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Ask HN: Please Give Me Your Thoughts On My Site

5 pointstct5 comments

Hi all,

So I've been working on and off on this site over the last few months and am now at a stage where although personally I think it would probably be useful, I don't really know whether I'm alone in this.

The site is OkayID.com and I see it as being particularly useful for people buying/selling on the internet, although others will probably find it useful as well (I think!)

So a few things I would like comments on if possible and any comments are really appreciated, please be honest!

Do you think there is a market for this? How small/large?

Do you think this is something people would pay for/use if it wasn't free? If so, what price would you see as a decent price from both our point of view and the customers?

Any other comments?!

I'm in a position where I'm not really sure whether it's a good idea, so any honest thoughts would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

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1. What's already been said about design.

2. Where are the benefits? I see plenty of features listed, but no clarity around why I need this, or who should use it. Think about who has a problem with verifying ID (your Gumtree example is a good start). Replace Register | Share | Confirm with these target groups and the unique benefits to them. E.g. Buying online? Buy in confidence, knowing that the seller is genuine. Selling online? Stand out from the crowd as the most trustworthy seller.

3. Pricing plan. Do I need an ongoing subscription - I understand that you want me to have one... ;) What about one-off or short-term pricing. When I ebay I tend to do a large batch at once when I finally get round to clearing out that cupboard. If I believed this would help my sales appeal to more people, I may want a one month account. No need for it in the intervening months. Plus, if you charge £10 for a one month account, £2 pm looks more appealing.

4. Focus on your target market? You can only think ebay/Gumtree traders, but wonder if there are more applications. What's wrong with focus on this market to get started and expanding in the future? Deciding to be all about trust in online trading would reshape the way you structure the site.

5. Copy. Think about getting it professionally rewritten. Like your design, there is nothing inherently wrong with it, just that it could be more polished. It's amazing the difference a professionally written copy can make.

Is there a market? Catch-22. If OkayID is widely recognised and trusted, then ebay sellers (for example) will have to have it because buyers will expect it. To get widely recognised you have to get sellers to adopt it. You're creating a market; another reason to tightly focus on one market at first.

A couple of feedback points:

- Go to themeforreset and buy a design, $20 will get you something 10x better than your current design. I don't mean to sound harsh, I'm guessing you're a developer who did the design himself (?) I was the same, decided to outsource the design on my projects was one of the best decisions I ever made.

- Your site touts security, but there's no SSL, not even on the signup form, namecheap can sell you an SSL certificate for $10 (about £6)

I like the idea, but I'm not entirely sure how it will work, how do you know that the okayid name a seller give you is actually them?

Hope that helps.

Why does it say "Time to get your OpenID at the bottom, next to the sign up button? This could be a major typo/branding issue...?

Feedback:

* The design is poor and your 'padlock' image is too big.

* Fatal flaw: Anyone who intends on scamming people will never sign up. Why would they?

Clickable Link: http://OkayID.com

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