Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea!
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Bittorrent is federated streaming video before it was cool.
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I don't see why we can't just buy directly from shops. Maybe an aggregator of links for products, so there is an rss-like feed of products, prices etc?
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The best idea I can come up with is a federated marketplace. Each vendor has their own instance. Buyers can browse the marketplace and have a unified checkout experience. Vendors would have unified product posts so whichever vendor has the best price or fastest shipping (user preference) would get the sale. USPS for example has shipping zones which determine the price for shipping depending on distance.
The best example I can come up with is rockauto. They are a central marketplace of different auto parts suppliers. You can find parts that are in the same location in order to combine shipping.
If you put a part in your cart it will then show parts that are in the same warehouse.
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like pc-partpicker
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The problem they (should/did) solve was scamming, and payments. So you'd need to have some banking system with locked money, disputes etc. IMO that is the complicated part, the rest is just more or less a searchable database.
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I think we will see this continue, but with federated product search, soon.
Small business vendors cannot afford to continue to leave their search results to Google and Amazon to control.
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Amazon is basically glorified dropshipping
This premise is not correct. As I've described, Amazon's business is providing services to other businesses, many services, which make their platform attractive for sellers due to ease-of-use. Therefore...
Let's make an amazon alternative.
This objective is not really possible. An alternative that does not provide all of those services is not actually an alternative.
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I buy stuff from Ebay and Etsy plenty often.
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Thanks for clarifying. As stated, I disagree on this premise. We were talking about amazon.com. more specific the platform that shows you items you can buy from a variety of sellers which you dont have to vet yourself, with no ui change, with unufied payment, unified purchase, unified shipment overview. The other services i'm fine to discuss at some point but thats not the idea here.
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Its possible that this is pretty sttaightforward. My thought on payment is stripe and paypal atm since they're already established. They also handle this.
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Thats pretty straightfoward. I like it. Combined shipping can make sense. Thanks for participating.
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Because this does not work in reality. You have many mechanics that are hidden to the casual user but play a significant role from a vendor standpoint.
You have ui change which means you slow down the users purchase due to them finding buttons and informarion, leading to similar websites which is bad for variety and gives corporare unified marketplaces an edge
Then you have trust. Leaving a website you have learned to trust means you have to check if the next website is trustworthy which isnt feasible.
Unified order overview and checkout so you know what you bought and when its coming. Especially for a complex multi stage order.
Unified payment of course as well as claims, returns, etc.
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Thats actually a very long interesting point. Thanks for mentioning it
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Thats a very good point. Thank you. I dont disagree on any of it but I think there could be alternatives to some parts.
There are physical syndicate-owned places that store collective things in them. Also, we are talking businesses here. A collective warehouse of say 100 sellers around a small city or bit town would not be easily being held hostage.
But these are details, although very interesting. Its very good long term for making such a project more resiliant and competitive.
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Thanks for explaining. I appreciate the honesty and now I see your post in a different light.
That said, I'm currently selfemployed with a small ethical it company and do open source development and project management as well as ngo work on the side.
You could argue that I'm a hopeless idealist, although I have made millions with my projects in the past (which I of course did not keep).
I'd say I have a keen sense for opportunities with a certain stubbornness to do the right thing and break down what I perceive as wrong.
If I can get 10 vendors to get off amazon and provide good service for their customers, I'm glad. Everyone on top I'm stoked.
So yes, a hobby if you will.
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You are overlooking the part where you dont haggle with the seller on amazon, you dont have to look if the item is actually used and just sold as new. You dont have to gauge if its a scam, which is hugely common on ebay. Its more like a platform for experienced buyers with concrete ideas. Not that I would not see a possible ebay alternative here as well but my main focus is on providing unified shopping in every site this platform would ne run on with a closed trust network which could then be expanded.
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That's a solved issue. Monero escrow services have been doing exactly this for the dark web for years now
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There is a simple way to solve this. Make it so only people who have purchased the product can give reviews.
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I think htmx is an ideal framework for such a purpose
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I think op sees us as exactly that. His thinktank. Isn't that kinda the whole point of a social network?
