Silk Road forums

Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: Pachesi on May 11, 2013, 06:47 am

Title: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 11, 2013, 06:47 am
I have a friend that wants me to try selling something for him on sr and figured I'd get some input first. as a newbie can only post here but the most appropriate location would be product offers. :/
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: goldenrod on May 11, 2013, 06:55 am
I think we'd need more information before we could give an opinion.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: canŠ°diandrugs on May 11, 2013, 07:00 am
I think we'd need more information before we could give an opinion.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: canŠ°diandrugs on May 11, 2013, 07:00 am
I think we'd need more information before we could give an opinion.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 11, 2013, 07:09 am
He has a raman spectroscopy chemical analyzer he is thinking of selling or letting me use to offer a service testing chemical/drug samples. Its a bad ass unit if i'd never seen one before.  Its got all sorts of info built in like msds stuff and its accurate to .01% and way more stuff than i could put on here right this minute. Needless to say if he sells it outright he wants $100k. but as for offering a testing service, he told me that if I feel the demand for the service is there so that I'd be able to pay him the $100k within a year he'd let take it and make payments.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: quixotist on May 11, 2013, 07:23 am
How do you propose such a service would work?

You would have to solicit for donations while keeping your buyer account a secret. You'd be getting a hell of a lot more gear in the mail and taking far more risk than most people, so your expenses would have to cover that.

Maybe run a lottery game or something where you re-post to the winner? I can't think of any other way to keep it profitable and anonymous.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 11, 2013, 07:56 am
indeed i would be getting more packages yes, but the samples can be small, about 20ml/2 grams I think he said. Something like that anyways, I can't remember right now :p And yes there is a slight dilemma with the anonymity situation.  I'm still working out the details, but that's why I figured I'd get some info from the forums first.  He's an older guy just retired, so he's more interested in selling it outright, but he's a nice guy and told me that if I could find a way to make it work, that he's ok with waiting for it to be paid off. 
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 11, 2013, 11:22 am
So I see that once i hit 50 posts i can post elsewhere, any other people feel like talking preferably about my topic so I can get more posts without having to sit here like a tool and spam my own thread? :p
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: tree on May 11, 2013, 11:31 am
It'd be like a backwards vendor account.. You'd have to give the buyer your address and not the other way round so it'd definitely be weird. People could also see you as a huge scammer by making them pay AND give you free drugs! Maybe you could just offer those services to vendors and keep your account in stealth mode.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 11, 2013, 11:49 am
I was thinking it could be something like that, instead of putting in an address in the field when placing the order, they could put in their email address and I would email them with details.  Last night I was thinking about the sample part, i was thinking i would offset the price, so that the vendor could just send me however much quantity of what needs to be tested to balance the offset, so like if it was 100 bucks offset, it would be x number of pills or x grams of powder etc... this way one person isn't giving away more $ value of product than someone else would. There are other options i was working on also. But this one seems the most fair so far.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: tree on May 11, 2013, 11:56 am
It seems pretty good but if you sell your services then I'm pretty sure vendors wouldn't want you to disclose the test results publicly, unless they're good, or they'd only send you their greatest stuff.
I wouldn't recommend email either, you could just use the PM system on SR.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 11, 2013, 12:44 pm
This idea was a vendor/manufacture specific idea, in terms of allowing vendors to know most accurately what they're getting from their suppliers or manufacturers knowing just how well their system is working especially on a per batch basis.  If vendors put the info out there that I give to them just to show what they have, i'm sure buyers would appreciate the honesty :p  Like i see the mdma with "84%" next to it, but where's the proof, and batches vary as well as what actual byproducts and such are in the product. The only people that could get their moneys worth from buying the analyzer outright would be manufacturers. Even then they would have to be pretty big in what they make, its not like a couple grand in lab supplies, $100k is no small price tag :/  So thats why I thought about doing the service, availability to its use by multiple vendors and manufactures cuts their cost by sharing the expense with others.....and once i have the unit payed off, I'll just test samples for the cost of them sending me the samples.... for me to test ;)
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 11, 2013, 01:42 pm
any more info or suggestions or interest before i tool myself to 50 posts to get a post in the appropriate area?
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: tree on May 11, 2013, 03:44 pm
You could PGP-sign message containing the information about the purity of the stuff and make your key available so that if vendors choose to display it, buyers would know for sure that you're the one that gave that information and that it's not something made up. You PGP key should be made publicly available to buyers so that more people would verify the PGP signed message.
If vendors play fair, I think it could help us know exactly what we're getting!
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: android465764E on May 11, 2013, 03:51 pm
If it were me, I'd just sell the thing outright.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: roonbaboon on May 11, 2013, 04:28 pm
I don't know if I'd want to send you 2g of coke or heroin just to tell what I could find out by sticking it in my arm.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: kyzersoze on May 11, 2013, 04:40 pm
Man, you'd have to do a lot of testing to make that $100k back.  It sounds like a fun project but I think the number of folks that buy a product here on SR and want to send a sample off to be tested, let alone pay for it, is pretty limited.  I think you're only chance at making it work would be to offer testing services legitimately, maybe to small labs or something, and do product testing as a sideline.  I'm sure there are a ton of hoops to jump through as far as certification, etc., before you would want to offer the service to the general public.  Do the math on how much you would need to clear each month to make payments to your friend, how much you would have to charge, etc.  You would have to do a pretty good volume to make it work and I just don't think the demand is out there.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: quixotist on May 11, 2013, 06:23 pm
Here's an idea that could work, I'm not sure though:

