Heres an idea...
The problem:
. Ebay is offensive and expensive
. A startup will struggle because Ebay have the "moat" and the adverts.
. Loot and gumtree are still going but are unpopular because a. Theyre crap websites and b. The stuff on them is generally crap
. Any free service will attract the poor items and the cheap sellers, Ebay avoids this because it charges a fee to advertise in the first place
The solution:
. Use the forum API to tap into all the for sale threads in all the forums - see Tapatalk as an example
. The for sale threads provide thousands of adverts from the off, no marketing advertising needed, a head start
. Ebay gave us the feedback functionality, that will help keep the dross from the site
. Forums are self regulating and poor sellers get banned, so support already exists
. Forums will benefit because users will now come across the forums and join up, whereas they may never have known they existed
. Most forums are based on the same software, so the integration is minimised
Someone mentioned the cost of hardware, to start with 4 or 5 web servers and 2 or 3 DB servers will suffice to start, shouldnt be more than a few thousand a year to rent.
If someone wants to be an "Angel Investor" then i have a company that could build the web and mobile sites to get this off the ground (free plug for myself )
What do people think?