Silk Road forums
Support => Feature requests => Topic started by: Burning Babylon on July 09, 2013, 10:17 pm
-
Silk Road is currently structured in a way where a listing is stuck with a permanent name and weight, this is a fundamental error I'm not a big fan of and I would like to explain how it could be done better conceptually:
A listing should to begin with be based on the product alone, this means any upgrade to this system means one will have to have a two tier system where the old system is left as is and the new one will need a more advanced interface for putting up new listings for vendors. The new upgraded interface for adding listings should have the following options:
* Title: The title of the product should be for a specific product, no weight should be included here.
* Category: This is self explanatory and working well and doesn't need to be changed.
* Price: The price should be a function where you add ranges of weights and each range gets a specific price. For example product X costs Y BTC for 5 to 25 grams, but if you order 1 to 4 grams you can set it to either a higher fixed price or a higher fixed percentage for each gram, and for more than 25 grams you can do the reverse and give a discount.
* Quantity: The same function as always, to list the amount available. The exception now though is that since it's possible to segment different weights into different price classes there won't be any need to create new listings for different weights. This way the vendor can have multiple weight listings yet still accurately able to keep track of the quantity available. Also quantity should work similarly to how Currencies work, ie. you should be able to switch the type of Quantity and also have decimals for products which are dealt in very small quantities, for example mg, ml, pills etc..
* Shipping: Shipping needs to be changed into a check box system where you pick exactly where you're shipping from and to where instead of categories as it is now. In addition it should have the possibility of showing additional service like I described in the thread Clarification on Shipping Options: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=181467.msg1317038 This would in other words mean the Postage Option remains largely intact to how it works now but one adds a system where one has check boxes for adding additional selectable services where each service would works just like any normal listing in terms of payment/commissioning. Shipping types should be lockable to certain check boxes/regions so it's always automatic based on customer input so the customer won't have to guess what Shipping Option to pick.
* Requirements: This field would give the vendor the option of adding any requirements of his choosing, either to the product itself or certain weight segments. Some examples would include any buyer must have bought products for a combined total of the value X, been a member for a minimum of X months, not have a refund rate over % percent or be marked in any group of the vendors choosing.
To explain the Group Concept I mentioned briefly as it would be a stand-alone concept: Vendors would have the ability to move any user into a group of their choosing, for example "Good Customer" or "Horrible Scamming Customer", each time those customers make a purchase the vendor would have a small overview of what groups the buyer has the most votes for and could based on that decide to accept or refuse the customer. This could also be set so let's say the customer has done 10 purchases and he's scammed three of them and has consequently been marked in the "Horrible Scamming Customer" category three times, the vendors could by requirement say a buyer can not have more than 20% of "Horrible Scamming Customer", the buyer would in this example then not be able to make a purchase. With the Group Concept one could limit customers to certain weight ranges depending on what region and group they're based in, for example one might not want a customer to order more than 25 grams in total in any single order as the package is not designed to hold more. One could also set the requirement to "Finalizing Early" instead of outright banning specific buyers in certain groups.
* Discount: This is an option which would have the ability to give discounts on certain time periods on certain weight ranges which would automatically expire based on a set of criteria which would include time and quality. Any time a discount is active it would be marked at the product page in some different color or likewise. Any time Silk Road decides to have a site wide discount it would have a similar message over the listing but in a different color.
* Images: Images as in multiples, as large as possible without making the design look weird.
* Status: Whenever a listing would run out of the quantity the listing would still stay up but no one would be able to order anything. The status variable would be for example a window where the buy button usually is which has a text set by the vendor where its explained when new product will come in. The vendor could chose to permanently delist the product and it would then get removed from view from others with the Status only viewable for admins of Silk Road.
* Upgrade/Replacement: The option to segment a listing with a new name. What I mean by this is lets say a vendor has product X which has a certain name and characteristic. Now normally when the vendor runs out of that product it should be deleted and be replaced by a new one under a new name when a new batch arrives, but the majority of vendors will instead edit the description and image which is I'm surprised more people aren't looking down upon. My suggestion would for the Upgrade Option to let the vendor retain the feedback on the product but the previous name and feedback would be split and one would be able to see it on the same page below the new product. This assumes the product is close enough, for example if one is selling Hash the Upgrade Option is only meant for another new batch of Hash, not a different product like LSD or MDMA.
Phew finally I won't have to go around thinking about this any longer. ;D :P
-
Missed some nuances in my last post so coming back to complement a bit. :)
There's currently a variety of Settings that are set account-wise, when they should as well be applied individually per listing. I would say the following Settings would benefit from having that ability:
Auto-withdraw: It should have the ability to withdraw to specific wallets based on specific listings alone. This would enable vendors to set up almost independent sub-vendors in the main account. An added bonus would be stating how high percentage of the total deposit goes into this wallet, for example maybe 85 % to wallet A and 15 % to the main account etc.
