

Buy, sell, donate and transact on Twitter - bartjacobs
http://sellsimp.ly/

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ryanwaggoner
Maybe this is just my inner angry nerd speaking, but I don't understand this
at all. Why would I want to buy stuff via a public broadcast channel? Plus,
you still have to setup your credit card, shipping, etc. So in the initial
transaction, you're not buying so much as saying "I'd like to buy this, please
send me instructions on how to do so." Wouldn't tweeting a link work better?

Aside from the fact (as others have pointed out) that this has been tried and
failed, how is this genuinely useful and not the kind of thing that a social
media guru would dream up, but normal people would never use?

Why not a platform to let people buy stuff by posting on their blog? When I
post "BUY PRODUCT_NAME", their google alert can pick up the mention and then
they can leave a comment on my blog telling me how to setup my billing and
shipping info. Amazing!

EDIT: To boil all the above down, what problem is this solving?

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christeso
Ryan, Thanks for the feedback. Appreciate it.

First, you don't need a credit card at all.

Second, after authorizing your account you can buy, sell, donate or direct pay
all you want. The initial setup is one step. After that it's frictionless
commerce.

Third, you'll want to buy stuff for the same reason you want to buy stuff on
any other e-commerce channel. Even more so when Brands will be offering
special Twitter only deals.

Finally, it's genuinely useful for so many people. Just ask the food cart
owner who is using our Direct Payments to collect payments. Or, the Etsy
seller who can now sell their goods on Twitter. Just a few examples of current
uses.

To illustrate just one problem it solves: Currently, brands list items in
their storefronts. Then they go on Twitter and Tweet about it. Then a customer
clicks on a link in the Tweet and is taken off Twitter to their storefront.
Then the customer goes through 5 more clicks before a transaction occurs. Sell
Simply eliminates all of that. The Tweet is the listing and the checkout and
the transaction combined in one. One step frictionless commerce. That's a
brand solution. There are others.

Normal people are using it, by the thousands. This will only grow.

This wasn't thought up by a SM guru, but by a hacker like yourself.

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betterlabs
Sorry but IMHO, this is the classic "product looking for a problem" example.
There are several things I believe make products like this tough to succeed,
most important of which is this: for a transaction-based model to work there
needs to be buyers and sellers who go to a marketplace to buy or sell. Without
this focused ecosystem, its really tough to make it work. I understand that
one could argue that sellers can broadcast across all channels (twitter,
facebook etc.) and create a buyer ecosystem in a distributed fashion. But I
feel it is merely good theory and cannot work at scale in practice (barring
few examples of flash sales, deals etc which have short shelf life and apt for
viral / social spread).

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adyus
A good idea would be to have slightly friendlier tweets i.e. instead of 'Buy!'
have users say 'I just bought X from @y'. That way it makes sense when someone
checks their timeline, instead of a cryptic one-word tweet.

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hv23
This looks similar to what Tipjoy (ex-YC) tried a couple years ago, before
they deadpooled: [http://techcrunch.com/2009/04/08/micro-blogging-meets-
micro-...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/04/08/micro-blogging-meets-micro-
payments-courtesy-of-tipjoys-api/)

In line with the post that @avichal wrote the other day
([http://avichal.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/build-something-
peop...](http://avichal.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/build-something-people-want-
is-not-enough/)): why now?

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karl_nerd
1-click-payment for anything... Could be a square card-case competitor. Image
a café that has tweeted the menu. You go in, reply to what you want, you get
it. Could be huge on mobile payments.

~~~
samtp
Could be... or it could be an overly vague idea that boils down to nothing

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matdwyer
I think the "ability" to do this is cool... but I can't imagine that I'd ever
feel the need to actually do this.

Novelty, sure, but practical? Not in my mind.

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bravura
I read the site but I still cannot figure out, if you're a vendor, what is
necessary for buyers to activate their account.

~~~
christeso
You just sign in with Twitter and connect your PayPal account. After that
transactions can be made over Twitter.

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dman7
How will you handle chargebacks? If my Twitter account gets hacked, will I be
responsible for the cost or will you be?

~~~
christeso
PayPal handles all fraud.

The problem for the hacker is that in order to get paid their fake Twitter
account would need to be connected to a real PayPal account which is connected
to a real bank account. The entire chain of transaction would be very
traceable.

If your Twitter account is hacked you are going to immediately realize you are
transacting over Twitter. You'd see pay tweets and transaction tweets
occurring in real time. You could then easily just shut off your PayPal
connection to Twitter in your Sell Simply account. We do not store any Twitter
or PayPal login, password or account data at all.

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rosshere
I've been looking for this... pay through twitter. Imagine the possibilities!

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DanielRibeiro
Running Lean was a book that you could pay with a tweet:
<http://www.runningleanhq.com/>

~~~
christeso
Not the same thing. That is the author trading retweets for a book. Sell
Simply actually turns Tweets into transactions. You can pay, buy, sell or
donate with them.

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giberson
This is exactly half of my idea previously posted on HN.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2900514>

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benkrogh
It sounds cool. Then you use it, and it becomes even cooler!

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petertdavid
This rules. Incredibly easy.

