DISCLAIMER: I understand there are huge barriers to entry for an alternative marketplace and there are already tons of existing solutions out there (like Craigslist, Facebook, etc.). I’m just a software engineer who wants to work on a side project to learn new technologies and play around a bit. I don’t expect this project of mine to actually be used by anyone other than myself. That said, if I’m going to do this I would want to do it in a smarter less stupid way. Also, apologies in advance because this is going to be a relatively long post. I’m only in the brainstorming phase, and my mind tends to run with an idea whenever I come up with one, but I’ll try to keep my thoughts as structured as possible.
My questions:
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What would it take for you to consider using an alternative marketplace for Pokemon cards? Market reach and visibility aside, I’m more interested in compiling a minimum list of features that are absolutely necessary for this to function smoothly. What would your priorities be, and what ideas do you have (if any) on achieving said priorities as a feature? For example, maybe you’d be concerned with privacy and security, fees, a good search engine, how easy it is to post a listing, favorites/watch lists, etc.
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What are your thoughts on making this a more niche/restrictive marketplace? I’d be interested to hear your ideas on how to differentiate this from other alternatives already out there. What if I were to only allow PSA cards? Imagine if you could just enter a cert number and a price you’re looking for, and I could scrap the relevant info from the PSA website to create your listing. Then you would just upload some pictures and voila! Buyers who are looking to purchase PSA cards would also have a better time sorting through what’s available this way. A longer term expansion on this idea would be to have a category for PSA cards, and to have categories for other niches that functioned in a similar way.
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What are some ways that this could be abused, and how could these issues be addressed? What I’m concerned with are things like scams and fake feedback. One idea could be to require the upload of a valid carrier tracking number for every feedback given.
A rough outline of my ideas so far:
This will be a website designed to be used on both computers and on mobile devices. The main homepage will just be a scrollable list of the most recent listings and a search bar for specific items. You can create an account with just an email and a password, which will give you access to the main features of the website such as posting new listings and purchasing other users’ listings. There will be a feedback system for which I will probably have to manually moderate disputes for now.
To keep things simple, there will be no transfer of funds through the website. I’m imagining that a listing can be in a “pending purchase” state until the deal goes through and the seller can mark it as sold once they receive payment. While in this state, buyers would still be able to get into a “backup” queue for the seller to reach out to in order in case the deal falls through. Once a listing is marked sold, the transaction will be recorded in both the buyer’s and seller’s accounts and they would be able to leave feedback for the other person.
In terms of fees, it will probably be completely free to begin with. I will set some limits for number of listings and messages in the inbox per account in order to stop people from abusing it and costing me lots of money. If by some miracle I get more users and the costs of running the website increase, I’d throw some ads on there and introduce some paid tier for a higher listing/inbox limit and an ad-free experience.
That’s pretty much all I can think of for now. Again, this is primarily just a fun way for me to learn new skills for my software development career, but I thought it’d be cool to get some feedback on the actual idea before diving into it. A huge thank you if you got through my messy ramblings and would like to contribute your thoughts. I hope you have a wonderful day!
