District Proposal: Distributed Import / Export Market Place

[stevejaxon]

Name of District

Portare /por·tà·re/

Purpose

To explore a new opportunity for the creation of a decentralised, trusted, ad-hoc marketplace for the, legal, importing / exporting of luxury or hard-to-come-by goods.

Description

If you have ever been an Expat or just travelled for a reasonable amount of time, then you might be familiar with the feeling of missing some item, a creature comfort, from home that it is not possible to buy where you are currently.

Or perhaps you have found out that a friend is travelling to/from a country where a, luxury, non-perishable item that you desire can be found at a much cheaper price; so you have asked them to purchase that item on your behalf and bring it back with them e.g.

• Perhaps you are travelling back from Norway (where the items in the airport are completely tax-free) to say Sweden (where alcohol has to be bought from the government-owned, monopoly of Systembolaget shops at an inflated price) and a friend is having a party, so they ask you to buy some alcohol (using your, generous, legally allowed quota) on return journey.
• You might live in the UK and a friend is travelling back from America (where it is possible to buy Apple products at a substantial discount), so you ask them to bring one back with them.

Maybe in a far off country, you have seen that there are exotic items (handcrafted trinkets, artwork, collectables etc.) that it is normally either too difficult, too expensive or takes too long to import the item across half the globe in order to justify purchasing them.

What I am proposing is that given the amount of flights or cross-continent journeys that happen every day, that there is an opportunity for those people travelling to provide a service, as part of their journey, and be paid for it.

That the cost in terms of both money and time for providing the service of purchasing and delivering an item could be cheaper than through traditional mechanisms.

That since these journeys are already being made, that there might be some reduction in terms of pollution and carbon footprint as well.

Why District0x?

A marketplace built upon Ethereum helps to solve some of the inherent problems with global, distributed, trustless systems - for example

Introducing Trust

The courier initially takes on a lot of risk when they offer to buy an item on behalf of someone else. With a Smart Contract escrow account, a customer can show that they have the available funds and make clear that they are serious about the transaction - without the need of a third party.

When we get to a point where the use of cryptocurrencies becomes ubiquitous, it may also be possible for the courier to prove to the customer that they have carried out the purchase - and are following the steps to carrying out their end of the bargain (a similar mechanism to how a provenance tracking system works).

Reputation and Identity

Both the customer and the courier take on some element of risk when they enter the agreement, but a cross-platform reputation system based on an Ethereum address or Public key could be used to mitigate some of this risk.

Challenges

• Import duties might apply to the good and this would have to be factored into the Bids / Offers.
• There will need to be further thought put into how to add trust, and safety, to the final delivery of the goods to the Customer.
  • The reputation system could play a part in the solution.
  • In a similar way that parcels can be left in Amazon Lockers, at Doddle booths, shops etc. a third party could help to resolve some of the issues.
  • To avoid the illegal use of the platform - it becoming another Silk Road

stevejaxon

[joeyurgz]

The Amazon lockers idea seems like the way to go. Lockers combined with slock.it's remote access control solution could be useful combo here.

[tfg615]

As someone who loves to travel and tends to find things of great value you cannot get back home, this may be my favorite proposal thus far. I was just in Barcelona and came across an incredible open air art gallery of sorts. It was in a small corner courtyard surrounded by coffee and food shops, lined with ancient cobblestones and flavorful art merchants. With 25+ vendors there wasn't enough time on the 7 day trip to look through all of the beautiful art.

A project like this could take those unique, community-run 'districts' (pardon the intentional pun) you often see in the most beautiful parts of Europe and transport them all over the world. Major upvotes on this one my friend, great idea.

[abonn]

Very useful idea for those who travel! How would you plan on getting users though? I see this as one of the biggest barriers for these systems, as their utility is reliant on a large network of users.

[AngeloAdam]

@stevejaxon please send me a direct message on district slack regarding your proposal. @angelo