Show HN: Get a list of your Amazon purchases and see what you can sell them for

https://www.shelfflip.com

by ChristianKletzl • 12 years ago

87 105 12 years ago

shelfflip.com

cm2012• 12 years ago

Awesome business model and setup.

StephanKletzl4• 12 years ago

Thanks for your comment, I am glad you like it. (PS: No, the parent comment was not a self-promotion by us - I swear)

dewey• 12 years ago

Looks nice, but it just feels a bit weird to enter your amazon password with linked credit cards and bank accounts on another site. I'm aware that there's probably no better way of accessing that purchase history data but it's just something people are preaching for years shouldn't be done.

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

Agreed. However, even with your credentials, we wouldn't be able to access your credit card number (Amazon hides it). Additionally, if we would want to order anything in your name, but our address, we would have to reconfirm the credit card number, which we don't have.

JelteF• 12 years ago

This should be right there at the sign in screen. This is info people don't know, but will give them a lot safer feeling using your site.

falcolas• 12 years ago

You could, however, spin up or down EC2 instances associated with that account. You could easily destroy a business with this information, or bankrupt a person (well, Amazon is usually pretty good about forgiving accidental charges, but imagine explaining to them how someone got your credentials).

bearbin• 12 years ago

This seems like a cool idea, but I don't feel comfortable giving out my Amazon credentials with no guarantee of how they are used.

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

Is there anything we could do to make you (and many more with the same sentiment) more comfortable? We are thinking of writing a blog post of what happens in the background would that help? Any other ideas?

cleverjake• 12 years ago

A giant "Why we are asking for this" would be a great start

mileswu• 12 years ago

Just an off-the-top-of-my-head idea: Could you give people a bookmarklet or an extension that they can run when they are on their order history page that exports all the Amazon product IDs?

pdabbadabba3• 12 years ago

I'm not sure, but Mint.com seems like a good place to look for ideas. They have somehow persuaded me and millions of others to hand over all our banking passwords.

Gaining this trust, though, will probably not be easy. One advantage a site like Mint has is that they have so much content and so many partnerships that it is clear they are not a scam, have enough at stake to not misuse my information, and probably have the resources to keep it safe. A site like yours, however, could easily have been cobbled together in a number of hours by a scammer. (I don't mean this as a criticism -- I actually like your site. It just doesn't have anything on it to suggest that you are the sort of business I can trust with my passwords.)

res0nat0r• 12 years ago

Is there any OAuth way of authorizing this?

There is no way I'm giving out my Amazon creds which also house AWS, Amazon Payments, Amazon Sellercentral, etc...

Much more cumbersome for users but I see a report option where you can generate .csv's of every item you ordered, maybe those could be uploaded to your service, but unfortunately if I can't use this service without handing over my creds I'm not going to use it.

loumf2• 12 years ago

There is absolutely nothing you could say or do that would make me give you my password. Also, I assume, you need to store it in the clear to use it.

You claim to not have access to credit card information or being able to order something, but I already have to trust you to believe that claim. Also, Amazon could change their policies at any time -- after all you have credentials, Amazon could decide to trust you.

twalling• 12 years ago

I'd try ingesting the order history report one can create at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

nsxwolf• 12 years ago

Make this a project I can download and run entirely on my local machine.

DanBC• 12 years ago

Is there anything we could do to make you (and many more with the same sentiment) more comfortable?

No. Asking people to give out their passwords is fucking horrific. You can't do anything with Amazon, but bad_guy could do something with $other_service and you're just encouraging people to be lazy with passwords.

It's hard enough to get people to choose good passwords and not store them in stupid ways.

pdabbadabba3• 12 years ago

Agreed. My understanding is that having your password does not necessarily allow someone to see your CC number or order things on your behalf through Amazon, but it definitely does not seem like a best practice to go around handing out one's Amazon password. This sort of thing sounds like a good argument, though, for Amazon's implementing the sort of fine-grained permissions (in conjunction with a federated authentication system like oauth) one finds on twitter, FB, Google, and other services with a well-developed API and ecosystem. I would happily authorize a site like this to view my order history, even if I would not be willing to provide my password.