You create listing for a fixed fee lab test, something reasonably expensive so it will cover the cost of buying any sample. In the delivery instructions the purchaser says which item they want tested. A random number of days later you purchase the item, you test it and later publish your report. Your profit is price of test minus price of drugs.

In this case dealers can't sell you out as part of a plea bargain because to them you look like a normal customer, and everyone else can trust your published reviews because the dealer doesn't know he's sending to a test lab.

For crowd funding you could do the lottery thing I mentioned earlier. I don't think you'd make your $100k back though, not quickly at least. You'd need to charge about $500 a test or something and do 200 items or so, which is a lot of money and a lot of packages which could be intercepted.

So unless you're pimping your services out to gangsters instead or just selling the machine you're unlikely to turn a profit.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 11, 2013, 06:34 pm
I don't know what kind of interest there would be which is why I'm looking to the forums for input.  I'm no vendor/dealer,  I buy for my personal use or for a group of us when we have bbq's and what not.  So the idea i was working with is, the more vendors/manufacturers interested the cheaper the service would be for them all, I'm not looking to make any kind money off of it just paying off the unit. I just like the idea of free drugs :D  But i was thinking about doing a monthly charge instead of a per sample charge, so say i need to make 8000 a month to pay the thing off in a year, and 5 vendors were interested I'd have to charge 1600 a month, but if say 20 or 30 vendors were interested it would only cost each 400 or 300 a month and even less with more interest.   But as for selling outright or offering the service, most likely it will get sold outright.  The service idea is just an idea, trying to make it cheaper and available to more people, as well as getting me free drugs :p
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 11, 2013, 06:45 pm
Here's an idea that could work, I'm not sure though:

You create listing for a fixed fee lab test, something reasonably expensive so it will cover the cost of buying any sample. In the delivery instructions the purchaser says which item they want tested. A random number of days later you purchase the item, you test it and later publish your report. Your profit is price of test minus price of drugs.

In this case dealers can't sell you out as part of a plea bargain because to them you look like a normal customer, and everyone else can trust your published reviews because the dealer doesn't know he's sending to a test lab.

For crowd funding you could do the lottery thing I mentioned earlier. I don't think you'd make your $100k back though, not quickly at least. You'd need to charge about $500 a test or something and do 200 items or so, which is a lot of money and a lot of packages which could be intercepted.

