I second this one, this seems like a great way to vet the sellers. After a certain amount of sales marked good, the seller doesn't have to use an escrow system. This would really keep the scammers out of the system
Probably just a deficiency in my technical prowess then. LOL
THAT will be a very nice feature!The system will have a built in payment method.
, I too work for some the largest known internet companies , but hey this is a hobbyist own , hobbyist run forum, coral is our focus here, not the cool things of internet, we can get those as and when they are mainstream
I have the same backround, also seen this exact same thing over and over. Had a looong situation not too far back dealing with outbreaks of "scammers" spending all day signing up on misc forums. Posting, blending in and scamming on the buyers end. Not sure if paypal ever stopped any of it.A couple comments from someone professionally in the industry of developing large scale apps (including payment processing, web apps, e-commerce, and mobile applications).
I've probably got others, but can't think of them right now.
- Be careful about binding yourself 100% to paypal.
- They have a great service with some awesome features but those features (as mentioned above) can come back to bite sellers too (malicious buyers, can dispute legit transactions, and paypal is weighted to buyer satisfaction, this means sellers who may be 100% legit can lose sales).
- Also PayPal has pretty draconian policies on account management. I personally had an experience where my Wife's personal paypal account was permanently banned (for life) by paypal, because at one time a year ago, I logged in as admin on a past employers account, which was involved in a large disputed payment situation, and they banned her account via association through me, to my past employer, for a dispute that happened like a year prior (and did NOT ban my account, or employers account). After dealing with support on this, and escallating numerous times to managers, etc. I was basically told "Sorry, we realize this is crazy, but we don't really care, just deal with it"
- Not saying "Don't use paypal" but be careful about choosing paypal as an enforced payment method, you could turn away valid buyers and sellers.
- Another piece of info, a rating system is important, but consider your own verification system. (I also participate heavily in crypto-currency communities, and they had to solve this problem pretty quick too).
- In other words: Your site has a feature, allowing certain users to "Verify" themselves within your site. There are third party providers that do this for a small fee. The verification requires providing name, address, phone, and verifying through identification or some other mechanism to prove you are actually at that address/phone, etc.
- This info would only be held by your site (the verification/ID etc would be via the third party). And in the event that someone has a dispute, is ripped off, etc, a the site could provide contact information or aid in dispute resolution somehow. Having that "Verified" stamp next to a name would be a huge re-assurance, combined with a feedback rating, that a user can be "trusted"
- Supporting Crypto payments (Bitcoin, Ethereum) would be a cool touch. Though not sure how much overlap in the communities there are (meaning it might not have much added value honestly). Either way a nice bonus
- I'd like to echo the "local" aspect, being able to find people local to trade with is a big deal. Especially for those outside the USA where shipping may be problematic.
- A very good search and "guided navigation" system is critical to the success of that type of system, don't underestimate the complexity of doing that right.
- Create some kind of standards for photography, and make them "rules" in the site:
- Allow tagging a photo with WYSIWYG but have a mechanism where the buyer can report "Wasn't as shown" in that case, and do something like after 3 bad reports, give them a negative hit to reputation, and disallow them from using WYSIWYG tag anymore
- Allow tagging as "Enhanced" or "Natural" photos too, again same kind of rules, allow buyers to report when photos aren't reflective of the appropriate tag. That way buyers can know what to expect based on the images posting (within a reasonable degree).
- Keep metadata on listings
- As already suggested things like "Appropriate Tank Size" and "Is compatible with" etc, are useful for filtering.
- For livestock, having a database like what liveaquaria does, and populating some facts about the species, care, compatibility, special needs, etc would be helpful to sellers, and buyers. Allowing a seller simply to select the species of livestock, etc, and have the database provide a bunch of useful info to the buyer automatically.
- For equipment have flags such as:
- New
- Used (if so, how? how much? how long?)
- Purchase Date
- Warranty (if any)
- Expiry? (chemicals, test kits, etc)
- Rated Tank Size
- GPM (pumps)
- Etc, just multiple "stats" per item.
- All of these data points can be fed into a good guided search or guided nav system to make the user experience in finding what they want that much easier.
If you're looking at building this out, I'd be happy to talk more about how I (or rather my firm) could help. Feel free to fire me a pm if you're interested.
