We temporary put our website down till next year. May consider discontinuing the service.

This post has been edited by Sam Pat: Aug 30 2013, 08:45 PM

Sorry to say but with such a website name and design who dares to pay you more than RM1k...

We thought of that risk as well. If necessary, we will integrate Paypal into our website and charge sellers a higher rate.
While for the design, we will improve it from time to time. Right now, we focus more on the idea rather than the design. But certainly, the design would not be that teruk.

This post has been edited by Sam Pat: Aug 19 2013, 09:20 AM

What is to stop you from:

a) Not releasing the buyer's payment and pulling a fly-by-night?

b) Creating a phantom buyer and run off with the RM1000+ merchandise?

Everything ends up with the word "trust". Currently, we have a forum to let sellers to post their testimonies. That's the best way that we could think of to build our credibility. But still, we need to have a first batch of sellers to boost our marketplace. Without sellers, we are nothing.

Any recommendations on how to build our credibility would be greatly appreciated.

Regarding all the examples that you gave, nothing can stop us from doing that. But logically, it would be unworthy to invest thousands of dollars and months just to run off with thousands of dollars. The only exception is when we got famous and we run off with hundred thousands of dollars. Still, no one wanna ruin their companies' reputation after building it for so long. The long term benefit is worth more than the one-time run off. And it's risk free.

Sorry, but I fail to see how you have invested thousands of dollars and months.

Bland and unattractive website.
Lack of background information on the company or founders.
Zero listings (well, you are new but still...)

Thanks for the feedback. We will definitely add the background information on the company or founders.

While for the design, we try to keep everything as simple as possible for the sake of user experience. Maybe that's the reason for it to look bland. We will definitely improve the design from time to time.

"I fail to see how you have invested thousands of dollars and months."
It is true that such a website won't cost you thousands of dollars. But there are other additional costs: SSL certificate, dedicated IP address, hosting fees, Facebook ads fees, Google ads fees, Video ads , SEO optimization fees, etc. All would certainly add up to thousands of dollars.
While for "months", we admit that it was just us. Since we are new to the "internet field", it took some times for us to pick up all the basic knowledge about websites. Thus, it costs us months to come up with something like this. But for the pros, it may just take days to finish this.

Sometimes, things might be said as "too good to be true". Similar to the zero listing fees, people might see it as a scam. But, our main goal is to provide the most affordable marketplace in Malaysia while providing escrow service. Below are some reasons we charge zero listing fees:
1. To minimize our cost as we will have less transactions going on.
2. To distribute the cost proportionally to those who make more sales and those who make less sales.

If the fee is one of the reasons that deteriorates our credibility, we will definitely change it to a flat listing fees. (But I don't think that's the case)

This post has been edited by Sam Pat: Aug 19 2013, 04:15 PM

Tbh, it's not the lack of listing fees. For me personally, it's the RM1000 minimum floor and the lack of information to build credibility.

Simple is good, but being bland just screams "fraud".

Thanks for you personal feedback. If you could pinpoint the information that is lacking in our website, that would be great! We will definitely take your suggestions into consideration to build our credibility.

After reading your feedback, we are considering to lower down our minimum floor to RM380. That's the furthest we can go. The whole point of our website is to provide escrow service. We don't see a need for escrow for items that are less worthy. Plus, it is a way to minimize our cost as well.

Thanks again for all your personal opinions.

This post has been edited by Sam Pat: Aug 20 2013, 11:27 PM

While for the design, we will redesign it to make it look less bland. Will be done within this month. Hopefully by that time, you can give us a comment on that!

The escrow service needs to have a reputation much higher than the sellers. It should not have less, or equal reputation. That would be pointless. If the buyer does not trust the seller because the seller is not well known enough, and yet the buyer also do not know you either ...

The most obvious way is to get a ton of money (millions, or at least a few hundred thousand RM), rent expensive looking offices in an upscale place, hire designers to create a polished website, and have a large marketing campaign.

The website does not have an "about us". You want people to trust you, but there is no picture of your staff and your offices, no phone number for customers to call, no street address listed. People will wonder, what if YOU abscond with the money.

If your two founding partners are named Sam and Pat, I will suggest that you call your website pat-sam.com. Are you really not aware of what sam-pat means in Chinese?

If you have only 5 users, it's best to not show that and announce to the world "see how empty this place is, I only have 5 registered users". Can't it be turned off?

PS: Didn't the limit used to be RM500 and up? Now it's RM380 and up. Why not just remove the limit for now, since you don't have any business. Seeing the limit go down every week is sure to kill any interest. It projects a feeling of desperation, a company that's about to go out of business, "see how I'm slashing prices, but yet still get no customer, so I slash prices some more, every week". Well, you're not slashing prices, but slashing the limit, but the effect is the same.

Why is there a limit at all? If you're thinking, adminstrative costs would be too high and inefficient for low priced items, then you only need to structure your prices, so that it would be enough for you to cover costs on low priced items. Never mind if the seller need to pay RM20 fees on a sale of RM5. They will themselves realized that it is not cost effective.

Courier companies do not have a lower limit. "If your products are worth less than RM5, we're not going to send it". It's up to the sender/seller whether he wants to sell/send considering the fees you charge. You set your fees to cover your costs.

This post has been edited by dkk: Aug 21 2013, 11:56 AM