So unless you're pimping your services out to gangsters instead or just selling the machine you're unlikely to turn a profit.

Indeed a spectacular idea quixotist!!!  brilliant even, it maintains anonymity and the value of the testing results I'd present, It will also kind of force more venders to be more honest as well since the first vendors that would be willing to have their stuff tested would be the ones that believe in what they are selling
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: quixotist on May 11, 2013, 08:07 pm
It will also kind of force more venders to be more honest as well since the first vendors that would be willing to have their stuff tested would be the ones that believe in what they are selling

Even better, vendors who are sure that their goods are better than that of the competition could just anonymously pay to have their rivals' gear tested. Anyone could be called up for random testing, nobody would know who is testing it. The only real vulnerability I can see is for vendors to directly bribe the tester, so we'd really just need to trust you.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: DrCol on May 11, 2013, 08:23 pm
Sell outright... simple
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 12, 2013, 05:54 am
When i first started experimenting with drugs i was a nervous as hell straight arrow teen.  My first experience with yayo... not a fun story but call it fate or random coincidence, I met my friend that wants to sell the unit 2 days later and he tested what I had left of that baggie which turned out to be i think it was mixed something like 20% yayo, 10% h and the rest filler and misc garbage...he tells me about Erowid and the "know your source" needless to say 20 years later he's still my first stop if i don't know my source.  I'm not really into the idea of testing competitors for the goal of saying who's the superior. I just want people to have access to info that's far above what people are used to, each batch of a pharmaceutical drug has tons of samples tested and there are still variations that call for a batches to not be sold. The idea for allowing the testing of samples, is only to get more info to the users that would like it, and with the simple availability of the data the people that might not have cared to have the data, might still look at it anyways.  But now you have the back story, If i had the funds to just buy the device from my friend and test samples for free just to put the info out there, I would. But the truth is, most vendors or manufacturers probably won't be interested simply for the fact that... if what they are doing now is working, why change it. to them it probably won't change their profit unless their product is far superior than the rest, but then only way to know that is if all the vendors had their stuff tested.  So chances are if anything... its probably going to be just an outright sale of the unit to one individual that is willing to go above and beyond for the good of us all.  But we'll see
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Libertas on May 12, 2013, 06:08 am
Don't mean to dampen the mood of the conversation but I have to pop in here and say that whatever you wish to do, you must have a vendor account in order to offer any goods or services for sale on Silk Road. Neither the sale of goods nor the sale of services are permitted on the forums, regardless of whether you have a vendor account or not, though the forums can of course be used for advertising your offerings when you have a vendor account.

Discussion on any topic once you don't attempt to sell a good or service is, of course, always welcome.

If you need more information about starting a vendor account, please check out the following links on the Silk Road Wiki:

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/wiki/index.php?title=Seller%27s_Guide

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/wiki/index.php?title=Frequently_Asked_Questions#Vendor_questions

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/wiki/index.php?title=Seller%27s_Guide#Bond

Libertas
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 12, 2013, 06:18 am
Yes, i did know that, thank you libertas.  No dampening of the mood here :D  Just wanted legit input before actually becoming a vendor and trying to sell either the service or the unit.  Do you happen to have any input or suggestions on the subjec?  A mods input would be an honor, and might get more people interested in the idea of the service which is what i'd really like to offer.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Libertas on May 12, 2013, 06:50 am
Yes, i did know that, thank you libertas.  No dampening of the mood here :D  Just wanted legit input before actually becoming a vendor and trying to sell either the service or the unit.  Do you happen to have any input or suggestions on the subjec?  A mods input would be an honor, and might get more people interested in the idea of the service which is what i'd really like to offer.

