RIP Basenotes Marketplace - How can we get it right?

Hey Basenotes community,

I know I’m not alone in missing the Basenotes Marketplace—it was a great place for all of us to connect, buy, sell, and trade our favorite scents. However a couple of bad actors ruined it for us all. With it gone, I’ve been thinking a lot about what made it work so well and how we could possibly bring that experience back, but even better.

I'd love to hear from you all:

1. What did you love most about the old marketplace?
2. What were some of the challenges or frustrations you faced there?
3. How important is it for you to have a trusted, verified space for buying and selling fragrances?

I’m playing with some ideas on how we could fill this gap, but your input would be invaluable to making sure it’s something that really works for the community.

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

Silho

1. I had greater opportunity to purchase fragrances that wouldn't normally be available through other means such as eBay or Mercari.

2. The challenge there were the same I faced when purchasing elsewhere. Am I going to get ripped off? I never was ripped off, and I had great experiences on the old marketplace.

3. It's important to me because even when I purchased from highly rated eBayers I have been ripped off(not just for fragrances, though). I don't care for Mercari anymore because the site nickels and dimes the hell out of me with all those damn additional fees.

dealt7faux said:

1. I had greater opportunity to purchase fragrances that wouldn't normally be available through other means such as eBay or Mercari.

2. The challenge there were the same I faced when purchasing elsewhere. Am I going to get ripped off? I never was ripped off, and I had great experiences on the old marketplace.

3. It's important to me because even when I purchased from highly rated eBayers I have been ripped off(not just for fragrances, though). I don't care for Mercari anymore because the site nickels and dimes the hell out of me with all those damn additional fees.

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Thanks for sharing your experience! It's really insightful, and it highlights some of the exact challenges I’m aiming to solve with this platform. Like you, I’ve often found it frustrating to navigate the risks on bigger platforms, especially when it comes to rare and luxury scents. One more question

For you, what would be a non-negotiable for such a platform?

I loved the old marketplace not just for buying and selling but also just as a place to find new fragrances I had never heard of. Some benefits off the top of my head:

- Simplicity: there was just one marketplace, and it was presented all together as a text forum with no subcategories. This means that it was easy to "view all" without getting lost in filters and UI and the many 'features' that marketplace apps have. I just clicked on marketplace and saw everything people posted today, sorted by newest thread first. This also led to great Discoverability because you could see everything.

- Affordability: because all transactions were peer to peer there were typically no buying or selling fees, and trades were possible. At most you would pay 3% for PayPal goods and services. eBay is 10-13%, not sure how much Mercari is but likely around the same. Obviously this was the downfall because some people scammed and ruined it for everyone... I wonder if there could be some kind of "escrow" system where items are shipped to a trusted 3rd party which then releases the money after confirming the item.

- Accessibility: the marketplace was viewable by everyone online, no Facebook or basenotes account required. I believe this helped drive traffic to BN.

God said:

I loved the old marketplace not just for buying and selling but also just as a place to find new fragrances I had never heard of. Some benefits off the top of my head:

- Simplicity: there was just one marketplace, and it was presented all together as a text forum with no subcategories. This means that it was easy to "view all" without getting lost in filters and UI and the many 'features' that marketplace apps have. I just clicked on marketplace and saw everything people posted today, sorted by newest thread first. This also led to great Discoverability because you could see everything.

- Affordability: because all transactions were peer to peer there were typically no buying or selling fees, and trades were possible. At most you would pay 3% for PayPal goods and services. eBay is 10-13%, not sure how much Mercari is but likely around the same. Obviously this was the downfall because some people scammed and ruined it for everyone... I wonder if there could be some kind of "escrow" system where items are shipped to a trusted 3rd party which then releases the money after confirming the item.

- Accessibility: the marketplace was viewable by everyone online, no Facebook or basenotes account required. I believe this helped drive traffic to BN.

