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Ask HN: Is there any interest in a “curated” online store?

5 points by TravisSc6tt ↗ HN
I'm currently working on a side project. Is there any interest in a website that directs you to trusted online stores based on what you're looking for? For example, if you search "oven mitt" it will bring up results from Bed Bath & Beyond and Target (or some other "trusted" store). If you search for "headphones" it will bring up results directly from headphone manufacturer websites.

My motivation for this project is to solve the problem of fake products on Amazon and eBay, but I'm not sure how big a problem this is for other people. (Please be as skeptical as possible!)

11 comments

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kootling
Interesting but I don't think anyone would use it.
ColinWright
Why would someone trust the proposed site? I search for "Filing Drawers" and it makes a recommendation ... why would I trust those recommendations rather than Amazon or eBay?

Trust is a difficult problem to solve ... any one can put up a website with search results and claim that they are trustworthy.

TravisSc6tt
That's a good point. Initially I would only include big-name stores. If you searched for filing drawers you may see results from Office Depot, Staples, or directly from whoever makes filing drawers. When you order from those websites, you know you're getting a product shipped directly from them. When you order from Amazon, you don't know who is selling you the product (more often than not it's from a third-party seller).
brudgers
If I want a filing drawer from Office Depot, I can just go to the Office Depot website. And if I want an oven mitt from Walmart, I can just go to Walmart. By which I mean that there's not much curation going on because at the scale of everything from filing mitts to oven drawers there can't be.

Curation of oven-mitt offerings means that there's someone who is obsessed with oven-mitts sorting through all the different offerings. If it scales it isn't curation.

TravisSc6tt
I see what you're saying, but I'm not curating products--I'm curating online stores on which users can then find products. Does that make sense?
brudgers
I understand what you are doing. It makes sense in the sense that it's easy. And it makes sense in the sense that there are a myriad of webscraping "middleman" services so there's probably a business there.

However, to me, it's not curation in a meaningful sense because big box stores sell the same white label oven mitts from the same factories as Amazon. And for oven mitts and filling drawers fakes aren't a problem when purchasing from Amazon.

It's not clear to me, what problem it would solve. But I wish you all success.

leon_sbt
I think there is a pretty large interest in something like this. But I don't think it will as simple/automated as you would like.

At the minimum, you would need to test/review each product. Provide truly valuable insights, and touch/feel each product side by side.

There are several people that do this in their respective niches, and make a quite a good living for themselves. But keep in mind it took them years of doing it for fun and acquiring taste before anything worked out.

Based on your original post, if I visited the site.It would feel like one of those low quality affiliate link stuff websites.

But if you add some truly valuable insight,data etc. It could be worth it.

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