Before making this marketplace we made a research and found out that all existing marketplaces on TOR are quite difficult to understand, user interface is non-friendly and also it is overload with different objects. So, the first thing came up: to make a marketplace with friendly, intuitive and clear user interface.
I guess everyone heard about The Big Evo exit scam when they took all users money and disappeared. If not – check the Google. Why did it happen? Of course Evo admins are dishonorable people but there is a fault in the marketplace business model itself.
What do you do when you want to order at marketplace? Register an account, fill it with your bitcoins and then make a purchase. In other words, you transfer all the money you expect to waste to the marketplace and they are stored there. If you need your money back ... you choose a withdraw option, right? That is where your money are in danger. Why do you have to store your money elsewhere, agree?
Taking this into account we decided to make a transparent payment system. How? Very simple! You do NOT register an account here to make a purchase and you do NOT store your coins at your account here. The whole buying process is as easy as 2*2: choose a vendor, choose a product, then click Checkout. There you will see an escrow wallet where you transfer your money. You will also find there your order ID. With that ID you can always check its status on View Order page as well as release the money to the vendor. In fact, there are much more functions on your order page but lets get back to the CLAY conception.
Next thing is necessary user registration. We said No to this too. We will explain. What was it made for? It was made to hide all the listings on the marketplace from feds and other bad people and make it possible for you to fill your account with coins, right? So, the second statement I explained above, lets focus on the first one. Why should we keep all the listings hidden if ANYONE can register? Whats the point? There is no point at all. Thats why we keep all the listings opened.
To keep our marketplace clear and good looking we ask every vendor to follow some simple rules how to formalize their listings. It allows listings to look quite the same and clear.
Now lets talk about the anonymity and safety. The main thing on TOR. We do not require a PGP signature to encrypt your address, we do not require it for internal communication with the seller. Why? Well, you still can encrypt your messages, we do not forbid that, it is up to you, but this is not necessary because of the encryption of ALL server data using an AES 256bit standard. All your communication with the seller is stored locally, it is encrypted too. Javascript is not needed here too!
At checkout you will be asked to think of a password that will be used to encrypt ALL YOUR ORDER DATA. When you need to see that, you enter your order ID, pin and the system decrypts it and shows it to you.
To sum up, the main conception of CLAY is transparency and safety for both parties and especially the buyer.
This is a little HOW-TO guide to start:
Pick up a service and select the vendor and product you want.
Click on the Available and fill the details and Continue To Checkout button.
You will be then redirected to a payment page with your order summary. Check all the details and if everything is OK, then follow the instruction and transfer a certain Bitcoins to a provided wallet address. Once your payment is complete, vendor will get a notification and ship your order.
Copy somewhere or write down your ORDER ID. It is necessary for be able to manage your order and see its status.
On your order page you can see all the details and also the button to release money to the vendor and vote for him. He will not get anything until you get your account and click Release Money button. In case the account was delivered and it was invalid or you are not satisfied with that, there is a button called Start Dispute. After the examining the evidences Admins will refund your money.
Now each vendor has a timeframe: Preparation , Delivery and Inspection periods
Preparation means how long a vendor will prepare your order.
Delivery means how much time the delivery will take. If the vendor has several shipping options, they will be sorted from the fastest to the slowest.
Inspection means how much time the vendor gives you to try the product, check it and so on and so forth.
The Buyer must provide a valid wallet address when placing an order.
Each order has now Expiration Date. This date includes Preparation period, Delivery and Inspection periods. If the vendor fails to fulfill the order before that date ... you can click on Cancel and Refund button and get your money back. The payout takes 24 hours. That is designed to allow the vendor start a dispute in case the buyer is trying to scam by refunding a fulfilled order. Refunds are made automatically.
The order current status is now depicted on the colorful and clear timeline.
In case the vendor fulfills the order, there are the proofs of that like the tracking saying the delivery was successful but the buyer does not release the money from the escrow wallet, the vendor can start a dispute too. This should prevent the scam from the buyers side
Buyers can release the money at any time after the payment is confirmed.
Buyers can cancel the order and get a refund only when the delivery time has been expired.
We hope the new escrow engine will ease both buyers and vendors life. The first won't get nervous about their order status and may watch it on the Order page, the second won't get distracting on PMs from panic buyers.
This marketplace was made to be as easy and fast as possible. It has no additional registration, user panel and we do not require your money to be pre-loaded to our service unlike other marketplaces. This doesn't allow us to repeat the Big Evo Exit Scam. You pay exactly the price of the product.
See Rules and Multisig Escrow Instructions for more detailed information.