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

I wish Amazon would implement this. We see them visiting our site a lot. If you read this, dear Amazon employee, please implement :)

sliverstorm2• 12 years ago

Also highly risky is AWS. Maybe an attacker can't order diamond rings for themselves, but they certainly could spin up a million EC2 instances to mine bitcoin.

The cost efficiency is terrible of course, but what do they care.

schrodinger6• 12 years ago

How could having your password not allow someone to order things on your behalf? All I need to get into my account is my password, and then I can order anything I want.

melvinmt• 12 years ago

Amazon already has an OAuth solution: http://login.amazon.com

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, this only works as a login mechanism comparable to facebook, but doesn't give a site access to your past purchases.

gnu8• 12 years ago

Would it help you to know that Shelflip is secured by Norton secured and ex-Google Engineers?

justinph• 12 years ago

No. You can put anything you want in text or graphics on the screen. You need to send people to a secure amazon.com login page and pass an OAuth token.

wpietri• 12 years ago

"Secured by Norton" has about the same ring for me as "nutrition by McDonald's".

mcfunley• 12 years ago

How many ex-google engineers are there? Tens of thousands? They can't all be any good.

canvia• 12 years ago

I wonder why more sites don't allow you to create a second read only set of credentials for your account. This would solve a lot of trust issues when using a service like this or say for online banking services like Mint. If you want to stream Netflix/Amazon from an insecure computer would be another use case.

pnathan• 12 years ago

Word. I am not giving my Amazon credentials to a site that just launched.

balor123• 12 years ago

Maybe get the purchase history another way? Use the new Gmail API to search for the Amazon emails. Could easily extend to other stores as well.

loumf2• 12 years ago

Or use this

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

I know it puts some burden on the customer, but as a fallback, it's better than losing them.

StephanKletzl4• 12 years ago

We tried it ... however, the steps (go to Amazon, download the history, search it in your downloads folder and upload it on ShelfFlip) was a bit too confusing - so we don't offer that option (at the moment).

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

Great idea. We have that actually implemented, but are currently not displaying it. Unfortunately people are even less likely to give a website access to their emails, since this often means giving access to pretty much everything (through "I forgot my password" emails)

MichaelGG• 12 years ago

Amazon has order reports, do they not? Why not just allow importing of that?

izzydata• 12 years ago

Unfortunately I agree with everyone else and I was immediately wary when it asked me for my amazon credentials. There must be a better way to get this information.

Also these prices make no sense for when I search items directly. How can a flawless Nexus 7 2013 be worth only $70? Where can I buy them all?

slig• 12 years ago

How can a flawless Nexus 7 2013 be worth only $70? Where can I buy them all?

It's worth $70 to them. They are buying to resell, and they can pay a lower price for the convenience of getting the item from your house and paying you instantly.

One can always sell it on eBay/craigslist and get a bigger price, but you'll have to deal with buyers, scammers, shipping, etc. It boils down to how much your time is worth and/or how fast you need the money.

StephanKletzl4• 12 years ago

Pricing is definitely one of our challenges. We are currently paying prices of around 80% of what we think is a fair amazon market value, while giving the user a hassle-free sales experience. (Our prices are not manually entered but automatically calculated [e.g. based on price on Amazon, prices on other recommerce sites, ...]) This (almost) always leads to prices that are higher than Gazelle's or NextWorth's while also offering the convenience of getting paid within 24 hours. (in SF)

azurelogic• 12 years ago

I had a bad feeling as soon as I saw the "Let's find out button". When my fears were confirmed, I immediately closed the tab.

You HAVE to find a better way to do this. People are becoming increasingly aware of the risks of this kind of behavior on malicious sites, and potential users will walk away out of paranoia.

It's a great idea, if you can find another way.

donall2• 12 years ago

I'm curious about the algorithm. Is there a ceiling for book prices? I seemed to get very similar results for multiple different types of books, including being offered $3.21 for one that sells for $100:http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0575066601?pc_redir=1405401886...

