Post by Jonathan » Thu Dec 31, 2015 2:05 pm

A while ago, I posted here to see if anyone had any feedback on Purse.io. Nobody did, so I volunteered as a Bogleheads guinea pig. I have no connection to Purse.io or Amazon beyond, so far, being a satisfied customer. I started with tiny purchases because I was skeptical. I've now completed 10 transactions, saved $84.69, and I'm hooked.It works like this:1. You deposit bitcoin into your Purse.io account. If you're a bitcoin rookie, the safest way is to buy bitcoin on Coinbase (a large, regulated, US-based bitcoin exchange) with your US bank account. You can easily transfer from Coinbase to Purse. It works with Shapeshift too, or you can just send bitcoin to your Purse address.2. You shop on Amazon, putting your selected items on a public wishlist.3. You paste the public wishlist url into Purse, then you use the slider to select your discount, and you put the respective amount of bitcoin into escrow on Purse, if it's not there already.4. The bigger the discount, the longer you wait. 19% is usually within an hour for me. 29% usually takes 3-5 days for me. Once the buyer buys your stuff, you'll get a tracking number. You can always cancel your order, add/subtract items, or adjust the percentage discount before it's purchased.5. After ALL your items arrive, you release the bitcoin from escrow, to the Purse buyer.Here's the rub:-Who eats the discount here, and why? The person who buys your stuff on Amazon eats it. They're often an Amazon worker who was paid via Amazon Gift Card. They take a hit converting their currency from Amazon Gift Card to bitcoin. Many of the holders of the ~$15 billion in outstanding Amazon Gift Cards are Amazon Mechanical Turk workers scattered around the world. They're unbanked, or their banks are shady, or it's hard for them to acquire bitcoin.-Purse profits by taking a cut of the discount. So, for example, when you request 15% discount, Purse takes 1.4%. If you request 30%, Purse takes 3.8%. I use the sweet spots in the fee structure at 19% and 29%. The fee table is here: https://support.purse.io/general-questions/fee/ -When you first start out, the max discount you can request is 15% (that's 13.6% off after the Purse.io fee). I'm not certain exactly when that limit is removed, but when I had two confirmed orders, plus 1/2 coin in escrow, I was free to request whatever discount I liked.-The reviews left by you and the person who buys for you are simple: smiley, neutral, or frown, and you can't change them once selected. So back-and-forth chatter or drama is minimized. Every transaction I made was smiley face on both sides.-There's a trick to using Purse for gas savings. I haven't tried it; no idea if it still works: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/commen ... eio_legit/ . Maybe Bogleheads can come up with a few interesting use cases like this.-There's some data on ideal fee and best time to place your order: https://blog.purse.io/the-purse-discount/ -Per my singular experience, the "it's a scam" talk is garbage or intentional competitor FUD. Purse operates in broad daylight out of SF, with some well-known cryptocurrency principals. There are a handful of sketchy Purse.io stories on the web, and they generally involve people buying and selling various gift cards, which I think is a bad idea to do in any online secondary market. I don't see how there are more scammers on Purse than on eBay or Craigslist.-You don't have to play around with the discount market. You can use Purse Instant for an instant 5% off, where Purse.io itself is the counterparty.-Once the orders were picked up, the shipping was Prime-fast. Two orders even arrived in a single business day (~36 hours). If it's not a Prime item, it obviously can't arrive at Prime speed.-Returns happen same as always. Either through Amazon, using the Amazon order ID the buyer gives you when buying the order, or through the merchant. I haven't tried this yet.-If you use Amazon Subscribe-n-Save with 5+ items, you get 15% off. If you use the Amazon Store Card, you get 5% cash back. So I never use Purse Instant. I also haven't yet used Purse for household Subscribe-n-Save stuff.-I still haven't figured out the best technique for the largest discounts (expensive/cheap item? large/small order?). I'd love to have a go-to strategy for 40-50% off (technically net 35.6% off after the Purse.io fee), even if it involves waiting a month.Anyone else used Purse yet? Anything I should watch for? Any tips or purchasing strategies I might've missed?