[Lab] Introducing TugBits.com - a marketplace for makers.

[Darcy Whyte]

The site looks nice.

25%? You might find that wanting 1/4 of sale amounts will provide
significant friction to adoption (for buyers and sellers).

It doesn't have any measures for authenticity (ebay has reviews, web pages
have in-degree). How can buyers and sellers have as much confidence as they
have with ebay without those measures?

If a person were to list a product for sale on their own Web site, why would
your Web site sell more? Especially given that having a Web site is either
free or next to nothing and you keep all the revenue.

I clicked through to the "Domain Name Finder" product at your site.

What you've done there is avoided putting the name of the product in the
Title Metatag. You put your own buyline there instead. You also didn't put
product name or information in the H1 tag. In fact you have a blank H1 tag.

With that situation, it reduces the chance that someone can google the
product successfully.

So what would be the reason someone would list on your site rather than just
make a simple site of their own?

Darcy


On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 1:25 PM, Tom Burns <tom.i.burns at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd like to introduce the community to a website I've been working on with
> a few friends.  I would love to hear your feedback on the idea and the site,
> http://www.tugbits.com .
>
> Our dream goal is to help people quit their desk jobs and pay their bills
> doing what they love, making things.
>
> TugBits.com is a digital marketplace for makers.  You upload your design
> files, list them for sale, and collect money via PayPal when your item
> sells.  Likewise, you can use the site to find quality, reviewed designs
> suitable for printing on your 3d printer, milling on your CNC, running on
> your Arduino, etc.  Also suitable would be e-books, schematics, source code
> libraries and tools, etc.  Only after the PayPal transaction is the buyer
> able to download the files.  There are no physical items sold on the TugBits
> store, only files.
>
> Our goal is to help talented makers easily profit from their hard work.  We
> do not want to replace the existing "free/open source" model, but we want to
> augment it. We think that if you can get paid for your work it will compel
> you to go the extra step and make it that much better.  Market driven
> innovation.
>
> Registering and listing items is free.  We charge 25% of your gross revenue
> and bill monthly.  Depending on our costs and community feedback this number
> is probably going to change, but it's similar to the costs associated with
> putting an app on an app store or a musician listing with iTunes.
>
> Currently you can register on the site and list items for sale, which is
> what I would love for any of you interested to do.  We are in the final
> stages of getting PayPal to sign off on the site, at which point sellers
> will be able to collect money and items will be able to be sold.
>
> Please visit the site and let me know what you think!  Even if you hate it,
> please reply to tell me why.
>
> Thank you,
> Tom Burns
>
>
>
>
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