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

There is no ceiling in place (I need to look into why different books show similar results). For the mentioned book, there's a difference between for how much it is offered and for how much it is bought (if someone wants $100, it doesn't mean that anyone is buying it for that price)

Scanning 44 other book-buying sites, only 3 are buying that book and the price is between $0.12 and $3.97

donall2• 12 years ago

Makes sense. I didn't realize you had multiple sources, but I'm glad you do!

saddestcatever• 12 years ago

I'm curious to see where the pricing structure is coming from.

For example: Apple MacBook Pro ME864LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (NEWEST VERSION) $382.32

It's a compelling business idea, and I understand there's a need to generate a profit, yet the math seems a little off.

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

I looked into this and the price is now $472. (HN traffic is stress-testing our pricing engine) For this item, we relied on Amazon's trade-in price, which we want to get away from very soon. (because the prices are too low, imho)

silentbob46• 12 years ago

After giving this a try, I got an email from Amazon saying they've reset my password because I "may have been subject to a 'phishing' scam".

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

I am really sorry to hear that. We've experienced that once or twice before. This happens when the phone number associated with the account doesn't match the one you entered. Unfortunately, Amazon sometimes asks for an old phone number, as long as that number has at one point been associated with your account. ShelfFlip definitely doesn't do anything scammy.

JustSomeNobody• 12 years ago

I don't think you are, but if you were doing something scammy, would you _really_ admit to it?

fursund• 12 years ago

This is a really good idea! I'd say Amazon isn't the only place I buy stuff, so adding places like Target, IKEA, etc. would be great!

JadoJodo• 12 years ago

For what it's worth, I did this and it prompted Amazon to reset my password due to suspected phishing attempts.

meritt• 12 years ago

Is this obtaining pricing via the Product Advertising API or is it doing via more traditional scraping (e.g. website or mobile app)?

martingordon3• 12 years ago

When you sign up, your Amazon email and password are sent to server using GET and so are visible in the URL. While the request is done over HTTPS (and traffic snoopers can't see it), it is very likely that there are a ton of Amazon credentials lying around unencrypted in a log somewhere on their server.

For some reason, the "Norton Secured" badge makes me less likely to trust the site and looking at the inline, not very well written Javascript gives me even less confident that the guys behind this site have the technical chops to keep my data secure.

jggonz• 12 years ago

I agree. The use of the Norton Secured badge made me quickly leave the site.

A possible solution:

There's a "Login with Amazon" service that may be what the developer needs to be using: http://login.amazon.com/

martingordon3• 12 years ago

According to one of the founders, "Login with Amazon" doesn't grant access to a user's Amazon account.[1] If they were using it, there would be no need to ask for users' passwords.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8070310

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

A/B testing showed that the Norton security badge is perceived positively. Does anyone have a different experience?

jflowers45• 12 years ago

Wow ... good call on the logs ... curious to hear whether they plan to change from GET to POST. Still wouldn't be comfortable, but seems like something they should do, like right now

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

thanks for the information. looking into this right now (and preemptively deleted the logs)

ElComradio• 12 years ago

For the public at large, that badge is likely to increase trust, and certainly few outside the tech community are going to be concerned with poor JS.

disc: not implying you would disagree with any of the above.

jngreenlee2• 12 years ago

Can you briefly explain how to analyze for that, using non-dev tools like Chrome Inspector? I used 'Inspect Element', but found 'Post' on the popup form:

schrodinger6• 12 years ago

http://i.imgur.com/06580e9.png

This is from chrome developer tools, network tab

bambax• 12 years ago

in a log somewhere on their server

As well as on Amazon's logs, which aren't meant to hold customers' passwords. This is bad, bad, bad (interesting idea though).

