hi.

Sorry I was away for a week. I got busy with a concert and our internet connection was out for a week.

i have been thinking about building a website where people can sell their old household items and other useful stuff like bags that are still in acceptable conditions for other buyers with prices that are affordable and cheap too.

The idea is like a garage sale website. But its difference from ebay is auctions are not done. Like http://mybooks.ph except that this site sells used books.

I like the idea of reselling like Buy and Sell website but it is more like a garage sale.

Is that a good idea?
What tools or scripting language are needed to have a site like that?

Thanks!

Hey blewcrush. It could be a neat idea. Have you checked to see if there are other sites that are similar in nature? Why would someone use your site when they could use an already established site like Craigslist or Kijijji? If you decided to create smaller niche sites around a certain product or object, say like Hats for example then maybe you could target those who are looking to buy and or sell their used head gear...or Handbags...or whatever...by breaking it down a bit you may find a niche for those seeking such a site(s).

For scripts and what not, do an online search and I'm sure you will find a ton of scripts that can do the job...but if you don't know how to tweak them to or how to customize them to fit your own personal site "brand" or look, then they may be no good for you unless you are willing to hire someone to do the work for you. You can also look at the bottom of the site that your mentioned and see who designed/created that site.

Hope that helps. Take care and all the best.

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Jazzguy ( Lyle) - My latest site Making money online through creativity and passion

I agree with Jazzguy, the concept would work if you were technically savvy enough to either tweak scripts or write you own, however you would have a pretty large hill to climb to compete with eBay, Craigslist and the like. Brand identity would be another huge hurdle that would require a lot of thought and work.

Thats the negative side, now... Go out there, work your tail off and create your dream site. Prove to yourself that it can be done.

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GrafxStar
"Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness." - Jean Vanier

to jazzguy and grafx, thank you guys!

sorry i was away. i was busy with shows. thank you for giving me a good encouragement. all i have to think now is how to drive traffic and make it exposed.

I wonder if people who also like to shop in garage sales (which no one does here in phil) would also hang out on the web and surf a lot.

and by the way, you guys are right about narrowing down the items for sale to a lot more concentrated line. i just need to give it a little more thought though. hehe.

any suggestion on what could be good?

thank you!

blewcrush,

I think this has potential. However, I am not sure if I am clear on how you will operate your website as a garage sale kind of website. Will you set up collection of old/used books, and then if someone is interested in the book and buys it from your website, you would then ship the book to them?

Or would you simply connect someone who wants to get rid of his/her book to another who is interested in obtaining that book? and they would figure out payments, shipments, etc between themselves?

Also, this may be a dumb question, but is your goal to make profit? Have you thought about how you will monetize this process? Charge a fee per exchange, place a markup on the price of the book?

You may have already thought about these questions, but I just wanted to bring them up just in case.

Let me know if I can help.

Sherif

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hi ssmorgan,

thank you for your reply post.
Yes, the idea on how users would communicate and negotiate with each other though would be somewhat like ebay but there will also be an area where buyers will post on items they are also looking for.

Users of this site that I target will be living in the Philippines preferably in the capital city of Manila.

If I will monetize out of this idea of a web site, I will also be putting my store on it selling same kind of garage sale items.

thanks!