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Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

(openship.org)
49 points theturtletalks | 1 comments | 12 Dec 25 18:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

I'm building an open source Amazon.

In other words, an open source decentralized marketplace. But like Carl Sagan said, to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

So first I had to make open source management systems for every vertical. I'm launching the first one today, Openfront e-commerce, an open source Shopify alternative. Next will be Openfront restaurant, Openfront grocery, and Openfront gym.

And all of these Openfronts will connect to our decentralized marketplace, "the/marketplace", seamlessly. Once we launch other Openfronts, you'll be able to do everything from booking hotels to ordering groceries right from one place with no middle men. The marketplace simply connects to the Openfront just like its built-in storefront does.

Together, we can use open source to disrupt marketplaces and make sure sellers, in every vertical, are never beholden to them.

Marketplace: https://marketplace.openship.org

Openfront platforms: https://openship.org/openfront-ecommerce

Source code: https://github.com/openshiporg/openfront

Demo - Openfront: https://youtu.be/jz0ZZmtBHgo

Demo - Marketplace: https://youtu.be/LM6hRjZIDcs

Part 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32690410

Show context
onion2k ◴[13 Dec 25 21:51 UTC] No.46258481[source]▶
I'm building an open source Amazon.

No you're not. Amazon is not the software that runs the website. 'Amazon' is the millions of relationships that Amazon has with suppliers and customers. It's the strong brand, the trust that people have that they can shop there safely, the sheer scale of the operation meaning that products are about as cheap as possible and will arrive when Amazon say they will. It's the ease of using an invisible, massively optimized chain of systems from a pretty basic app.

You can't build a new (and hopefully better) Amazon by copying the software. You need to work out how to get sellers and buyers to come to your site before they go Amazon, then build that thing so they do. How good the software is and whether it's open source of not probably doesn't matter. Better software is never going to be enough of a reason for people to switch away from Amazon.

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theturtletalks ◴[13 Dec 25 22:30 UTC] No.46258829[source]▶
Yeah, you're right. Amazon isn't really about the software at this point. It's the lock-in. Sellers can't leave without losing all their reviews, rankings, and years of optimization. That's the moat.

I'm not building better software to compete directly with Amazon. I'm building infrastructure that sellers can truly own, so lock-in stops being such a powerful moat.

Traditional marketplaces charge 15-30% because they provide checkout, payments, and the customer database. But if stores already own that infrastructure, the only thing you really need is discovery. And discovery doesn't have to cost anything.

Our marketplace is essentially just a directory. Stores keep their own checkout and process their own payments. We query their API and render the results conversationally. And because the code is open source, if we ever became like Amazon, anyone could fork it and launch a competing directory.

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1. aforwardslash ◴[14 Dec 25 07:14 UTC] No.46261343[source]▶
Traditional marketplaces provide a range of services, from unified delivery to complete logistics management. They also provide all the kyc filtering and fraud screening that quite lowers the merchant risk.

On top of that, many of them provide additional assurances, like vendor screening and easy dispute resolution on fraudulent operations.

The catalog and the checkout are the easy part.