Show HN: We Built a New Kind of Marketplace | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: We Built a New Kind of Marketplace

styckyd.com

18 pointskerryfalk12 comments

There are a lot of companies offering this right now. How is styckyd going to stand out?

Right now, there are services that provide meta-listings to all of the other services that how to be the core classified system of the Internet. While auto dealers have picked up technology much faster than realtors, it seems like the systems are much more fragmented than the MLS.

I don't actually see anyone offering what we are, can you point out a few?

Here's the key things that make us different than other marketplaces:

- We control the flow of funds. When a buyer purchases a part we place it in a holding account until the package has arrived successfully. This is designed to eliminate a lot of the seller fraud that occurs.

- We handle the shipping. Sellers need only identify the box they're going to place the part in. We then calculate the shipping costs, collect those funds from the buyer, and send shipping labels to the seller. At the moment, all they need to do is drop it off at the drop-off location. In the future we'll send the carrier to their house to pick up the package.

- We integrate with message boards, and provide them with a new revenue stream.

There are a number of other things that are unique to our segment and revolve around product categorization but other marketplaces do indeed do those things for their markets. The above three things I believe are unique to Styckyd.

Aren't you going to have a really hard time being at all price-competitive with all that middleman-ness?

I haven't seen evidence of that. Also note that this model opens up many potential revenue streams for us and our partnered forums.

For reference, to list a part on eBay Motors at the average value of a part in this market without any of their upgrades, and including PayPal fees it costs a seller about 13% to sell on eBay.

For buyers products purchased on Styckyd may end up being lower cost than on other sites. This is because we handle and pay for the shipping. When volume increases we will have the advantages of economies of scale and can pass savings in shipping costs to the end user. So selling on Styckyd would make it cheaper to the buyer than selling anywhere else (assuming the same sale value of the part).

With that said, we're not aiming to be the lowest priced.

Edit for clarity.

I look forward to a site that integrates most forums/networks.

I don't see the value of the visual based browsing though. I drive a '90 Montero. When I need a part, I'm searching by word.

Would love to see digitized diagrams from service manuals. I was ordering a heater hose last week, but there are so many on my model the dealer wanted me to come in to verify the part on the diagram (sadly the closest dealer is 120 miles away).

What's your marketing plan for "integrating the forums"?

I have improving the search interface high up on my list of things to improve. You can search by word and an advantage of our system over other more general marketplaces is that you can specify your vehicle which returns results that are only applicable to your vehicle so you're not browsing through hundreds of parts for Civics.

The digitized diagrams can be done, and I've seen it from a few dealers. But I believe the diagrams themselves come from the manufacturers, I'm unsure if it's available to third parties. I'd like to look into this in the future though.

My marketing plan for integrating with the forums is mostly a direct selling process at the moment. I'm talking with a few forum owners, have relationships with a few others and I am attending ForumCon next week to learn more about the community. I posted the link below but here it is again, this explains the integration itself a little better: http://partners.styckyd.com

Our aim is to integrate with forums and replace their classifieds and offer a full-service solution:

http://partners.styckyd.com

Some of the text on that front page is very low contrast against its background. It might be aesthetically pleasing, but it sure isn't easy to read...

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll work on it to make it better.

You guys should show off the real product and its potential without the signups. Work hard on the landing page!

Hmm, you really should show off a listing on the main page and the ability to browse without sign up.

I sense that you're right about the listing. I'm going to keep working on the homepage until I find something that works well.

You can browse without signing up at the moment. It's more obvious on every page that's not the homepage. I will make it more prominent in the future once there are more listings to display (we're just getting going and getting listings is a key challenge) and I've improved the search interface more.

Thanks for checking it out.

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