Practicality• 12 years ago

The simple login prompt for a different site is terrifying. Even if you can be trusted today, are you sure you won't hire an employee tomorrow who will sell all those passwords for fun and profit?

elyrly• 12 years ago

odd they would release it on hacker news with this flaw.

thekevan• 12 years ago

Not only would I echo the "give a website my Amazon creds" argument, but what if I want to sell things I haven't bought from Amazon and/or (like me) you don't really buy things on Amazon?

I have lots of things I would like to sell and declutter, but none of them are from Amazon.

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

You can also sell products that you haven't bought on Amazon - if we show a price, then we are buying it (you can search for books / electronics here: www.shelfFlip.com/search.php).

ChristianKletzl16• 12 years ago

---UPDATE---

@everyone: Want us to email you as soon as we have a password-free way to import your purchases? (for example through csv import)

Shoot me an email to christian@shelfflip.com (subject: "shelfflip passwordfree")

schrodinger6• 12 years ago

You should really do the right thing and takes this down until then.

StephanKletzl4• 12 years ago

We offered a password-free option but it was too complicated (and thus, the users preferred the current option). We'll likely add the other option in the future (but only as an addition to the current option).

schrodinger6• 12 years ago

Honestly, this is unethical.

You should not be collecting peoples' usernames and passwords, being a software engineer aware of the consequences, regardless of whether users are willing to give them up.

There are so many things that can go wrong, even if you've got the best of intentions.

cnaut• 12 years ago

I don't feel comfortable giving my amazon login credentials like a lot of people here. I think Unioncy (https://unioncy.com/) has an interesting solution to this. They parse your emails for amazon receipts to figure out your amazon purchases.

billsinc• 12 years ago

What about going the "TripIt" route and let people forward their email receipts? You could parse and let people populate their accounts that way. I think you can even request old receipts for ones you've deleted.

nigo• 12 years ago

Although this is a useful service, the Amazon Security team may block your site. Even if your site is trustworthy, this increases Amazon's liability for phishing attacks on other phishing sites.

WWKong• 12 years ago

I saw a form asking for my Amazon password and noped out of there. I really want to try the service, but how do we solve for this trust issue?

BrandonY• 12 years ago

What is your Amazon.com password?

If this were Reddit, this is the point where I would attach a hilarious GIF of some animal running away with the text "NOPE" all over it.

meraku• 12 years ago

Asking me to enter my Amazon username and password makes this a complete non-starter. Might be the best idea in the world, but I'm not going to risk handing over my credentials for something as sensitive as my Amazon account to make a few extra bucks on some old stuff. There's just not enough risk-reward there for me (though with all due respect and in all honesty, it's unlikely there would ever be enough reason for me to hand over my credentials to some random startup)

sami_b• 12 years ago

At first I thought this was a prank to see if I would easily give up my amazon credentials. Fool me once...actually not this time.

Kluny• 12 years ago

A site that is not Amazon asked for my Amazon username and password. Uh, nope the fuck out of here. That account has access to my credit card information and home address.

SethKinast• 12 years ago

I can't believe anyone would put their Amazon password into a third-party site. I clicked on the link, started through the login funnel, realized what I was about to do, and stopped.

When I got the "Are you sure?" message, I started thinking that the site was specifically crafted to show how easy it is to get people to give passwords to a "reputable-looking" third party.

I expected to get some sort of congratulatory message after saying no, like "You're smart enough to not give us your password!" When I didn't get that, I came back to the HN comments, expecting to see an explanation from OP about this proof of concept.

Then I see it's supposed to be a real site. Well then.

xur17• 12 years ago

Great idea! I'm guessing you're checking the resale price on Amazon, and giving a price based on that?

I got frustrated with the process of listing / selling items on Amazon (I imagine a lot of it could be automated), and looked around for a service like this (and then added it to my 'side-project' idea list).

I'll give it a shot next time I get rid of stuff.

vermooten• 12 years ago

yeah right, I'm totally going to give you my credentials. You from Nigeria by any chance?

dgurson• 12 years ago

Thank you for taking the hassle out of reselling my items. I think this is a great idea!

Show HN: Get a list of your Amazon purchases and see what you can sell them for

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