Show HN: Swapidy: Trade up your old stuff for new stuff
swapidy.com
swapidy.com
"so you go to this website and trade your stuff in for honey."
"wait you mean money?"
"no honey. but honey is like money, you can use honey to buy stuff just like money..."
etc.
EDIT: I just looked the pricing model and it is evokes weird feelings. Any reason why you don't just do a 1:1 ratio? Why force users to compute a secondary calculation. True, it is a multiple of 10 but still a calculation and makes me feel like I'm making a foreign purchase.
Also, we are giving users more than market value on products and selling brand new products under retail. The same products would be more expensive if you were to buy them directly from the store.
Converting $1 = 10H might seem like a simple conversion, but you'd be surprised how difficult it can actually be for many general consumers. I've seen people bring out calculators to split a $130 bill evenly between 13 people.
We're testing to see what works and what doesn't right now. If you think about it, people are more likely to buy or sell if the number is higher. But we will only know if people get used to it within a matter of days.
We wanted to be a bit unique and because we're not using real money to buy your stuff, we thought Honey would be the next best thing.
Honey is different than dollars so think of it as its own currency. As for the conversion ratio, all currencies aren't equal, so we wanted to differentiate a little bit.
However, I understand your confusion and will work with my co-founder to make it easier to understand.
-Adam
How does that not make this strictly less useful than transacting in good old money?
Ex) Instead of selling your iPhone for $400, we could give you $440 in some cases.
Does that answer your question?
-Adam
I can certainly see how that benefits your company, but I have a hard time seeing how I should like it as a user, unless I think I'm being savvy by getting in near the root of the pyramid and then immediately exchanging all my fake money for real goods valued higher than those I exchanged for them, and hoping I can make my exchanges before the market saturation point is hit and the free money stops.
"A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public"
Now lets read what the site does
"We buy your products for Honey. You buy anything using Honey." - all the products you buy using honey are new according to the site. There isn't a second hand market place on this site - so there is not any supply issues here. The supply is the company sending out products based on the current market value of the products interpreted into their model.
You sell your product, they will give you virtual currency in order to lock you into their ecosystem and then you buy a new product based on that honey value. Please explain to me, in lay terms, how that explanation is equal to the definition of pyramid scheme above ?
Frankly speaking, dealing with morons from craigslist is becoming a pain in the ass and if the value is not that different and these guys can give me the convenience, delivery and remove headaches - great. It comes down to their pricing vs. others in the market (gazelle and so on)
Thank you for pointing out that you don't use their currency to buy the products they purchased from their other customers (though it makes me wonder what they're doing with them then).
But let me put it this way: There are three ways they can offer you more for your products in fake currency than in real currency. 1) They expect users to hold an ever-increasing amount of their currency in their accounts and not spend it immediately. If too many users tried to spend their currency all at once they would go out of business and you would lose your money; it's a pyramid scheme. 2) They give you $440 instead of $400 for your iPhone, but then a new product that would cost $400 on Amazon costs $440 in their currency. It's not a real discount. 3) They take less as profit than Amazon, even on top of Amazon's economies of scale, which is almost certainly not sustainable.
1) "they expect users to hold an ever-increasing amount of their currency in their accounts and not spend it immediately."
> Where does it say that ? Unfortunately no where. And who wants to hold their currency ? Use case: I want a new phone. I accept the offer from swapidy for X currency and then buy a new iphone at X currency. At what point do I want to hold my currency ? No, I want a new phone and if their pricing makes sense I transact. Thats it.
2) "too many users tried to spend their currency all at once they would go out of business and you would lose your money;"
> At what point would you loose your money ? The currency is valid and you can purchase an item. They send you that item. I am assuming your inference is that they do not stock any of the items they sell and I am unclear where you draw that inference from ? Please let me know if you have some sort of information that I do not other than what is illustrated on the site. If you transact and sell your phone, you send it to them and I assume they will subsequently sell that. You purchase a new phone and they send you that new phone. There is obviously the requirement for inventory and stock and so on. Thats a business and cost inventory issue, nothing else. If the company fails, you become a creditor - like when any company fails. It's a trust issue and up to them to ensure that its trust worthy.
