Silk Road forums

Support => Feature requests => Topic started by: xl4 on March 01, 2013, 06:52 pm

Title: Partial FE options....
Post by: xl4 on March 01, 2013, 06:52 pm
As a vendor I don't require FE but I do offer some incentives (free shipping, extra product, etc). With the change in the postal service dcns I've noticed a lot of vendors switching over to some FE options (mostly for free shipping as well). I've seen shipping prices sky rocket on here. So it got me thinking, what if there was a partial finalize for the vendor? Some new vendors require FE as they need to cover their costs. Although I think that it should be taken care of before being brought to SR, a lot of folks don't have that luxury. With a partial FE in place the vendor could receive a partial down payment until the product arrived and was to the customers satisfaction. At that time the rest of the funds would be released.

Possibly even setting feedback to default at 1 for any partial FE or full FE to discourage scamming. Once the buyer is pleased the feedback can be changed or possibly with the partial FE an automatic change to 5 after a set period of days and a complete sale (fully finalized)

FE is such taboo around here and extra weight to a gamble already. 90% of the 10 page FE feedback I see ends up scamming users. Yet the vendors still at the time keep a top rating. We could weed out several bad cookies if they start noticing that number drop down.

Food for thought...

Title: Re: Partial FE options....
Post by: bill417 on March 02, 2013, 02:55 pm
Some new vendors require FE as they need to cover their costs.

No new vendor with less than 35 transactions should be asking, nor do they have any right, to ask for people to FE. If you see any vendors without 35 transactions asking for FE, they should be reported to Silk Road immediately.

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With a partial FE in place the vendor could receive a partial down payment until the product arrived and was to the customers satisfaction. At that time the rest of the funds would be released.

In this scenario, a vendor could simply create a "deposit" listing, with the postage amount varying depending on what's being bought, the quantities, etc.
For example... Vendor wants to sell: 1oz of Cannabis at $250; 1g of Cocaine at £100. Lists the cannabis at $200/ 1oz and $75/ 1g for the Cocaine. The Deposit Listing's postage option for the 1oz listing of cannabis could be $50 USD, and requested to FE for. Total price of the deal would therefore be $250.
With the Cocaine, the deposit could be $25 and requested FE for, totalling $100. So in both examples, 25% is being required to FE

This would also attract customers because on the face of things, $200/ an ounce of cannabis is a good price. Obviously there's the extra costs.

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FE is such taboo around here and extra weight to a gamble already. 90% of the 10 page FE feedback I see ends up scamming users. Yet the vendors still at the time keep a top rating. We could weed out several bad cookies if they start noticing that number drop down.

I've already weeded out several scammers, or people with fake feedback. Its just common sense really.

If a vendor gets more than 300 transactions in 3 months or less, an alarm bell should ring. If most of the feedback is "FE" without any update as to the package being received, or a more thorough review, an alarm bell should ring. If there's no thread on the forums despite making lots of transactions, an alarm bell should ring. If the first two pages of feedback (from when the vendor was brand new) are one-line comments, an alarm bell should ring (as in 20 transactions from two pages, there should be at least one individual who leaves a more meaningful review spanning two lines or more).

It is food for thought, but I'm really not sure if we need any extra system to further complicate things. I avoid vendors who ask for FE, and so should everyone else because when a vendor sees their customers going elsewhere, to those who care enough not to require their buyers FE, they often change their policies anyway.

There are far better methods of conducting business than to request Finalise Early for whatever reason necessary.