All I want for Xmas is DstorssteemCreated with Sketch.

in #dstors5 years ago
Out of the projects currently being built on STEEM if there is one that I'm super excited about is @dstors. Why you may ask? Well, I will let you in on a little secret. For the longest of times, for almost a decade I've been one of those guys with an ebay store. This alone should tell you everything you need to know, but of course, I'm sure you want the juicy details.



The pocket flim flamery


No need to go into the good old days talk for too long, but honestly the rates today, the fees are just simply out of hand. You would think that the ebay sellers are killing it, specially those with thousand of transactions per day, but that is only the case, and I do mean this sincerely, if they are selling junk.

Stores that sell low quality products with a crazy markup, well those do just fine, they can foot the sometimes 17% percent "fees" the ebay/paypal combo likes to eat up. Yes, you read that right, depending on the category you may be selling, the type of subscription, volume, etc, you can be paying a little fortune for just the platform itself. These costs, don't include shipping, and packing materials, so as you can see the profits can get really slim, and sometimes disappear all together.

The Paypal jab


What can I say about the company that is responsible for so many gray hairs on my head and beard. I've had so many battles with them, it's not even funny. Funds bring frozen, unauthorized refunds on products that I had sold months prior to the claim, you freaking name it. I've probably experienced all the painful events that paypal is known for.

Why do I keep using them? I assure you that it's not because I'm a masochist, but rather that I, like many other people who work for themselves and understand the hustle, need to be able to take payments from people, and I certainly need a way to do commerce, to sell some stuff.

Along comes Dstors


And bakes me a cake with everything I want. I want a market to sell guitar straps, guitar picks, guitar pedals, etc, so that I can continue my side hustle, but I also want a system that does not strip all the profit from me. In other words, I have no problem cutting people a deal, I just don't want to completely subsidize the purchase, and with ebay/paypal I'm known to have done that in the past.

The system of incentives is there, and one of these days I'm going to write down a deep dive type post into how I believe it can potentially give other markets a run for their money. I mean, think about having your online store that hands out rebates, both to you and to your customers, and helps you pay for the shipping? WHAT?

You eyes are working


Yes, you may have read that last line there and had to go back to make sure that you didn't miss the sarcasm, but there was no sarcasm there my friend, not even a little bit.

I'm ready for a change, I'm ready for something that can not only shake up the world a little bit, but something that can make me a little more excited about selling some gear online again. A market that does not bleed me out pretending my pockets are bottomless.... not too much to ask, right?

Sort:  

I am very curious to see if DStors will get a better success than other decentralized marketplaces, which I have been following for quite some time, maybe a few years (Openbazaar , Blockmarket, Particl, Bitbay) .
I must admit , that practically all of them have not met my expectations. Maybe this time will be different.
That's why I've dropped to them quite a bunch of my SP

Thanks for inspirating post @meno

@meno Me too. I have been wanting to sell my music courses for crypto, and everything I heard about Rocktr was bad. Hopefully this will turn out cool. I haven't decided to accept crypto at my music school as of yet, but I would love to get the ball rolling with this.

man... cant wait for that to be a reality!

I have read their executive summary Whitepaper and find it very interesting in their marketplace approach similar to the centralized platforms. It will be interesting the amount of goods to be up on the marketplaces given the peer to peer nature. I can't wait to see how it could impact the demand for STEEM given the staking benefit and settlement of the sale. Look forward to more information as they continue the development.

Hopefully in Jan they will have an alpha up and running.

I will definitely check out dstors - had it on my list since Steemfest!
I can’t wait for a time when we’re not dependent on PayPal anymore - the worst company with the worst customer service in the world, who keeps playing its customers against each other.

I also was in shock to see how much fiverr’s fees have gone up when I used it this week after a long time again. Buyers now almost pay double than what ends up in the sellers pocket. Crazy.

Posted using Partiko iOS

I take it you've been bamboozld by paypal too! hahhaha

Don't get me started... Dealing with their "customer service" is a full time job, trying to solve problems you would've never had without them!

This is why I never sell things on ebay anymore. Whenever I had something to sell I used to put it up for auction. Since I wasn't doing it daily, I was never sure what the going rates for shipping were. More often than not I guessed incorrectly and together with those crazy fees I ended up paying more than I got from the auction. I payed out of my own pocket for the customer to get their goods. And then you sometimes had to deal with them not being happy for whatever reason, like slow shipping or whatever. It's just not worth it.

Yeah, it gets crazy and calling them to ask for help is futile

Posted using Partiko Android

Don't get me started on PayPal, they froze my business account and refunded an entire order my customer had received days earlier - because I committed the heinous crime of selling Cuban coffee (which is actually a great tasting coffee). Of the total order value it made up less then 10% of it, but PayPal refunded the whole order! Being British I don't have a trade embargo - but apparently PayPal do and will not allow transactions on Cuban products. Fortunately my customer was more then happy with the delicious coffee I had sent him, and rang up to ask why his payment had been refunded, we had a good laugh at the absurdity of the Situation and he paid me by credit card - which let's be honest not so many people are...honest - would be easy to just go oh that's a shame I got my goods for free.

And the fee's are just killing, eBay and PayPal are bad - don't go near selling on Amazon it's a killer for fees.

That's why I'm super excited for @dstors as well, I have two totally different stores I want to set up myself - the potential is massive to enable people to sell all manor of goods worldwide, to bring more Steem investors in and bring the blockchain back up where it should be.

c0ff33commentaimage.png
#thealliance #witness

As someone who has been selling online for 20 years, I feel your pain and am also looking forward to seeing what dstors can do.

Hahahhahaa yes dude, you are an OG

Posted using Partiko Android

Oh the horror stories I have. That can be a weekly segment.

I'm happy to learn about some of your non-Steem related business activities @meno. I am also happy about @dstors but I don't sell on EBay or Amazon so your insight will help a lot!

@meno appreciate the write up! This is why I'm confident the thing will take off - people like you will know exactly what to do with it all! Heck, I can't wait to start using it myself!

Posted using Steeve, an AI-powered Steem interface

Hell yeah!

Posted using Partiko Android

Hi @meno!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 6.146 which ranks you at #262 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has not changed in the last three days.

In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 215 contributions, your post is ranked at #6.

Evaluation of your UA score:
  • You've built up a nice network.
  • The readers appreciate your great work!
  • Great user engagement! You rock!

Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.35
TRX 0.12
JST 0.039
BTC 70310.43
ETH 3568.34
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.73