3) "it's a pyramid scheme."
> No, its not. Refer above and please refer to Wikipedia or other sources to learn about pyramid schemes.
4) " They give you $440 instead of $400 for your iPhone, but then a new product that would cost $400 on Amazon costs $440 in their currency. It's not a real discount. "
> Amazon is not a fluctuating pricing market like ebay or other such services. You will receive a standardized cost on Amazon for a extended period of time whereas this site infers you will receive the current daily market rate or close enough. This is the difference and therefore ultimately the difference in the pricing mechanism. If you want cash, transact at some other market and see if the pricing differential is more advantageous than what they offer. Some items will be cheaper and some will not be - don't tell me they actually want to run a site that makes money ? The use of virtual currency is to lock a user into their service and there is nothing wrong with that if you want to accept their buy offer which is more than you would receive elsewhere. No one is forcing your hand to transact.
5) "They take less as profit than Amazon"
> How do you know what profit they take ? Feel free to let me know.
First off, as mentioned in the other comments, this is not a pyramid scheme.
Your currency will always be worth the same conversion rate of $1 = 10 Honey. The value won't ever change. As for the products, we try to buy high and sell as low as we possibly can. The aim right now is to get users on board so they can see how awesome the experience is.
The reason we can buy higher than market value is because our overhead is lower than sites that pay up front cash. At the moment, we will buy new products out of pocket for you in exchange for your used product + any difference, if any. Eventually, those used products will be available to the market too for a cost lower than market value.
I invite you to try the site out and see for yourself how it works. Again, the value of the Honey never changes and what we buy your product for always remains of the value you sold it for. Whatever you buy, we will fulfill.
I hope that gives you a little bit of insight of how what we do is possible.
Feel free to ask for any clarifications.
-Adam
I think this would be true if there is no value added, as in the case of the Fed. But in this case, the model creates a market restriction which can theoretically benefit both parties.
Consider the following case:
1. Consumer A has an Apple and wants an Orange 2. Consumer B has an Orange and wants an Apple
Trading the Apple for the Orange directly (bartering) is clearly more efficient than A and B both trading for dollars and then trading their dollars for the good they want.
Swapidy will benefit specifically for consumers who have one of the devices they are buying and want one of the (new) devices they are selling. They can get a better deal than the full market would allow.
This is theoretically true, but it wrongly assumes that the inefficiency is meaningful. We're talking about computers here. It all gets automated anyway. And if the efficiency is utterly trivial then it can't balance any nontrivial amount of currency manipulation.
I even think it's not trivial if your market is restricted to say, 25% of the general market. But in this case the restriction is to a tiny percentage of the complete basket of goods, so (as an amateur) my guess is it's significant.
Craigslist is still the best way to sell popular items. You get cash right away, there are zero fees and you don't have to deal with packaging and shipping. Hard to compete with.
On Craigslist, you have the hassle of going to pick up money and then meeting up with the person to do the transaction.
Swapidy is a b2c business. We buy stuff from you and pay you on the spot. So as soon as you checkout, you already have your currency waiting for you. You can order whatever you want immediately and we'll ship it out to you as soon as we receive yours.
There are no transaction fees on Swapidy. There aren't even any shipping costs. We generate the labels for you free of charge both for selling and buying.
So when you sell something to us, all you do is affix the prepaid shipping label on the box, and drop it in your mailbox. No need to drive anywhere.
I'm glad you brought the Gamestop example up. Gamestop gives you the option of selling for store credit or cash. If you take cash, they give you 50%. We can offer more than market value because the overhead for us is minimal since we're dealing with virtual currency. The value of the currency never changes and we're always trying to sell for the lowest amount possible to provide value to the consumer.
So certainly valid questions on here and would love to answer as many questions you have!
-Adam
What does 'there's no such product' mean? Should it say 'we're not currently buying that product'?
I'm typing on it right now so I can assure you that it does exists.
