Copious, which will compete with eBay, Craiglist and Etsy in the saturated online marketplace arena, requires its buyers and sellers to connect their accounts to Facebook and be transparent in their onsite actions -- purchases, shares and comments on for-sale items included.
The site eradicates anonymity from its ecommerce experience. Here, privacy is replaced with trust and transparency, or so the startup contends.
"Building around real identity means no more anonymous transactions between aliases, no more sifting through reviews from equally anonymous third-parties, and no more recommendations based solely on what you’ve bought in the past," says Copious co-founder and COO Jonathan Ehrlich.
Ehrlich, previously head of marketing at Facebook, seems keen on building for the same audience. "We’re creating a marketplace for the Facebook era, with an experience that’s organized around people first, products second," he says.
Ideally, buyers get a better idea of who they're buying from. They'll also get more insight on what their social network friends are buying, sharing and commenting on.
Sellers, meanwhile, will have the opportunity to showcase their expertise on Copious and across the web. Eventually, a seller's Twitter account, blog or presence in product forums will factor into his "Copious signal," a set of five bars, similar in appearance to a carrier's network signal, included alongside his profile.
Sellers can also price their wares to reward social behaviors. A seller could, for instance, offer buyers a discounted price for sharing a listing with Facebook contacts, or a reduced charge for following the seller on Copious. Sellers, in addition to being subject to the mandatory identity clause, are charged a flat 10% transaction fee per sale.
At launch, Copious will start with handpicked sellers in the handbags category. Additional categories will be opened in the days ahead.
Founded in January 2011, San Francisco-based Copious has raised $2 million in funding from Foundation Capital, Google Ventures, BlackBerry Partners Fund and several Facebook Angels.