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I totally agree that a straightforward interface with fewer barriers makes discovery and transactions so much easier. The idea of an escrow system is spot on—it could really help protect buyers and sellers from scams while keeping fees low. Imagine combining that with modern tech like digital olfaction for authenticating scents—could be a powerful solution for a new kind of fragrance marketplace

So, this is about a new marketplace unrelated to Basenotes--is that correct? Somehow, it makes a big difference to be in community. But I don't know how one would replicate that in a different site.

Thank you for starting the thread
I miss the BN marketplace - I both sold and purchased a few fragrances.
I think the biggest challenge is to figure out verification of users and provide some type of insurance to both parties. Both of these are orthogonal to low cost marketplaces- and while eBay is not ideal at least there a buyer has a piece of mind that if anything goes wrong they will be made whole.
I know some folks here had bad experiences when items were not delivered, and there is little they could do.

You are so right. I think the problem was that there was no rigorous protection for either party like is done on Ebay, Vinted, Depop, StockX etc... for perfumes. I think that holding it in escrow is a start. What else would you suggest?

Flakonkrystal said:

So, this is about a new marketplace unrelated to Basenotes--is that correct? Somehow, it makes a big difference to be in community. But I don't know how one would replicate that in a different site.

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Thats fair, I would love to work with the Basenotes team if that were something they were interested in aswell

I bought and sold many times in the marketplace and only had great experience with it. This isn’t going to be a productive post, because i’m not interested in an off-site marketplace, really. Just adding my voice to the choir of wanting the old marketplace back. Doesn’t sound like it will ever happen, though. I have a bunch of fragrances that people here would appreciate a lot more than me, but I refuse to sell through ebay anymore.

The only thing I'd be interested as with many others here would be a reinstatement of the BN marketplace. It really has left a void on how to sell and swap fragrances visible on the BN forum. Any kind of offers now has to be done discretely through private messages/conversations.

I had a few transactions on the old Marketplace and they were all very pleasant. Just make a feedback thread that people can search. Use Paypal g+s and have them send an invoice. If trading then not much you can really do. Be prudent and don't buy or sell from new accounts.

Never dealt on the BN Marketplace but would be very interested in one right about now as I'm going through a declutter of sorts. And yep, not terribly keen on an off-site marketplace as I'd rather just go to eBay and the local equivalent if that were the case, as they at least they come with some guarantees. It would be great if the BN marketplace were back though as, like mentioned above, have a few rare ones which I think will be appreciated by the members here.

There is still another buy and sell fragrance site that primarily functioned as an alternate Basenotes Marketplace (mainly so Basenotes members could buy and sell decants because they weren't allowed in the Marketplace here). The website is named Crystal Flacon and it is still an active site. Here's the link.


The fellow that started it was actually a member here on Basenotes who wanted to give people the freedom to buy and sell anything, including decants. Crystal Flacon was never a very well known site (aside from the Basenotes community), but it used to be semi-busy. The site's Administrator is named Keith, and he did respond to my question to him back in April, 2024 concerning whether we could still use his site for our Marketplace...since Grant shut this one down. Here is part of his response...

To answer your question, I'm happy to keep this site active for as long as people want to use it, but I'm not actively promoting it as I don't have a great deal of free time at the moment to maintain or improve it. The bottom line is that it was always intended to be an alternative to Basenotes for anyone who wanted to use it but I can't commit to responding to issues as quickly as I might like to. I know this isn't the resounding commitment you might like but that's just the way it is at the moment.

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So I'm glad to have received a response from Keith, and glad he is still open to us using his site for our buying and selling.

Members of Crystal Flacon can still make posts, but the site has been getting almost no traffic for several years now.

I'm not positive, but I believe Keith (as the Administrator of the site) has to approve members before they can join and post on the site. If he's not very active with the site anymore, approving new members might be a slow process.

Silho said:

I know I’m not alone in missing the Basenotes Marketplace—it was a great place for all of us to connect, buy, sell, and trade our favorite scents.

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Forgive me for asking but I'm curious: you joined this site in April this year, when the Marketplace had already been defunct for months, and you've clocked up only five posts since then - all of them on this thread.

Can you give us a little more background and say what exactly you have in mind?