We're trying to solve this problem (among others) with our product SellSimple. Free app, free postings, and 5% if it sells.
Check it out, would love to know what you think: http://sellsimple.com
Disclosure: co-founder of SellSimple
After years of fighting and with a dedicated team, eBay is still losing that battle.
And, as the "conduit" for this fraud, you will be blamed by both buyers and sellers, which is obviously no good for your brand.
Not to be negative, but fraud can literally put you out of business.
We've already encountered a bunch of fraud early when our system was less developed. Luckily we caught all of those and have had time to grow / build a plan of attack.
We'll never be able to eliminate fraud - but we can make it a pain in the a for a black-hatter to use SellSimple over the hundreds of alternative places.
Few ways:
1. Escrow via Balanced 2. Shipment Purchasing, Tracking & Confirmation all in-app. 3. QR code scanning to release payments for meetups. 4. Verified sellers. 5. Fraud API's - https://siftscience.com/ & https://www.signifyd.com/
If they do get passed all of the systems, there is still large chance they screwed up somewhere and it will be pretty obvious to us what happened. That said - its an uphill battle.
But, fraudsters are relentless and they come in waves. You beat them back, all goes silent, then they come back with a vengeance. It never stops and they are inventive. Much of the fraud comes from outside the U.S. as well (China-big time in our experience), so there's virtually zero chance of prosecution. So, these guys have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If they get busted, they just don't get their money. It's all upside for them.
BTW, I used to think that raising the bar so they'll go elsewhere would be sufficient. It definitely helps, but it's not how it works. If there is any opportunity, there will be parties who persistently work you to find it, such that it will be a constant fight for you.
In any event, you are right that you will most likely be able to detect them at some point. It's just the cost/time involved and the damage to your brand/customers as they keep changing tactics. One thing you should assume is that whatever you put in place, they will defeat at some point. It is guaranteed.
Finally, services like siftscience also help, but they tend to just raise the signal and/or help you to corroborate suspicions. It can still take quite a bit of effort and invariably human interaction to interpret those signals.
Not that it can't be done. Just encouraging you to brace yourself for the fight ahead. While you may be starting out to build a marketplace, you will likely find that you spend more time in the fraud-detection business.
Good luck and kudos on your progress to date.
But why does someone have to sign-in to buy? That is a major turn-off. I can't use something that people need to register an account for to buy. Just take a CC and shipping info and pass it to me.
Since all payments enter escrow, without an account, the buyer can't release the payment to the seller.
How would eBay enforce "your bid is a contract" for auctions without user authentication?
Right now we're using Balanced (awesome product - http://balancedpayments.com) to process payments & escrow funds.
Do you know of any API's that are similar to Balanced but for Bitcoins?
1. Sharing your listing on social networks (good, not great for driving traffic).
2. Ability to list on multiple marketplaces, so you don't NEED to sell it through SellSimple - you can still list it on ebay, craigslist, etsy, etc. If it sells on one of those marketplaces, we'll auto-delete your item from SellSimple and all the other marketplaces. You're also not charged any SellSimple fee if it sells somewhere else.
3. Retention features on iOS - can't compare to eBays network, but downloads are growing quickly and users are buying items.
This is more a long-term strategy help to help us overcome chicken - egg. If we can exist long enough for that to happen through a free posting tool - we'll be able to (eventually) have enough traffic on our own listings to generate a high sell-through rate.
Your fees are 5%, eBay users will soon be charged 13% (including PayPal fee). So give your sellers the option to list on SellSimple for a price 5% less than eBay. For example, a $100 item on eBay would sell for $95 on your site.
Then in the ebay listing description add some key phrase like "Heyy Folks Be Quick" - the buyers will quickly learn that such a phrase means "get a 5% discount by making your purchase through SellSimple".
Likewise, adding a phrase which may even suggest purchasing for less on another marketplace will probably lead to them editing or removing the listing from eBay as well.
If you are going to do that idea then, do it as a marketing campaign, not on eBay listings.
I'd really want to be able to scan over hundreds of results in seconds. Not tediously hover over each and every result to see what it's worth. It takes too long.
"par" is pronounced as in golf and emphasized.
Now that I'm typing this, it sounds a little crazy, but it's always worked for me.