

Show HN: Swapidy: Trade up your old stuff for new stuff - theswapdaddy
http://www.swapidy.com/

======
mrchess
I'd suggest not calling it Honey. It is too similar to the word money, and can
cause confusion. Imagine in conversation...

"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.

~~~
illumin8
Because they don't want you to do normal math and realize how much you are
being ripped off...

~~~
theswapdaddy
We have the conversion ratio posted on the homepage itself and want users to
know what it is. $1 = 10 Honey.

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.

~~~
mrchess
If this is true it would make even more sense to drop down to 1:1 so that
users would "get it" and not have to familiarize themselves with a new market.

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.

~~~
theswapdaddy
Understandable and I think your point is certainly valid.

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.

------
brilee
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but your use of virtual currency strikes me as an
attempt to later coin your own currency to "buy" other peoples' goods for
free. It doesn't bode well for trust, in any case...

~~~
theswapdaddy
Thank you for your concern. I will go over this with my your co-founder and
come up with a way for consumers to feel comfortable that this won't happen.

-Adam

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ef4
So money can be converted into honey, but honey cannot be converted into
money.

How does that not make this strictly less useful than transacting in good old
money?

~~~
theswapdaddy
With Honey, we can offer you more instead of what Gazelle or eBay would offer
you.

Ex) Instead of selling your iPhone for $400, we could give you $440 in some
cases.

Does that answer your question?

-Adam

~~~
AnthonyMouse
You do understand that would be a pyramid scheme, right? You can't sustainably
create currency out of nothing like that. At best what you're doing is the
same as what the Fed does when they print money, i.e. causing inflation, so
that at least there is no big crash at the end where everyone left holding
your currency loses everything (though that is exactly what would happen if
your site ever experiences a significant reduction in the active user base, as
it would cause hyperinflation until there are no sellers left willing to sell
anything in exchange for your fake money, making it totally worthless). But
you're still removing value from the credit each of the existing users is
currently holding every time you do it. And you've set it up so that people
can't get rid of the "money" in any way other than by putting it into the
hands of some other sucker who has to hold it while its value drops every time
you make more of it.

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.

~~~
timmyd
Have you read the sites context ? It's not a pyramid scheme. Lets recall what
a pyramid scheme is expressly defined as

"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)

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>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 ?

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.

~~~
timmyd
I'm terribly sorry. But your continued use of "pyramid scheme" is just wrong.

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.

------
theswapdaddy
Hi! This is Adam and Pulkit, the co-founders of Swapidy. We've been tirelessly
working on this for a while and hope you'll check it out and give us some
feedback. Right now we're only buying and selling limited products but we plan
to expand our category line based on demand. If you're in the bay area,
there's a good chance that we will hand-deliver your device the day you
purchase it and it would be our pleasure to talk to you in person for a few
minutes.

~~~
argumentum
Congrats on launching guys! I've known the founders for a while.. Extremely
talented and persuasive 18 year old college dropouts, check out their team
bios.

------
Deinos
I am kind of surprised to see all of the comments regarding why they would use
the virtual currency. It makes sense. They can offer you more by keeping you
locked into their ecosystem. A crude comparison would be a company like
Gamestop giving you more for your trade-in if you take in store credit as
opposed to cash. In store credit guarantees that you stick around.

~~~
theswapdaddy
At a business perspective, it makes sense but I think they are curious to know
why the virtual currency is valuable to them.

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

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toddrew
I went through the process of choosing my MBP to sell: Mid 2011, 8gb, 500gb,
2.7 GHz i7 and it told me that there's no such product.

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.

~~~
theswapdaddy
Hi. You are correct. Please email me at adam@swapidy.com and I'll update you
on when your product has been added to our database.

~~~
toddrew
I suggest you change your wording. Saying there's no such product makes me
think I either entered in some wrong information and try again.. and again...
or makes me think there's a mistake in your system.

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)

~~~
theswapdaddy
Well in some scenarios, there are no such products due to people clicking
multiple filters in the same category.

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.

------
waffle_ss
FYI took about a full minute (55.82s) to load the page for me. Some things you
might want to look at are that your asset pipeline is running in development
mode (?body=1) and 130 separate HTTP requests (resources) were required to
load the page.

~~~
theswapdaddy
Hey thanks for the message! We realize this problem and will fix it by
tonight.

-Adam

------
aashay
This looks really neat, but I've got some comments/questions:

* 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

~~~
RaphiePS
I'm also curious about the choice of virtual currency.

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.

~~~
theswapdaddy
At the moment, we're not offering redemption of Honey but we may consider it
in the future. The value you're getting of selling your product over market
value and buying under wouldn't require you to ever take out money anyway.

Also, if your product is worth as much as a product we're selling, you won't
have to pay a single dime.

-Adam

~~~
ktsmith
> The value you're getting of selling your product over market value and
> buying under wouldn't require you to ever take out money anyway.

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.

~~~
theswapdaddy
Think about it this way... A lot of people try to sell their iPhone 4S's or
4's when the new model came out. So what did they do? They went to eBay,
Amazon, Craigslist, Gazelle, etc. to sell it. Once sold, they used the money
to pay for it plus the difference.

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

~~~
ktsmith
I'm not confused about how your product works, virtual currency systems are
great for the vendor but the lock into the marketplace carries risks and
downsides for the consumers using the marketplace.

> 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.

------
zhobbs
Wanted to let you know that your nav is too wide for my browser window, and
one of the nav items is cut off: <http://i.imgur.com/3dORK0Y.jpg>

Probably a good idea to consider 960 min width.

~~~
theswapdaddy
Thanks for sharing this with us. We are looking into it now and will resolve
the issue ASAP.

-Adam

------
Juca
Awesome Guys! I know personally Adam & Pulkit, both 18 year old Stanford &
Upen dropouts..Extremely Hard-workers and Talented! May the force be with you
my young Padawans!

------
theswapdaddy
Just an FYI, you can transact on the site product for product without paying a
single dime (not even shipping), if your item is worth as much as the one
we're selling.

------
ConAntonakos
Congrats guys! Pulkit is a driven guy. He felt CS193c at Stanford was the
right environment to launch a product. :) I wish you, and your team, the best
of luck!

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dools
Am I right in my understanding that this is basically the same as a trade in
deal (for example at a car dealership)?

~~~
theswapdaddy
Yes, but unlike a car dealership, we give you more than market value.

------
TMKhanK2
Congrads on the Relaunch guys Great work from the Under20 network Good luck
guys =)

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ankurb
How do you guys manage warehousing / storage for all your inventory?

~~~
theswapdaddy
Great question!

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

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edwardlando
Good luck guys! Proud of ya :-)

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contingencies
Thanks, I just had a serious philosophical chuckle. :)

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.

~~~
theswapdaddy
+1

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atsesis
Great idea!