Peg listings to: Although this currently is only used internally the ideal solution would have to have three different listings, namely: Bitcoin, user picked and vendor picked - so it could look something like this: 1 ฿ / 61.1196 GBP / 610.421 kr. This would apply individually per listing as well.
hedge escrow / expose escrow: Another Setting that should apply per listing. If a Digital Download could return an automatic message and finalize instantaneously it might not be needed but that seems even less likely.
post-commission pricing / pre-commission pricing: In my opinion these options shouldn't even exist, it should all be post-comission pricing and the amount should just like a tax be mentioned at the checkout.
----------
Another addon to my previous post:
* Postage Options should have a quantity identifier as well along with a setting to limit the amount of weight for any specific product and/or combinations.
Looking back at this I suppose most of this is pretty much impossible to implement without rewriting everything from scratch. :P
-
Very good ideas, tack för replying in my thread :) I think this would really upgrade the SR experience... There are just two tiny things I would like to comment on:
* Quantity: The same function as always, to list the amount available. [...]
In my opinion, nobody BUT the vendor him/herself should know the quantities available. I know you can already see the quantity in the shopping cart, but I don't think that's good. It could be valuable information to LE about the size of a vendors operation; the information can also be used by other vendors for strategy marketing which, in my opinion, does not belong on SR.
If you, as a vendor, have a different view on this (or if I am completely wrong), please tell me!
To explain the Group Concept I mentioned briefly as it would be a stand-alone concept: Vendors would have the ability to move any user into a group of their choosing, for example "Good Customer" or "Horrible Scamming Customer", each time those customers make a purchase the vendor would have a small overview of what groups the buyer has the most votes for and could based on that decide to accept or refuse the customer. This could also be set so let's say the customer has done 10 purchases and he's scammed three of them and has consequently been marked in the "Horrible Scamming Customer" category three times, the vendors could by requirement say a buyer can not have more than 20% of "Horrible Scamming Customer", the buyer would in this example then not be able to make a purchase. With the Group Concept one could limit customers to certain weight ranges depending on what region and group they're based in, for example one might not want a customer to order more than 25 grams in total in any single order as the package is not designed to hold more. One could also set the requirement to "Finalizing Early" instead of outright banning specific buyers in certain groups.
It's a very good idea, but I think it's waaay too complex. The problem could be solved simply by allowing vendors to rate their customers as well. Every buyer should also have a page that shows FE-% and AF-% and the rating of the user (nothing more, especially not the amount of transactions and the value, as this could(!) easily be linked to a specific person if LE already has a clue).
OR all information is visible, but then only vendors should be able to see a customers page and ONLY if an order is placed, basically like it is handled at the moment (except of course the missing customer rating feature).
Stay safe!
-
* Quantity: The same function as always, to list the amount available. [...]
In my opinion, nobody BUT the vendor him/herself should know the quantities available. I know you can already see the quantity in the shopping cart, but I don't think that's good. It could be valuable information to LE about the size of a vendors operation; the information can also be used by other vendors for strategy marketing which, in my opinion, does not belong on SR.
If you, as a vendor, have a different view on this (or if I am completely wrong), please tell me!
Makes sense, it should just return a Yes or No depending on how much is "Reserved/Ordered". What I would add to this is restructuring the Product into what I would call "Stockpiles". That basically means any individual Product could have multiple separate Stockpiles either based on for example Type of Packaging or Storage in Various Regions. Each Stockpile could have Rules that are different from those set on the Product itself, for example an order of Product X could allow up to 10 Units from that Stockpile but if Ordered from a Stockpile in India the minimum amount is 100 but the price is also much lower.
To explain the Group Concept I mentioned briefly as it would be a stand-alone concept: Vendors would have the ability to move any user into a group of their choosing, for example "Good Customer" or "Horrible Scamming Customer", each time those customers make a purchase the vendor would have a small overview of what groups the buyer has the most votes for and could based on that decide to accept or refuse the customer. This could also be set so let's say the customer has done 10 purchases and he's scammed three of them and has consequently been marked in the "Horrible Scamming Customer" category three times, the vendors could by requirement say a buyer can not have more than 20% of "Horrible Scamming Customer", the buyer would in this example then not be able to make a purchase. With the Group Concept one could limit customers to certain weight ranges depending on what region and group they're based in, for example one might not want a customer to order more than 25 grams in total in any single order as the package is not designed to hold more. One could also set the requirement to "Finalizing Early" instead of outright banning specific buyers in certain groups.
