I've thought about something like this. In my mind it all comes down to receipts. We need a system of ubiquitous standardized itemized and cryptographically signed digital receipts. That way everything you buy aggregates into your personal inventory app. Then making a posting is a matter of one click and one photo. The UPC in receipt means a full product listing can be generated automatically. This is crucial since most Craigslist posts don't have sufficient detail about the specific item model and specs. But with a UPC or equivalent that can be pulled in automatically.<p>Once postings consistently have UPCs attached, you can figure out the market price for everything and push that to people who own the product when the price goes up.<p>You can also push out product recall and class action lawsuit alerts.<p>The receipt would really be a proof of purchase, since it's cryptographically signed. So it could be used to make verified third party product reviews without the conflict of interest of the site also selling products.<p>You could hook your personal inventory database up to your social network to make a lending library with all your friends. Why buy something new when you can search all your friends' stuff and borrow from them?
Selling is hard, but even giving things away is more difficult than it should be.<p>When you list something for free you soon find out how bad people are at communicating and how unreliable they are at showing up when they say they will show up.
We got this in Sweden. Sellpy: <a href="https://www.sellpy.se" rel="nofollow">https://www.sellpy.se</a><p>Works pretty much as you describe. Of course they sell it for cheaper (probably to get inventory out fast) than you might if you do it yourself and keep a part of the revenue as commission. But good if you don't wanna bother with the sales process.
I'm currently trying to help a relative who's a hoarder, and I have to say, reducing the friction of getting rid of things without just mass-dumpstering them would be a godsend<p>I think this is one of those ideas that needs scale to work well, like craigslist or ebay pretty much got rid of all the friction you can without propping up a fulfillment network and appraisers etc., but if anyone's got a good way to make it participatory/crowdsourced or is willing to hire some workforce to get it started, I'd be happy to help with implementation or strategy. I'm not good at the marketing bit but not unwilling to try
As much as I dislike Meta, Facebook Marketplace is basically this. My town also has a “swap shop”, which makes it really easy to give away still-useful things.
I think this is a great idea. eBay did something vaguely similar when it introduced local agents who would sell stuff for a cut of the sell price. I used it and it was really useful for people like me who hate packing boxes working out post etc etc. I have a ton of stuff I'd love to get rid of if it was frictionless.<p>Maybe the existing delivery gig network could be used? Uber, Deliveroo etc? I like the idea of donation or paying for disposal, because that makes sense.<p>I guess it could start small if you could find a garage to store it in?
I wish there was something like a second hand store where you can just drop your stuff for 10% of its price on eBay.<p>I don't want to deal with anything. Not wait for someone to pick it up. Not wrap it in a parcel and bring it to the post office. Not sign up for some service. Nothing. Just drop my stuff, get a little bit of money and am done with it.
I built something similar to this for a client in 2002, I still have the Java source code. It was called CurbDiver [1], and the idea was that a local agent (a "broker") would list the thing for you on eBay (including taking nice photos), and if it sold, they would package/ship it for you and give you a percentage of the selling price (80% if memory serves).<p>It had some promising early uptake, but it fizzled after a few years. There just wasn't much money to be made, even when being discerning about what items were allowed. It was a weak, inconsistent stream of nickels and dimes, and a lot of work to get it.<p>One element that we underestimated was the volume of low value/no value stuff people wanted to try to push through. Pretty quickly agents learned when/how to say no, but even saying no consumes some resources.<p>At its core it's not a bad idea, but such an operation would have to be very optimized to be profitable.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.damninteresting.com/temp/curbdiver.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://www.damninteresting.com/temp/curbdiver.jpg</a>
I don't think its a great business plan. Its basically an online pawn shop, but the company has to take your stuff.<p>Warehouse space costs money unfortunately. Stuff that doesn't get sold, and its probably going >90% of items, has effectively negative value for the company, and then you add on transport fees.<p>People overestimate how much their stuff is worth. Take furniture. Since it costs > $1000 for decent pieces, people think they can resell it. Except in certain rare circumstances, used furniture is effectively worthless, even negative value when you take into account you have to pay people to haul it away, like I did a few times when I moved. Even though THEY would never buy used furniture, they always think "someone" will. And it goes the same for alot of used electronics. Cars seem to be the exception, but there's already goodish solutiosn for those CarMaxx, etc.
I'd like to use this service, too, if it worked reasonably.<p>Pre-Internet, there were consignment shops for clothing.<p>In earlier days of eBay, IIUC, there was a third party business with a chain of physical locations where you could drop off your stuff, and they'd do all the eBay hassle for you.<p>eBay and Amazon have tried some ways to improve the one-off selling experience for select commodity-like used items (e.g., iPhones). There's also ways to get Amazon to warehouse and list misc. items (but that looked like more headache and risk than it was worth, for one-off).<p>There's multiple businesses here that you can pay to remove most items, and I assume they cherry-pick some items for resale rather than trash.<p>Goodwill takes donations, and has staff that intercepts some items to eBay (and perhaps elsewhere), lets professional third-party flippers into centers (e.g., finding designer clothing), and then the rest can go to their retail stores.
That would be very nice. My suspicion is that a certain amount of work from the former owner, or from someone who is very knowledgeable about that type of object, is required to explain the value of the item to a potential buyer. Somehow the objects themselves are not the limiting factor (trash is full of good stuff that mostly stay there, because there is no one to do this work).<p>It could work if the item was originally bought on Amazon and one could just point to the original listing, though.
Unfortunately the potential for abuse makes this idea hard to implement.<p>Abusers would use the system to sell their drugs (ie, junk item stuffed with cocaine lists for $9999). Let’s not forget the sale of illegal firearms (aka teddy bear stuffed with handgun with filed off serial number).<p>Now you need a proper drug detection protocol, X-ray machines to scan all packages, dedicated security personnel.<p>Then there’s the potential of dealing with disputes buyer claims item was not received. More people to hire, protocols to develop.
Thanks for all the comments! Really cool!<p>I also got links to <a href="https://www.stuffle.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.stuffle.com</a> and <a href="https://www.circle-hand.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.circle-hand.com/</a> via the blog.<p>Some services mentioned really look promising, yet none offers the convenience that I would love (not thinking about anything) but I guess I will try some of the mentioned services!
Something like <a href="https://www.refurbed.de/" rel="nofollow">https://www.refurbed.de/</a> or <a href="https://www.backmarket.de/" rel="nofollow">https://www.backmarket.de/</a>. Works great for tech (higher resale value, small weight), but I can imagine it is tricky to set up the same business model for small non-tech items, furniture etc.
Remoovit.com does this exactly. They pick up your stuff, then either sell, donate, or dispose of it. If they sell it, you get 50%, or if they have to pay to dispose, they charge you for it. Works great.<p>Service area is just SF Bay and Phoenix so far.
I'm in a local parent group where people share second hand stuff all the time. It felt pretty efficient to me. I don't know, do we really want every interaction a big platform thing?
I had a similar idea and tried building it, but everyone I talked to about it couldn’t differentiate it from Craiglist or (eventually) Facebook Marketplace. User traction is the obstacle here.
That's called a "consignment shop". It's existed forever. Doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Taxis have existed forever and Uber is still a massive success.
Exactly this was made in my country, Lithuania, and did not work. Maybe needed more advertisement, but I dont think that economics work without burning investor money.
That is what charity shops do in the UK. You don't make money as your stuff are donation, but the charity does when then resell. Works surprisingly well.
Facebook Marketplace<p>To avoid scammers are hard though, so usually people meet in public place for transaction<p>Imagine you post a picture then exposing your home address that is scary