It sounds like you were facing a really tough competitive landscape. Throwing in the towel sounds like a wise thing to have done.
One thing I didn't totally get from the post is what exactly you were trying to improve about the shopping experience? It seems like there is a lot of room for improvement for both buyers and sellers. Could you have vetted sellers and/or tried to answer inane questions from buyers yourselves (acting like a web cache for popular requests), saving both parties the pain of waiting for a response? What if you offered some kind of reputation service? I'm sure you thought about this stuff, and I'm not saying any of this is easy. I just would be curious to hear more about how you thought through finding real, sticky product-market fit.
It sounds like you were facing a really tough competitive landscape. Throwing in the towel sounds like a wise thing to have done.
One thing I didn't totally get from the post is what exactly you were trying to improve about the shopping experience? It seems like there is a lot of room for improvement for both buyers and sellers. Could you have vetted sellers and/or tried to answer inane questions from buyers yourselves (acting like a web cache for popular requests), saving both parties the pain of waiting for a response? What if you offered some kind of reputation service? I'm sure you thought about this stuff, and I'm not saying any of this is easy. I just would be curious to hear more about how you thought through finding real, sticky product-market fit.