It's a very good idea, but I think it's waaay too complex. The problem could be solved simply by allowing vendors to rate their customers as well. Every buyer should also have a page that shows FE-% and AF-% and the rating of the user (nothing more, especially not the amount of transactions and the value, as this could(!) easily be linked to a specific person if LE already has a clue).
OR all information is visible, but then only vendors should be able to see a customers page and ONLY if an order is placed, basically like it is handled at the moment (except of course the missing customer rating feature).
Stay safe!
With a Graphical Interface where each Vendor would have the choice of categorizing each order based on specific attributes, it could be customized so a Vendor could for example only mark if a Buyer is scamming or not and absolutely nothing else as some will have a lot of orders to process. It seems now with the advent of the changes seen from taking the site down for discussion update: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=204014 something very similar to this happened though.
----------
I've done some research with Oneiros Distribution which culminated in the following two threads:
Discount Methods - Explanation and Thoughts: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=203215
Drug Market Discount Analysis - Top 10 Regions: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=205615
They go into how the current Systems work and how many Listings are currently existing because there's no working alternatives at the moment. I will most likely consider this chapter closed as of now, hopefully Silk Road or some other site will at some point implement changes similar to what has been suggested in this thread. I might set up a proof of Concept a year or two down the line if I'm still here and have enough money to do it at that point. :P
-
* Title: The title of the product should be for a specific product, no weight should be included here.
* Category: This is self explanatory and working well and doesn't need to be changed.
* Price: The price should be a function where you add ranges of weights and each range gets a specific price. For example product X costs Y BTC for 5 to 25 grams, but if you order 1 to 4 grams you can set it to either a higher fixed price or a higher fixed percentage for each gram, and for more than 25 grams you can do the reverse and give a discount.
* Quantity: The same function as always, to list the amount available. The exception now though is that since it's possible to segment different weights into different price classes there won't be any need to create new listings for different weights. This way the vendor can have multiple weight listings yet still accurately able to keep track of the quantity available. Also quantity should work similarly to how Currencies work, ie. you should be able to switch the type of Quantity and also have decimals for products which are dealt in very small quantities, for example mg, ml, pills etc..
I would really like to see this implemented. It is the one thing that I think would most greatly improve Silk Road.
-
Due to my thread Sheep Marketplace - First Impression and Analysis: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=214467 and the subsequent thread at http://sheep5u64fi457aw.onion/forum/topic/sheep-marketplace-first-impression-and-analysis-7be18b53e0f834eb787b078dfb068c9c this post will in a practical sense explain how this System is supposed to work. It will be written primarily for Sheep Marketplace as they're pretty much my last hope as I've given up on Silk Road ever implementing any major changes.
A) Introduction
B) Listings
C) Filters
D) Feedback
A) Introduction
So let's start with the basics, what we see now at Atlantis, Silk Road, Black Market Reloaded, Sheep Market and others I'm currently not aware off is a front page generally showing a picture, a listing with weight embedded in it and a price point. If one were to instantly change to the Upgraded Listing Options overnight we would either be technically stuck with the same system we have now as Vendors would not be aware of the changes, the alternative would be to have "employees" go through every single Vendor/Listing manually and mark the price points that way. Basically the more Vendors and Listings involved makes this Project harder and harder to implement as it's just not a systematic change but a mindset which has to be applied by all Vendors individually. The good news with this is that any site with a low amount of listing or any New Site which has no listings at all which applies this mindset and programming will have an instant massive advantage over any current site which does not use this system which is currently every single one in existence.
B) Listings
So time to define what type of Listings are available and how they would operate. These are Types of Listings currently mostly in use:
1. Product with Quantity; A Product which has a set amount of Stockpiles predetermined by the Vendor. Most Vendors have only one Stockpile somewhere in the vicinity of where they live while others have them all over the world through Bulk Contacts and the like.
It's important to note here right away the Bulk Aspect of this for a future issue. The reason Vendors are using the "Finalize Early" concept they simply can't wait for days to receive their funds as they have to pay their supplier right away or they won't be able to get new Product and they're effectively being held hostage by the Buyer unless they get the Funds right away. Any new System must be able to accommodate for this fact and provide the option of forcing the Buyer to Finalize Early for specific listings. However this also has to take into the Account the Vendor might have specific rules, so this would mean the funds should first go into Escrow and they would not get transferred to the Vendor until the moment he accepts the order. Now to be clear on this point as most that will eventually read this are from Silk Road is the fact that Silk Road does not have this feature - it's either an order is in or it's In Transit, nothing in between. The moment the Vendor has accepted the order with a "Finalize Early" attribute the Buyer will officially have decoupled himself from the traditional safety net of the site in question and should not expect Support of any kind, similar to how it currently works in that regard except now it would work automatically without strange workarounds.