Your best bet would be having an email opt-in pop up letting me know it's not currently a product you're buying but I can be notified when you are. (like you just did)
We're working on making them better and adjusting them to different scenarios.
You're product will be added shortly and I will update this thread as soon as it becomes available.
-Adam
* Typo when trying to set up a sale of a Late 2010 MacBook air: Choose your product's "condtion"
* Where do the prices come from? Are they competitive with other trading sites? For example, a "MacAir 13' Late2010 1.86GHZ 2GB RAM 128 Flash" in "Good" condition goes for $407 on Gazelle, but h3750 ($375?) on Swapidy. However, Gazelle does give me the option to include my power adapter and specify that I have a working battery.
* Why honey? Why not real money?
Edit: Formatting
Edit2: Clarity
From perusing their FAQ, it seems like you can buy Honey with real money, but it doesn't look like you can get your money back out. Ick.
Also, if your product is worth as much as a product we're selling, you won't have to pay a single dime.
-Adam
This is only true if the difference between the sold item and bought item(s) is small. If the seller is looking to offload a macbook but only to buy an iPad a cash transaction would make significantly more sense. In this system the difference in values is tied up in honey which has no value outside of the system. With cash the seller can apply their remaining funds to anything they want.
I would imagine that even though the "value" of honey supplied to sellers is more than what they might be able to obtain in a cash transaction that extra honey is actually worth next to nothing as it sits in the sellers account unused.
Think of that whole experience done on one site... Swapidy. You sell your stuff to us, get paid instantly, and buy whatever you want right away.
As for the remaining balance goes. New products come out all the time and more often that not, you will purchase a new product in the future, right? You can use that currency that was left over to buy the next best thing whenever it comes out. And better yet, we will always be updating our product lines. So there will always be something new to buy.
So think of it as savings in your bank that's used for something else down the road. The value is never going anywhere... it always stays the same ($1 = 10 Honey).
Let me know if you have any other clarifications I can make.
-Adam
> New products come out all the time and more often that not, you will purchase a new product in the future, right?
That's assuming a lot. New products come out all the time, however I have no guarantees that your marketplace will have another product that I want at any time. If I have a balance of honey I'm taking a risk that I will find continued utility in your marketplace. That same risk doesn't exist if I sell or trade my goods for real currency instead of virtual currency.
> So think of it as savings in your bank that's used for something else down the road. The value is never going anywhere... it always stays the same ($1 = 10 Honey).
It's nothing like savings in a bank. My bank pays me interest and allows me to withdraw money at any time for any purpose. Converting money, or my used goods, to honey locks me into your ecosystem and has a significantly smaller value to me in utility and opportunity cost than actual cash. Additionally, if my bank goes out of business my deposits are insured by the FDIC. If swapidy goes out of business the honey evaporates into thin air and it's just a loss.
In the event that Swapidy goes under, there's no guarantee that you could get all your money out safely.
I think Swapidy is a great idea -- a dynamically-priced, peer-driven marketplace sounds awesome. But the currency lock-in seems very sketchy.
Your currency is always worth that amount and will never change in value.
2) The prices are generated based on current market value and are changed constantly. In most cases, our offer will be higher than most sites because we pay in virtual currency. That gives us the ability to offer you more value. It really depends on what the current demand is like.
3) With Honey, we can offer you more unlike cash where there is more up front overhead.
Did that answer your questions?
-Adam
Right now, the aim is to provide huge value to the customer by buying new and then eventually the inventory that we gather up with used products, will be available too for less than market value. We can do this because acquisition costs are low.
Does that answer your question?
-Adam
Probably a good idea to consider 960 min width.
-Adam
We have a very efficient inventory system that updates on its own as someone does a transaction both when they buy and sell.
Currently, we're running out a small space where all the products are stored. As we grow... our logistics will get more complex of course.
Feel free to ask any other questions.
-Adam
From one perspective, 'Swapidy: Trade your old stuff for new stuff' is a such an impossibly elegant example of Web2.0 startup culture and American consumer-materialism.
You guys should enter in to some kind of poetry award as a free marketing gimmick.