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Help me with my idea

by toutouastro on 4/6/13, 7:08 PM with 4 comments

me and my friend always get requests from people we know to get them them some stuff from ebay and then they pay us since they don't have any money online so we decided to launch a website where you submit a link to an intem in ebay and give us your mobile number when it's shipped we call the user to give him the item.we add 5% to the original price : so to test the market I created just one form that submit data to the db.On the first day I got a lot of messages from people wanting to ship stuff right away.My problem is that my friend want the users to pay in advance and he thinks that 5% is really low so : 1 - what do you think about users paying in advance ? 2 - what do you thin about the 5% ? 3 - do you think the buisness model is broken in anway ? PS : this service is limited to my country !

  • by pcowans on 4/6/13, 7:49 PM

    > 1 - what do you think about users paying in advance?

    I guess it depends on your attitude to risk and the sort of service you think people will pay for. If you don't you presumably need more working capital, which has a cost, and you're taking on the risk that people won't pay but you're stuck with the goods. You're basically getting into traditional retail.

    > 2 - what do you thin about the 5%?

    I wouldn't pay it, but I don't have a problem paying for things online. You need to figure out what your target market will pay.

    > 3 - do you think the buisness model is broken in anway?

    It sounds like something which will need careful risk management, and may require a lot of capital. (Edit: Basically this isn't anything new - you're proposing becoming a retailer of 'stuff from ebay' as far as I can tell.)

  • by stray on 4/6/13, 7:37 PM

    > 1 - what do you think about users paying in advance?

    You have to pay in advance. Right? So of course you'll have to get paid in advance.