eBay & Amazon are both successful because of the review system. People trust buyer & seller from past experience.
How does the Safex marketplace plan to replicate that if everyone is anonymous?
I’m guessing people will still be identified by their username (but the real identity is hidden), so this way people can still build their reputation with the same account.
Also, another big issue is the customer service for disputes. How can we make sure the seller ships the item to the buyer? eBay & Amazon have their own dispute system in place, as a new marketplace, how does SAFEX plan to manage that aspect.
I assumed independent escrow accounts would be used similar to previous online marketplaces? Also if you look at something like SilkRoad where there were huge amounts of goods traded which were not approved by most countries laws… the customer review system and seller customer service was incredible. Sellers dont want one time customers… not good for business.
Wondering if Dan and the team will have a portion of the dividends of the coins which are kept on Bittrex and other exchanges funneled back to them so they can use the money to pay for marketing and employees.
IMO this is a major sticking point of the project. Unless it goes completely Silk Road, there has to be a customer service staff. If there is no hired Manager, who is going to hire, evaluate, and possibly fire the staff members? And if there is a Manager, who hires him/her? If trying to compete with Ebay and Amazon, then there has to be a large customer service staff and possibly a large distribution network. The only way to get around this would be to sell items where people would value their privacy over the customer service.
Watch out! If theres any centralized pieces here, government can shut It down. If theres a Company somewhere with employees, government Will Go there and close, as soon as It bother big companies, or government himself
That is why I said that the marketplace would either have to comply with all rules and have a customer service element or comply with none(decentralized).
The average online merchandise customer values customer service and security more than their privacy. Of course a customer that is in the market for illicit or illegal merchandise will value their privacy more than all else.
I’ve been thinking about this a good bit, it doesn’t need to have offices etc, online forums are just as effective in helping out people’s issues and answering questions. I’ve been thinking about this a lot but you cannot compare Safex in terms of its processes and operations to Paypal/Ebay and the likes
Sellers will provide their own customer service. Assuming repeat sales is their goal, they have the most incentive to provide the best customer experience possible. They can do it in several ways…
Call this number XXX - XXX - XXXX if you have questions.
FAQ website link.
Email link.
Reputation rating.
Buyers are happy to give a review, especially if they appreciate the service or product. They can also give a negative review. Assuming they are not the same person or hired by the seller give fake reviews, they can do it in several ways…
Reviews
Referrals aka Recommendations.
Comments
Thumbs up / Thumbs down
5 Star Rating.
Market Place Navigation and Guides will come up automatically by other SAFEX users. But we should do our best to make it stupid simple.
Majority of the population are conditioned to “depend/trust” big corporations, but we really don’t need them anymore. We are free to trade and just need to take that first step to independence.
I like the idea of having the seller responsible for the customer service. This way we can make a disclaimer saying that SAFEX isn’t responsible for any thing that happens during the transaction.
As long as the website provides some kind of messaging service for them to communicate we’ve done our end providing the platform, or even just a seller profile field with phone number / email information is enough to begin with.
No they are not comparable. I remember operation payback in 2010, where pp fell for governmental pressure to stop all payments to wikileaks for their own preservation. Yet payments to dubious groups, none worth mentioning, continued like normal and were not touched by that same government.
Let that fact be a reminder of why we need decentralised market places and cryptocurrencies!
Prime example right now is Zimbabwe where they are apparently paying double the going Bitcoin price as they try to move away from the Governments failing fiat currency.
Bitcoin being the most recognized and readily available, pity Safex hasn’t been marketed there yet…
So whether it is the public trying to protect their assets from Government fiscal mismanagement, or from oppressive tax regimes it will be anonymity that will be most prized.
Would be cool if on the forums new sellers could get endorsed by older, more well-known sellers so that people feel better about using said seller. Same goes for older buyers that have a history of purchasing and leaving helpful reviews on many different listings and markets. They could be asked to review products and that would help ease peoples’ minds.