Whilst I've only skimmed over the thread, to be completely honest I don't think it's a service that would do too well here due in part to the kind of setup you'd have to have in order to test products. You would have to actually buy the products from a number of different buyer accounts in order to ensure that vendors don't just send top quality product to achieve an excellent result. You'd also have to buy from a number of different buyer accounts so as vendors talking amongst themselves wouldn't figure out which buyer is buying for testing purposes.

Vendors sending product to get tested will ALWAYS send the best product they can get their hands on, even if that's not what they're offering themselves. I mean why risk your competitor getting a much better result by pulling off that trick when you're sending your regular product? "No, no, no, I'm gonna do that before he does it!" would be the name of the game.

It would also be impossible to make the $100,000 back over the course of a year offering such a service even if vendors DID pay for it as there simply aren't that many vendors who will want to send their drugs to get tested. They don't need to as they have already established themselves and their products as being acceptable to their customers.

You can get a good idea of what happens when somebody tests things (in this case cocaine) for vendors with their knowledge in the following thread - 9 times out of 10 the product sent with the vendors knowledge that it will be tested is different from the product sent using a blind purchase:

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=108950.0

I would recommend that your friend offload it to a single buyer.

Libertas
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Pachesi on May 12, 2013, 03:43 pm
Thanks for that thread link libertas, definitely outright sale is the only way to go. :p Thanks for all the valuable input everyone.  Time to become a vendor and take some pics and get this thing listed :p
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: abitpeckish on May 12, 2013, 05:49 pm
I'd love to have an idea of how you plan to convert that much BTC into USD.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: SOUTHPAW on May 12, 2013, 06:50 pm
Here's an idea that could work, I'm not sure though:

You create listing for a fixed fee lab test, something reasonably expensive so it will cover the cost of buying any sample. In the delivery instructions the purchaser says which item they want tested. A random number of days later you purchase the item, you test it and later publish your report. Your profit is price of test minus price of drugs.

In this case dealers can't sell you out as part of a plea bargain because to them you look like a normal customer, and everyone else can trust your published reviews because the dealer doesn't know he's sending to a test lab.

For crowd funding you could do the lottery thing I mentioned earlier. I don't think you'd make your $100k back though, not quickly at least. You'd need to charge about $500 a test or something and do 200 items or so, which is a lot of money and a lot of packages which could be intercepted.

So unless you're pimping your services out to gangsters instead or just selling the machine you're unlikely to turn a profit.

The first thing that comes to mind is this could only work if 'we' trust the tester to the point that there is no concern that there will not be communication via PM or what ever allowing information to flow back and forth between the two. OK, my lack of knowledge for the English language is SHINING through. What I was TTS is that it would be very easy for the tester to contact the individual wanting the test and making arrangements to skew the test for what ever purpose they needed. Add a lilltle kick back and viola money to be made and results not to be trusted..  :)
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: Libertas on May 12, 2013, 07:32 pm
Thanks for that thread link libertas, definitely outright sale is the only way to go. :p Thanks for all the valuable input everyone.  Time to become a vendor and take some pics and get this thing listed :p

You're very welcome! :)

Libertas
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: tree on May 12, 2013, 10:04 pm
Thanks for that thread link libertas, definitely outright sale is the only way to go. :p Thanks for all the valuable input everyone.  Time to become a vendor and take some pics and get this thing listed :p
I don't know if anyone would trust you to buy a $100k thing... You should definitely sell other things first to get established as a reliable vendor, or else people could just scam you and you'd lose your machine AND $100k. Maybe you'd even be luckier en eBay! I don't think such a machine is illegal anyway so eBay may work better.
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: DrCol on May 30, 2013, 10:40 am
It's a heck of a cost even here....not sure how up for it people might be at that kind of level...
Good luck though
Doc
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: ShamelessHarvey on June 01, 2013, 04:31 am
I would be interested in seeing the specs. 100k for mass spec seems really high. Does it blow you too?

Thanks for the interest in supporting the community!
Title: Re: what to do
Post by: DrCol on June 01, 2013, 11:15 am
LOL!..."does it blow you too"...
:)
Class....