top of page
Anton Pirker

Free Startup Idea: Reverse Amazon

I own way too much stuff. I guess I am not alone. Literally everyone I know has too much stuff. 


Accumulating stuff is easy: 

Whenever I "need" something I go to Amazon, order it, and on the next day or so someone brings new stuff to me.


Getting rid of stuff is hard: 

Whenever I want to get rid of something, I take some nice pictures of the thing, do some online research on a fair price for the used thing, write a nice description, and put everything on eBay (or Craigslist, or Willhaben here in Austria). After that, I need to communicate with some possible buyers, re-negotiate the price, and make an appointment when the buyer can come to pick up the thing. (Or I need to package the thing and bring it to a post office to send it to the buyer.) 

I could also throw the thing into the trash, but most of the stuff I want to get rid of is still perfectly fine. It would just be such a waste to throw it away, I do not have the heart to do something like this.


The solution: Reverse Amazon


Imagine this: I want to get rid of some stuff. I take one picture of the thing with an app. On the same day, someone comes to my place and picks the thing up. When the thing is sold I get the money wired to my bank account.


This would be so convenient! 


You would probably need some warehouse of sorts where you bring the stuff to take pictures and sell online. You also can have a network of buyers who are constantly looking for a certain category of items. You also could have a "if not sold in 2 weeks, please donate to people in need" feature. You could also have a physical store for the stuff. The people picking up the stuff could be gig workers like the food delivery persons. You probably have to think about some fraud detection. If my stuff can not be sold or donated, I will not get money but will have to pay for its disposal.


Could someone please build this? I can be a beta tester, early adopter, and evangelist! 

Recent Posts

See All

How to Refactor and Not Break Things

I am one of the maintainers of the Sentry Python SDK. In the SDK, we completed a huge refactoring, and I want to write down how we pulled...

Comments


bottom of page