Introduction
In this edition of Idea Explorer, I will be analyzing the idea of a Steem based marketplace called Steebay. Currently in the conversation of decentralized marketplaces one solution comes to mind, OpenBazaar. OpenBazaar uses Bitcoin as a payment method and provides a no-fee solution. OpenBazaar, unlike other services such as Amazon and eBay, directly connects a buyer and seller. Due to the fact that OpenBazaar is a peer-to-peer solution, the only ones aware of the details of a transaction are the buyer and the seller. The total number of listings on OpenBazaar is around 6000 - 7000 listings. BazaarBay is the search engine for the OpenBazaar network where you can view listings.
The Case for a Steebay
A Steebay, has a lot of potential to gain more users and attention as well as be more feature filled than OpenBazaar by using some of the user interaction components established by Steem. In terms of long term growth, Steebay may even have the potential to carve out a portion of the e-commerce market. According to Statista.com eBay has an annual net income of $8.592 billion dollars [1]. A popular decentralized blockchain based solution would be able to incentivize buyers and sellers by bringing them additional revenue along with the sale of their listings.
This is an opportune time for a Steem based marketplace to be created with customer satisfaction ratings for eBay at a low [2]. Seller reputation would also have more weight in a hypothetical Steebay, highly reputed sellers would have their postings placed higher in an item search result page.
A hypothetical Steebay logo
Some members of the community have already tried taking initiative to sell products for STEEM, take for example this Steemit post: SELLING MY CAR FOR STEEM: 2006 Chrysler 300 Touring - $10000(USD,BTC) (BUY NOW FOR $5888/STEEM) by user 
Curating High Quality Product Reviews
Utilizing a dynamic 5 star incentivizing upvote system, would encourage the creation of high quality reviews. Those reviews given the highest ratings would be given the highest payouts for the reviewer. Similarly, products that have very low rated reviews or are flagged would hurt a seller's reputation. Just as posting high quality posts on Steemit rewards user with more Steem Power and Steem Based Dollars, a high quality product listing giving various details about the product that is being sold would be rewarded with Steem Power and Steem Based Dollars.
Product Categories & Messaging, Embedded Listings
Users would have the ability to make listings across multiple categories. Similar to Craigslist, listings could also be filtered by location. Users would be able to directly message the buyers and ask about details of a product listing. Users would also be able list Steebay listings across multiple platforms. Imagine a blog about hats with listings from Steebay where users can directly buy a hat by clicking on an embedded post with Steem and have it shipped to their address.
Development & Project Management
Due to the fact that Steemit.com is open sourced, a modification of the interface and code to better support some of the features that a Steebay would require should be fairly straightforward. There would certainly be a level of seller trust that would be needed to make a Steebay work. Therefore a possible modification would be a stricter level of seller identity verification.
Auctioning a product could be a possible feature in a Steebay. To develop this feature a product posting would need to include an eBay-like module for users to enter in a price, and a countdown would need to be displayed to show the time left until the auction could complete. After an auction has completed, details on who won the auction as well as other metadata could be stored in the Steem blockchain.
Popularity of a Steebay
With a growing community like Steem, support for a Steebay would definitely be high. A Steebay would also attract sellers of different type of content who are looking for fast transactions, a high level of security and accountability. Once blockchain based applications become popular with the general populations, I am also optimistic that centralized products such as eBay would be eventually replaced by a Steebay. With large corporations such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google looking into blockchain technology, I believe that it is only a matter of time before something like Steebay become mainstream.
Positive Impact to the Community
A Steebay would definitely have a positive impact on the Steem community. With the ability to browse, buy and post products user engagement with the Steem blockchain would also increase. Steebay would hopefully be a pioneer in an ever growing pool of decentralized marketplaces where sellers not only get incentivized for posting their product listing, but where buyers get incentivized for writing high quality reviews.
Conclusion
The idea of a Steebay is very interesting, and a Steem based marketplace could offer users multiple methods of making revenue. I envision a future where there are decentralized autonomous sellers, that utilize machine learning to buy and sell products for a profit, perhaps drones would deliver a product to those who buy from these autonomous sellers. I believe that the future is very bright for e-commerce.
References
- Statista.com eBay Statistics URL: http://www.statista.com/topics/2181/ebay/ Retrieved On: August 18, 2016
- ConsumerAffairs eBay Reviews URL: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/ebay.htm Retrieved On: August 18, 2016