

The simplest e-commerce platform ever (thought for the makers) - imwell

Hi there,
we are trying to design the simplest e-commerce platform ever (thought for &quot;the makers&quot; - See Up&amp;Sell.me).<p>We want to share our &quot;vision&quot; (and ask for a feedback). 
At present, in the e-commerce space we see 2 kinds of players: 1) the retailers and 2) the makers.<p>1) THE RETAILERS. The retailers typically have big product catalogs (x00&#x2F;x.000 products). 
If they are really big they use enterprise e-commerce platforms (e.g. Demandware), if they are medium or small they use e-commerce platforms which are more simple (e.g. Shopify). The e-commerce platforms thought for this target (retailers) are designed on the metaphor of the &quot;shop + catalog + shopping cart&quot;.<p>2) THE MAKERS. The makers typically have smaller product catalogs (x&#x2F;x0) products, they don&#x27;t use &quot;classic&quot; e-commerce platforms (even if someone, among the biggest, is using Shopify), but they use tools like Gumroad, Sellfy, Selz &amp; co. 
The e-commerce platforms thought for this target (makers) are not designed on the metaphor of the &quot;shop + catalog + shopping cart&quot; but they are designed on the metaphor of &quot;product page + checkout&quot;. 
The product page + checkout is the core of the platform.<p>With Up&amp;Sell.me we are trying to disrupt this second market. 
In this space, we have competitors which are trying to position themselves as an alternative to Paypal. It is to say that they are trying to position themselves as a sort of &quot;payment institution&quot; for the long tail. On the contrary, we are going in the opposite direction. 
We don&#x27;t want to become a payment institution, but we want to become the &quot;Shopify for the makers&quot;. 
It is tu say, we want to design the simplest e-commerce platform ever for the makers.<p>We strongly believe that there is a huge market space for an e-commerce platform designed for the long tail of the makers and we still don&#x27;t see the &quot;de facto&quot; platform for this target.<p>What do you think of this vision? 
(thanks for the comments)
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mtomov1
At the company I work for, Wool and the Gang
([http://woolandthegang.com/](http://woolandthegang.com/)), they are trying to
realize the same idea for the niche market of hand made clothes. Basically, a
`hat` will be hand-knitted by a person who is part of the `gang` and sold
through the web site as a platform. However, in practice, a not so significant
percent of sales come through this practice, in comparison to the traditional
retail goods (such as yarn).

We use the Spree Ecommerce system for the purpose.

I know of another idea of the same sort, which is for the establishment of an
online marketplace for brewery ingredients.

I guess such marketplaces are in need, for that a good alternative to the
awful ebay should exist.

~~~
imwell
Thanks for the feedback!

