New Reef Classified Buy/Sell/Trade System

[Kathy B]

I know at one Time the app asked for location to help network with people close. If there was some way to have a seller forum for people within a certain mile radius. That way, for some the price of corals along with shipping makes it a little prohibitive, if they can keep it in their vicinity they could probably eliminate the shipping charges by meeting some place.

Edit: like a Craigslist for Frags. You could call it Fragslist. LOl

I would still personally unto shop some of the Nationwide Network, but to have a local Access Network might help bring in more people into the coral Market that otherwise couldn't afford to buy the corals after you add in shipping.

Being able to sort by distance like on eBay would meet this criteria. Maybe a local pick up option or check box that you could sort by would also be good. I also like the feedback system for buyers and sellers so you can see history and experience with past transactions.

 

[markstubb]

Needs to have international capabilities. I recently moved to Malaysia and while there are some places to buy reef gear, the selection is no where near the USA, and the prices are cray cray.

I can't even buy Neptune gear without importing it from Singapore.

 

[Mario P.]

I would like to see a feedback system. Location is a must. Categories for products would also be helpful.

 

[Cory]

Id set up a small fee as part of the sale that is an insurance to the buyer if they get scammed.

 

[Kyl]

So is the end goal to be amazon for everyone, or a BST focused implementation with a reputation system like heatware built in? How are vendors going to wade through the seas of posts that will ultimately start stepping on their sponsoring toes?

I'm feeling like this could end up being a big distraction from the core competencies that are currently running a fantastic forum community. Are the monetary and time resources required to implement and maintain this going to be a potential hindrance to continued forum usability and content enhancements?

 

[dragon99]

I voted no, but I'm still sorta on the maybe side. I definitely think there room for something like this, but honestly I'm not sure I'd spend the time to use it. I'm not a huge fan of Amazon's reseller market. I almost always try to buy directly from Amazon. I feel like it will be the same here, rather than wade through a bunch of potentially unreliable sellers, I'll just go to the vendors I know and trust. Reviews/rating only go so far.

 

[rmiles54]

Any thoughts on a virtual reef show? We travel across the country to visit shows packed with vendors, raffles, giveaways, keynote speakers, ect... shipping would be a challenge to come up with a method to ship from multiple vendors. All the vendors could list a wysiwyg items either live sale style or all at once. We could pay entry fees. Buy raffle tickets. Live stream keynotes. Real time 2way text and chat. Manufacturers could showcase in depth videos of new products. Show functions for the same time schedule as a physical show, 2 or 3 days so many hours a day. Or being online, the show could have flex hours to accommodate everyone's schedules and time zones. Shows could also be item specific, zoa show, sps show. Vendors could attend the show and still hold down the fort. Could possibly even have a schedule for each vendor to highlight their items. Maybe rotate vendors every 20 minutes, just like we all circle the vendors at a real show. The keynotes and raffles could even be scheduled to halt all sales so you don't have to miss any of the action. Save money on travel. No venue costs. Advertisement slots for vendors/manufacturers. I think opportunities are endless here. R2R could host their very own virtual reef show.. Just a thought, lotta cool ideas so far. Looking forward to see where this goes...

 

[MartinWaite]

From my point of view there must be a way sort for distance,size,ect as is with eBay. All posts must be in a std font and size. Someone said keep it USA measurement that's no good to the rest of the world as you shortchange us with your small measures so using litres is a world wide standard. Need to be able for the buyer to see if the seller is a trader or not. All payments must go through something with safety built in. Feed back is compulsory from both buyer and seller that is shown against users name. Livestock international sales is a no go as import, export, & CITES licenses and laws could be broken unintentionally. The seller sells in their countries currency. These are just the tip of the iceberg but sleep is taking hold so night nite from me.

 

[Reefbuds]

Well for me it's simple. It would have to have the lowest prices on the things we all use. If I can get it cheaper I will simple buy elsewhere.

 

[revhtree]

Just a reminder that what we're talking about will mainly be about livestock. That's what is going to be most unique.

 

[Kyl]

@revhtree Roughly what percentage of the R2R user base traffic is USA based?

 

[revhtree]

Livegoods and used equipment will dominate the market. Maybe we'll just have livegoods. We're still working out details and take all of your voice into consideration.

 

[Reefbuds]

In that case I would definitely buy from. A private live goods market from trusted sources, priceless.
But still low prices

 

[Slarti]

I actually clicked yes but would obviously need to be able to use the service in Australia. But I one stop shop would be great.

 

[scardall]

While I like amazon there are others that have better prices for some items/manufacture model only available else where. A monopoly can destroy freedom of choice.

 

[ReefBeta]

As a software engineer and technical product owner, I want to throw in my 2 cents.

For a product like that, it's all about finding the market gap that you're best to fill.

As a hobbyist, there are 4 types of places I shop.

1. For big brand items, I go to creditable retailers, like BRS, saltwateraquarium, Amazon, for they have best price w/ shipping, and return policy
2. For cheap and small parts, I go to ebay for the Chinese vendors, as they are dirt cheap.
3. For 2nd hand stuff, I go to craigslist or local facebook group, as they're aimed for local community
4. For small but quality brands, I have to find their own online shops.

So the really gap is on the #4 category. Couple example come to my mind is NanoboxReef (let's pretend it hadn't get on marine depot yet), http://buildinganobsession.com/, http://www.turbosaquatics.com/. They are smaller business/startup that try to build their brands. They all tend to setup their own online shop instead of using an existing platform. Because of lack of a common platform, the discoverability of these brands are very poor. And they usually provide high qualit, well designed, innovative gears that I always hope I learn about them earlier. This is the market gap that have great opportunity.

That being said, it's not really matter what we as shopper think, as long as the system allow me to put things in shopping bag and checkout. It's all about what great gears I can discover and buy from the platform. So what matters is if small business like those will want to get on your platform. Why they decided to build their own. Why they didn't sell their things on Amazon or eBay. What features are important for them as a shopping platform. Low fee? Logistics? Customize platform/homepage for brand building? Advertisement perks? There are lots of valuable conversation to be have with those parties. They will be the key to success. Otherwise, it would just be yet another ebay/craiglist that try to brand itself with aquarium label.

 

[Doubbler]

I would like to find an easier way to sell. Shipping is the biggest problem with this sort of thing. Cost and time in the box. How can we make it cheaper, and better. Some sites only require $75 orders for free shipping. Most make you order at least $250 before shipping is free. Why such a big difference? Also no shows and ghosting should be blocked and banned. I've had almost a dozen people just dissappear on deal day, and I lost money and livestock as a result.

 

[Thle009]

I've been to couple of live sales hosted here and the info was lagging that it wasn't fun when I didn't win (LOL). Had better luck on FB market place where it was more responsive. Maybe just hardware upgrade?

 

[Tobe71]

An auction style format would be cool too!

 

[Tobe71]

Payments via Paypal would give the sellers some security and a percentage of the sale to Reef2Reef would be an easy way to try and cover your cost.

And eBay has a way to calculate shipping based on where it's going so an auction or "buy it now" price plus "shipping" should be easy to accommodate.