Hello everyone. My name is Makana Edwards and I'm a software developer located in Florida. I recently began to imagine a type of platform that is not just different, but also provides an answer for the question, "where should I put this?," which often ends in the disposal or even hoarding of none essential items. This answer seeks to resolve the wastefulness of consumerism and tackle our ecological footprint issue. The solution is simple; it's bartering.

Our platform, Bartr, creates a market that intelligently matches users based on product availability, product price, user interests, location, and other data points to create a system that can seamlessly provide favorable trades to our users. How will this work? When a user list an item on our platform it goes through an automated review process. This process utilizes machine learning to determine item market price(affected by item condition), shipping rate, and also product type. For less retrievable data such as condition of an item, the user will provide that information themselves. After a listing is complete and is made public, users with an interest in that particular item will be shown that and other similar items. Every user on our platform must have at least one listing to initiate trades.

Once a user receives a trade request, they may choose one or more items belonging to the sender of the trade request. If they don't have interest in any of the items offered in the trade, then the trade can be denied or vise versa.(A user that sends the request must also approve items selected by the other trader). Once both users are satisfied with the trade, the trade will execute. They will have 3 days to ship the items from their local UPS using the shipping labels generated during the trade execution. For basic users, shipping will be paid by the user, along with a small trading fee (3%). Paid plans will provide shipping rates from 50% off up to free shipping(Not including trading fee)

As you can see, this platform design is rather complicated and will require a lot of development. This is why sponsorship is so important. Once sponsored, we'll be able to create an innovative way to trade online and alleviate the environmental affects of online consumerism.

Makana Edwards
Bartr Trading Platform