Show HN: Mashup of Amazon.com's wish list and Balanced Payments
wishlistgranted.com
wishlistgranted.com
Incoherent Rambling: How about expanding to more than one item wishlists that span multiple site APIs and market it as a simple, efficient, online wedding registry replacement?
You can rank your items in terms of preference, people can contribute money, then the app just buys and ships the items from the top down until the list is complete.
As a wedding gift purchaser I wouldn't have to make a trip to some random store and go through the hassle of getting the registry, nor would I have to navigate to a site I may never use again (I'm looking at you Williams Sonoma) and setup an account to purchase one item.
As a bride or groom it would be nice to just supply someone with one short URL when they asked "where are you registered?" without having to go through all the hassle of setting up a ridiculous "we're getting married" wedding profile on Yet Another We're Getting Married Social Network.
Like I said, incoherent rambling. Could result in an interesting tool, though.
That wasn't my intent. It's legitimately a great idea and a seemingly well executed MVP (I haven't dug deeply into it yet). Hence my suggestions being prefaced with "Incoherent Rambling"
It's hard not to see a good initial execution on an interesting idea and think aloud "I wonder where this could go next..."
In either case, OP, keep up the good work.
() Once you've picked one item, you can go back and pick another item. Then you have 2 unique URLs but they aren't really connected.
Sure, but not all wedding gifts come from amazon...
EDIT - I stand corrected: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/universal/
That said, if wishlists are your choice, this is an efficient way to handle it.
And if it isn't? I'm sure many people don't ascribe to this particular theory of gifts as a universal truth. Also, gift giving often happens in an important, larger context, which is always different; gift giving at Christmas, for example, is hugely loaded depending on your background, your attitude toward the holiday, what significance you do or don't attach to it, this same set of attributes for every person you may want to give a gift to, and many other things.
Wish lists can be considered impersonal, I can see that. Many people grew up with them, though, and in that case they may not alter a person's perspective of the gift at all. For Christmas in particular, when a whole lot of busy people are expected to give gifts to a whole lot of other busy people, finding the time and insight to get meaningful gifts for everyone involved can add to an already often stressful time.
Did you see, also, that after you've made a contribution you type in your name and message afterwards.
If the average item was $20 and the average contribution was $5, banks would also be making 10% or more per wishlist item when they would normally make 3% or less.
That just rubs my cost-effectiveness sensitivities the wrong way.
But if spending $20 on every friend you have, my site is a better alternative.
Also, the reason I add the $1 transaction fee is to cover the cost of the shipping.
Edit: It also makes a new way to get tips/donations. People might be more likely to donate if their money is going to something they can see. You might even get people to donate a little more if they see you are very close to getting the item.
I suspect the site is one of those "Great idea! ...but I wouldn't actually use it" which is sad but maybe the honest truth.
So, it sounds like it was the concept that held you back. Not something that I was doing wrong on the site per se.
I might morph it into any Amazon.com product that isn't necessarily on your wish list. That way, you can pick an item for a friend and tell his/her friends the URL to collect the money.
Looks like you still have some work to do: https://www.monosnap.com/image/JkLBAEYvPAOE96ab7YqrFoXgc
& Here's the console output: https://www.monosnap.com/image/JWwoDPyQrFyrokGxIt0b4i8Qe
"No such issuer" means that the first six digits, Bank Identification Number, are incorrect and card was declined as a result.
We (Balanced) should be doing a better job to make this error more understandable or mask it by returning some invalid card number error.
Great concept though!
Having said that, any product link is very very different from a product link that a close friend has picked out. Chances are you desire the same. For example, I trust Kristin's research into binoculars https://wishlistgranted.com/9eca0593/
Right now, I'm more interested in building something that makes a profit just for the hell of it. All my other side-projects are making me absolutely nothing. ...nothing but resume padding :)
Perhaps you could elaborate on what types of fraud you think would happen?
If that's the case, it probably means that site is popular and gets used beyond being a MVP.