay's Link Policy[1] and eBay actively remove listings (and in some cases limit users ability to sell on eBay) as their Policy states if you link to non-eBay sites where other items are offered for sale. Likewise, adding a phrase which may even suggest purchasing for less on another marketplace will probably lead to them editing or removing the listing from eBay as well. If you are going to do that idea then, do it as a marketing campaign, not on eBay listings. [1] http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-links.html http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-links.html
- jbrowning 14y ago
  What are you doing to help attract sellers? Any plans for auction-style listings?

mateuszf 14y ago

Do you handle Bitcoins? If not then I can imagine it could get you lot of attention.

Jsarokin 14y ago
No Bitcoins yet - but it's definitely something I'm personally interested in and when the time is right would consider implementing. Still a bunch of un-tested use cases IMHO. Right now we're using Balanced (awesome product - http://balancedpayments.com http://balancedpayments.com) to process payments & escrow funds. Do you know of any API's that are similar to Balanced but for Bitcoins?
mateuszf 14y ago
Unfortunately no. How about other HN + BitCoin users?

cynix 14y ago

Not available in the Australian app store :(

Jsarokin 14y ago
Limited to US only for now - our main limitation is on the payment processing / bank account side. Once our processor (balanced) is ready for international payments we should be able to jump in pretty quickly (they're working hard on it now - hopefully its ready soon!)
- tempestn 14y ago
  You could get a quick start worldwide by accepting Bitcoin, then add alternate payment methods later.

assholesRppl2 14y ago

looks like a good product, downloading now - always willing to try a sales competitor! quick typo in your App Store update description, though! separate. anyone have an easy mnemonic for that?

pfranz 14y ago
I always look for "a rat" in separate.
unclebucknasty 14y ago
I've always just mispronounced it mentally: se-par-ate. "par" is pronounced as in golf and emphasized. Now that I'm typing this, it sounds a little crazy, but it's always worked for me.

rohansingh 14y ago

Any plans for an Android implementation?

icelancer 14y ago

I looked at it; very interesting. But why does someone have to sign-in to buy? That is a major turn-off. I can't use something that people need to register an account for to buy. Just take a CC and shipping info and pass it to me.

jbrowning 14y ago
Seems to be a fraud deterrent. I once had an eBay listing that was "purchased" by a Nigerian scammer. Buyers need to have a reputation system as well in a viable eBay replacement.
- Jsarokin 14y ago
  Yup - I think from a technical aspect we could totally have a user purchase before creating an account / signing in, however this limits us when it comes to dealing with fraud as well as brings up problems with the escrow system. Since all payments enter escrow, without an account, the buyer can't release the payment to the seller.
gallerytungsten 14y ago
>But why does someone have to sign-in to buy? How would eBay enforce "your bid is a contract" for auctions without user authentication?
- eli 14y ago
  By requiring a credit card to bid?

Spooky23 14y ago

This is their way of dealing with seller-side fraud -- drive out the small sellers. eBay has more leverage over the big guys anyway.

brink 14y ago

Cool, though I wouldn't use it because of the listing page. Your formatting is great for an image search if how the image looks was my only criteria I was looking for. But to find out the price, where it's shipping from, who's selling it, etc. I have to hover over each and every item, and that's rather daunting when it comes to hundreds of results. I'd really want to be able to scan over hundreds of results in seconds. Not tediously hover over each and every result to see what it's worth. It takes too long.

unclebucknasty 14y ago

What are you doing for fraud? I can tell you from (too much) experience that as soon as you gain any traction in being the "broker" between parties in transactions, you will become a magnet for a non-stop, cat-and-mouse, painful game of fraud. After years of fighting and with a dedicated team, eBay is still losing that battle. And, as the "conduit" for this fraud, you will be blamed by both buyers and sellers, which is obviously no good for your brand. Not to be negative, but fraud can literally put you out of business.

Jsarokin 14y ago
Totally valid points and it's something we're building for everyday. We've already encountered a bunch of fraud early when our system was less developed. Luckily we caught all of those and have had time to grow / build a plan of attack. We'll never be able to eliminate fraud - but we can make it a pain in the a for a black-hatter to use SellSimple over the hundreds of alternative places. Few ways: 1. Escrow via Balanced 2. Shipment Purchasing, Tracking & Confirmation all in-app. 3. QR code scanning to release payments for meetups. 4. Verified sellers. 5. Fraud API's - https://siftscience.com/ https://siftscience.com/ & https://www.signifyd.com/ https://www.signifyd.com/ If they do get passed all of the systems, there is still large chance they screwed up somewhere and it will be pretty obvious to us what happened. That said - its an uphill battle.
- unclebucknasty 14y ago
  Good to see that you're trying to get out ahead of it. It's unfortunate because as a small startup, you'd rather put your time into building the business. But, fraudsters are relentless and they come in waves. You beat them back, all goes silent, then they come back with a vengeance. It never stops and they are inventive. Much of the fraud comes from outside the U.S. as well (China-big time in our experience), so there's virtually zero chance of prosecution. So, these guys have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If they get busted, they just don't get their money. It's all upside for them. BTW, I used to think that raising the bar so they'll go elsewhere would be sufficient. It definitely helps, but it's not how it works. If there is any opportunity, there will be parties who persistently work you to find it, such that it will be a constant fight for you. In any event, you are right that you will most likely be able to detect them at some point. It's just the cost/time involved and the damage to your brand/customers as they keep changing tactics. One thing you should assume is that whatever you put in place, they will defeat at some point. It is guaranteed. Finally, services like siftscience also help, but they tend to just raise the signal and/or help you to corroborate suspicions. It can still take quite a bit of effort and invariably human interaction to interpret those signals. Not that it can't be done. Just encouraging you to brace yourself for the fight ahead. While you may be starting out to build a marketplace, you will likely find that you spend more time in the fraud-detection business. Good luck and kudos on your progress to date.