4 ms·

I've thought about this a bit for homebrewed beer (illegal to sell, but perfectly legal to give away and/or trade). My only thought is that you could manage the

I've thought about this a bit for homebrewed beer (illegal to sell, but perfectly legal to give away and/or trade). My only thought is that you could manage the shipping of the items--have each trader send you the item, where in you inspect it, and once you've received both, you send both along, otherwise, you return the original widget to the sender. Charge shipping plus a fee for that service. Plus, if you have a centralized shipping location, you'll be better suited to get deals on shipping costs. This, of course, ignores the fact that it's illegal to ship alcohol via USPS, and it's against policy for UPS and FedEx.

Casseres 12y ago
> This, of course, ignores the fact that it's illegal to ship alcohol via USPS. Currently, but USPS has indicated they would like to get into this business. It would be a worthwhile risk to set up a service that would take advantage of this beforehand so they could be the first service to do this. As being a man-in-the-middle, that would double the price of shipping, where it already costs 10% to 50% of the widget's value. Though it might be a good service to have available for new users who don't have any feedback in their profile.
- endersshadow 12y ago
  Being a MITM would certainly increase shipping costs, but if you're able to get bulk pricing, you could potentially drop the shipping costs to less than what it could cost the users to ship it themselves.
partisan 12y ago
> My only thought is that you could manage the shipping of the items--have each trader send you the item, where in you inspect it, and once you've received both, you send both along, otherwise, you return the original widget to the sender. I wouldn't take the risk of confirming the value of products. Take the example of sneakers, there are plenty of knockoff sneakers on the market. You can usually tell, but if you aren't in tune with that market then you might well sign off on a pair of fake sneakers and become responsible for allowing a fraudulent transaction to take place.

Casseres 12y ago

> This, of course, ignores the fact that it's illegal to ship alcohol via USPS. Currently, but USPS has indicated they would like to get into this business. It would be a worthwhile risk to set up a service that would take advantage of this beforehand so they could be the first service to do this. As being a man-in-the-middle, that would double the price of shipping, where it already costs 10% to 50% of the widget's value. Though it might be a good service to have available for new users who don't have any feedback in their profile.

endersshadow 12y ago
Being a MITM would certainly increase shipping costs, but if you're able to get bulk pricing, you could potentially drop the shipping costs to less than what it could cost the users to ship it themselves.

partisan 12y ago

> My only thought is that you could manage the shipping of the items--have each trader send you the item, where in you inspect it, and once you've received both, you send both along, otherwise, you return the original widget to the sender. I wouldn't take the risk of confirming the value of products. Take the example of sneakers, there are plenty of knockoff sneakers on the market. You can usually tell, but if you aren't in tune with that market then you might well sign off on a pair of fake sneakers and become responsible for allowing a fraudulent transaction to take place.