Introduction
Currently TMW has no built-in system for facilitating commerce. This is a collection of ideas for helping to realize such a system. First, let's start with use-case scenarios.
Use-case scenarios
Scenario 1
I am trying to acquire an item. I want to see what the offers are, so others must be able to offer to sell items for specific payment. If I don't like any of the offers, or can't find one, I can make my own offer for something in exchange for the item I need.
Scenario 2
I want to sell items of type X. If there are offers of money or something else I like, in exchange for X, I can accept the best one and make an immediate sell. If no offers look promising, I can make an offer of my choosing.
Concept
So basically, this system will consist of a way to place or accept a "trade offer". A trade offer has all the features of a normal trade: the exchange can include money or items on either side of it.
On the server side, a database of trade offers will reside.
On the client side, a person, is allowed to place, lookup, and accept trade offers. When a person places a trade offer, the offered items will be immediately taken from the him and put in the trade offer, which will be added to the database on the server side. When a person wants to buy something, they will open the window of trade offers, find one they want, and accept it. When they accept a trade offer, their paid items will then be immediately taken and mailed to the person who placed the offer, while the items in the trade offer will be given to the offer's acceptor.
It's basically a way for two people to trade asynchronously, that is, each person fullfills their end of the trade at their own time, rather than both together at the same time, which is synchronous.
Advantages
- This is a very simple system, in that a simple trade offer can be used to either buy or sell -- no need to implement buying and selling separately, since the only difference between the two is what is exchanged.
Disadvantages
- Doesn't provide for auctioning.