Now for the Quantity itself as I've mentioned before it would be a system of Price Points, where the Vendor would first have to decide on three different points which are: When the price goes up due to a small amount of Product, when the price stays static due to the Standard amount of Product and when the Price goes down due to a large amount of Product. Now some Vendors would obviously only pick one or two of these Price Points but that makes no difference for the System itself. So the price for when the price stays static due to the Standard amount of product should always be the default listing which is shown on for example the front page. It's important to note here as I've mentioned before the Postage option should have a fixed Quantity based on the specific Price Point ordered as well.
2. Digital Downloads; Now this isn't my area of expertise and Sheep Market has actually been fairly successful in providing a Service on this matter, as they have the option to instantly provide a predefined message with for example a Download Link whenever a Buyer buys a Listing with that option enabled - Silk Road does not have this option and requires the buyers to manually contact all Buyers after the transaction has been initiated. There's plenty of ways to improve on these types of Listings as long as they're not treated the same as a Product with Quantity. Although I will say an interesting evolution on this Aspect beyond what Sheep Market has implemented already would be having the ability to setup multiple Unique Messages in Advance, so for example say you were selling ten separate CD-keys you would setup them in Advance and each time a Buyer buys that specific listing they get a Unique Message for each Quantity - it is of course removed after the order has been Finalized.
3. Lotteries; Again, not my area of expertise but it's clearly a Type of Listing which is somewhat popular and is very poorly integrated into any Site of this Nature at the moment. I would leave the implementation of this for others to figure out as I'm not exactly clear on what the purpose or how they work is, but the fact they are being used warrants it's own Type of Listing.
4. Services; Similar to Digital Downloads in one sense, but this Category should differ in the sense it should encompass all work done manually by a Vendor for others. In this sense it would make sense for Vendors to pay for their Vendor Bond in regards to exactly what they are offering, in other words a Vendor only providing Services and nothing else whatsoever should get a significantly cheaper Vendor Bond/Fee and be subject to a different Set of Rules. If the Vendor in question decides to start selling Product with Quantity the Vendor in question would have to apply for that specific Vendor Bond/Fee and start following the rules for that Category then and only then. Good examples of Listings in this category would be Fake IDs and Registering an User Account for Buyers on Services like a Bitcoin Exchange, Bank or Mail Forwarder
5. Money; Although technically this would qualify as a Service the reason it has to be treated separately is the need for specific Rules as the current way it works is by Vendors putting up Bitcoin Listings with the price set to 0 with the idea the work will be done off the books which doesn't make much sense - it's kind of sanctioned on Silk Road as well which can be seen in the thread Official Policy on Services provided from Person to Person: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=203436 - What needs to be done the Commission in this Category must be reworked so the max rate might be 0.5 % - 1.0 % or something to that effect.
6. Custom Orders; Now here it gets a bit tricky as this point alone doesn't stand as a Category. Each category described before all have the potential for Custom Orders and the way of creating those currently is by creating a new listing, however with Upgraded Listing Options it would work like this:
Whenever a Custom Order is made a Buyer initiates a Custom Order based on a listing, he would then get to propose all variables for the Custom Order like Quantity, Price, Stealth and so on. This Custom Offer would then be sent to a Vendor who gets to see this Custom Offer and it's variables - the Vendor in question would then have the option to either accept the Order as suggested by the buyer alternatively modify the terms and send it back to the Buyer. Whenever both parts have accepted the deal the funds from the Buyer are sent into Escrow and it's treated as any other Order with the exception this type of Order has very clear Custom Terms which have been accepted by both parties.
C) Filters
One major benefit of implementing this system will be the ability to filter almost everything from Product, Shipping to alternatives for Vendors like excluding exact Countries to ship to or increase prices based on specific regions - without even having to register a new Product! There will be the possibilities of creating groups based on filters which can be applied for purposes like Good or Bad Buyers/Vendors/Listings. Also there will finally be the option to almost perfectly compare Products between various Vendors, something that before has largely been a manual task for the Buyer.
D) Feedback
With the possibility of Vendors getting their Feedback per Offering instead of per Listing all Feedback will be Consolidated and opens up for improvements yet unseen in most Feedback Systems available at all current "Black Market Sites". Specifically it will be a lot easier separating Feedback in terms of Shipment, Quality and the Vendor itself.
----------
Hopefully I didn't miss any major point, in the end it is a fairly complicated Concept which requires advanced programming and that all Vendors take in a new more advanced Type of Mindset. As far as I see it is not a question of if this System will be implemented or not as it is already far superior, the only question is who will be the first site which is competent enough to fully implement this successfully?