Hi everyone,
I know it looks like a long post, so thanks in advance if you take the time to read it entirely
After having experienced what it is to get a custom livery made by one of the Painters on Trading Paints, I realized there may be an opportunity to improve the experience for everybody.
I initially thought I would transact on Trading Paints, but that was not the case. Everything went very well but I thought I'd ask a few painters and racers what they think about my idea.
Some painters asked me to pay upfront… but what if they take ages to do the livery? send me something of low quality? or just take my money and go silent? I don't believe any painter with a decent reputation would ruin their reputation for a few hundred dollars… but still I had this in the back of my mind.
Eventually, i worked with a french designer who had done great liveries on Trading Paints. Fair pricing to top it off. What surprised me is how he wanted to proceed for payment. I proposed to pay upfront and take the risk. And he said "no, I send you the screenshots of the livery and you pay me if you're happy. Then I send you the file.". I thought GREAT. But if I was not committed, that guy could have worked for nothing…
Note: I have just launched SimList this week (simlist.gg). It's a marketplace for sim racers to buy and sell their used (or new) equipment, car setups and for designers to offer their design services. I needed a livery to promote that site.
Trading Paints is amazing, and SimList doesn't intend to try to compete in any way with Trading Paints. Rather, maybe it can augment the Trading Paints experience with a robust and secure transaction workflow and payment system when someone contracts a painter/designer to make a custom livery for them.
Right now, the whole experience is very informal. You have to contract the painter via external means (freelancers websites, Discord, and payments are made through another platform such as Paypal), where either party could be abused (e.g. you start working and I never pay you, or I send your payment and you never send my livery).
I thought maybe the painters who want, could create a profile on SimList, and share their SimList profile on their Trading Paints profile. That way Customers would indeed keep using Trading Paints like they do today, but could contract painters via SimList, which has an escrow system for payments (powered by Stripe). So as a painter, you know that the payment is waiting for you when you start working on a livery. And the customer knows the payment is released only when the painter sends the livery.
SimList takes a small fee for the service, and SimList would transfer that fee to Trading Paints.
Let me know what you think. Is there any value in the above idea? Or is this a complete waste of time?
Thanks in advance for your time.
Best,
-Alan
I know it looks like a long post, so thanks in advance if you take the time to read it entirely
After having experienced what it is to get a custom livery made by one of the Painters on Trading Paints, I realized there may be an opportunity to improve the experience for everybody.
I initially thought I would transact on Trading Paints, but that was not the case. Everything went very well but I thought I'd ask a few painters and racers what they think about my idea.
Some painters asked me to pay upfront… but what if they take ages to do the livery? send me something of low quality? or just take my money and go silent? I don't believe any painter with a decent reputation would ruin their reputation for a few hundred dollars… but still I had this in the back of my mind.
Eventually, i worked with a french designer who had done great liveries on Trading Paints. Fair pricing to top it off. What surprised me is how he wanted to proceed for payment. I proposed to pay upfront and take the risk. And he said "no, I send you the screenshots of the livery and you pay me if you're happy. Then I send you the file.". I thought GREAT. But if I was not committed, that guy could have worked for nothing…
Note: I have just launched SimList this week (simlist.gg). It's a marketplace for sim racers to buy and sell their used (or new) equipment, car setups and for designers to offer their design services. I needed a livery to promote that site.
Trading Paints is amazing, and SimList doesn't intend to try to compete in any way with Trading Paints. Rather, maybe it can augment the Trading Paints experience with a robust and secure transaction workflow and payment system when someone contracts a painter/designer to make a custom livery for them.
Right now, the whole experience is very informal. You have to contract the painter via external means (freelancers websites, Discord, and payments are made through another platform such as Paypal), where either party could be abused (e.g. you start working and I never pay you, or I send your payment and you never send my livery).
I thought maybe the painters who want, could create a profile on SimList, and share their SimList profile on their Trading Paints profile. That way Customers would indeed keep using Trading Paints like they do today, but could contract painters via SimList, which has an escrow system for payments (powered by Stripe). So as a painter, you know that the payment is waiting for you when you start working on a livery. And the customer knows the payment is released only when the painter sends the livery.
SimList takes a small fee for the service, and SimList would transfer that fee to Trading Paints.
Let me know what you think. Is there any value in the above idea? Or is this a complete waste of time?
Thanks in advance for your time.
Best,
-Alan
