[thwayunion]

> What i'm going to describe isn't a solution to a problem the big guys have. They had enough sway with their vendors to get good systems. But for small guys like me, open access to automated systems would have been a god send.

I guess what I don't understand about this is the incentive structure for the vendor.

If the TAM opened by providing small guys with inventory files is big enough, just put a CSV in an S3 bucket or provide an API that's "free until abusive". No need for middleware and you can probably pay for decades of bandwidth before the middleware's cut comes even close to break-even. I work with a few small vendors, and this is basically what they do. No NFTs, blockchain, or other nonsense needed. File hosting+CSV solved the problem over a decade ago.

This part also doesn't make any sense to me:

> After I get enough of these, I can trade them in for a volume rebate. This let's the small vendors get access to effectively what is a volume discount.

The real question is: how many of these vendors even want to work with the small guys?

In B2B, nontrivial volume discounts are justifiable due to a downstream entity's ability to guarantee demand to the upstream supplier. It's a cash-flow thing. If a downstream consumer can guarantee they will buy a certain amount of product, I can take that to the bank (sometimes literally) and invest in growing the business. The reduced volatility and guaranteed demand is worth a 20% discount because it allows me to invest in growth with reduced risk.

Small businesses with JIT inventory and bursty sales are literally the exact opposite of what a small manufacturer wants. As a manufacturer, why would I give a bulk discount to the least attractive type of consumer?! It'd be literally paying for the privilege of taking on someone else's risk... I can understand why my counterparty would love post-facto bulk rebates, but why the heck would I as a manufacturer give them the pleasure of screwing me!?

[swalsh]

> just put a CSV in an S3 bucket or provide an API

It's more than JUST inventory. It's inventory, orders, and volume discounts. I don't deny that you could build a bunch of s3 buckets, and API's to solve these problems. Of course you can, we've been doing it for 2 decades. But it's not a great solution. I've worked with them, it sucks. As a retailer I need to automate each one independently. My web3 solution gives a single interface for multiple vendors for each function. I believe my solution is simpler. It may not sound simpler because the tech underneath is somewhat complicated. But from a user point of view (as a retailer, and as a vendor) it's WAY easier. I think it's also SIGNIFICANTLY less work for the vendor to implement.

> Small businesses with JIT inventory and bursty sales are literally the exact opposite of what a small manufacturer wants.

Does a vendor care if it's 1 large business or many small businesses in aggregate? It does if it has to deal with all the small guys. The main problem with dealing with many small vendors is the management of it all. This is my solution to making it trivial, so they can get the additional reach, without having to deal with a bunch of small entities.

My goal is to make it easier for small businesses to compete with big business (as in retailers). I think this technology can solve some of the problems that previously made it not worth the time for vendors.

[thwayunion]

> It's inventory, orders, and volume discounts.

I see. That makes more sense.

The web3 angle seems like a red herring.

> It may not sound simpler because the tech underneath is somewhat complicated. But from a user point of view (as a retailer, and as a vendor) it's WAY easier. I think it's also SIGNIFICANTLY less work for the vendor to implement.

Easier than bespoke, sure. But a web2 platform custom-built for this purpose would surely be easier than web3. Both to implement and to sell to vendors. No?

> Does a vendor care if it's 1 large business or many small businesses in aggregate?

Well, you definitely care about your counter-party's credit risk and the cost to you of assessing that risk!

Cost of assessment: having one large counter-party vs. a ton of smaller counter-parties is a substantive difference even if they're identical credit risks.

Actual risk: In practice a good number of those small counter-parties are small shops that might keep close to zero capital in their business. Particularly in the case of eg drop-shipping. A typical drop shipper is literally more risky than the end consumer! So counterparty's credit risk is wildly different. A bunch of worthless LLCs running on razor thin margins with very little cash in the bank vs. a large well-capitalized company with significant assets.

> My goal is to make it easier for small businesses to compete with big business (as in retailers). I think this technology can solve some of the problems that previously made it not worth the time for vendors.

Aggregating demand is a useful role for an intermediary, but the real product is financial services rather than information services. Playing the role of either auditor or guarantor for aggregated larger purchasing promises made by smaller entities would certainly be a real financial service for which you could charge a reasonable fee (ie take a cut of the discount). But still the vendor doesn't care. They just treat you as the large well-capitalized client. And your customers are the smaller consumers.

[ElevenLathe]

> Easier than bespoke, sure. But a web2 platform custom-built for this purpose would surely be easier than web3. Both to implement and to sell to vendors. No?

Even better, if your goal is to promote competition rather than just make money: publish an open standard that can be implemented by anyone. Might not be much more than a specific set of columns that a CSV has to have to be considered an OpenVendorMagick(tm) inventory endpoint.

[swalsh]

In practice, web3 has proven to be more open and composable than web2. I guess in theory web2 could start coordinating with each other. But it just doesn't seem to happen often. On the other hand web3 companies have shown to be extremely interoperable. Whitnessing this was one of the first things that made me go "there's something here".

[swalsh]

The financial services aspect is something I'm also aware of. That's in a way what I want referring to when I said it has defi benefits. It's another example where the big guys have an advantage, but I think crypto can even the playing field (my main concern there is I suspect it would be legally classified as a security)