Use the Correct Safex Wallet to Buy Marketplace Items
This article has been prepared to help guide users of the Safex Marketplace and improve understanding of making purchases with a Safex Wallet.
At the time of writing this article, there is currently only one GUI wallet capable of buying goods/services on the Safex Marketplace, and that is the TWM Wallet, used to purchase items from Safex.Market.
However, other Safex wallet interfaces are known to be in development, and this seems like an appropriate time to explain the parameters and limitations for making purchases on the Safex Marketplace, once multiple GUI Safex Wallet apps exist.
The Safex.ninja website has an Explorer page that shows all BLOCKCHAIN listings of products. It should be noted that just because a product entry displays on Safex.ninja, it won't necessarily be available for sale in the TWM Wallet. The possible reasons for this will become clear as you read the rest of this article.
Bare Bones Blockchain
Before we jump into the GUI wallet usage, let us remember that there’s a CLI wallet released as part of the safexcore repository for the Safex Blockchain. Whilst never intended to be used as a mainstream wallet for purchasing goods on Safex Marketplace, it can, and has, been done.
Shortly after the Marketplace code went live, and before a GUI Wallet was released, several members of the Safex community listed items for sale via the cli wallet, including Dan’s commemorative teacup, the symbolic first item sold on the Safex Marketplace.
The CLI wallet has limited practical use for mainstream adoption, as there’s no graphics capability (to display pictures of products), has only a raw description text block (no easy-to-read layout for product descriptions, etc), and doesn’t have any person-to-person chat function (to allow buyers and sellers to communicate). It simply contains the full suite of functions (marketplace/staking/sending coins) that the blockchain can recognise.
And whilst the author has indeed used the CLI wallet to make a marketplace purchase, stake tokens, and send coins, there’s no denying the benefits of a much easier point-and-click, enter-data-into-convenient-fields GUI wallet.
It should be noted that the CLI purchase was made of an item that was correspondingly listed for sale via the CLI wallet. Shoppers should never use the CLI wallet to purchase Safex.Market listings, nor any other items that may get listed in the future via other GUI wallet products.
Benefits of the GUI Wallet
User-friendly GUI wallets are now the established norm for mainstream interaction with blockchains, whether it be Safex, Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other blockchain. To that end, the TWM Wallet was developed and released as part of the Safex.Market suite of software products.
A key component of the TWM Wallet is the 2nd layer TWM-API software, which allows for off-blockchain encrypted P2P communication (including transmission of shopper/shipping details to the merchant), product display/removal capabilities and geofencing, which allows merchants to limit product visibility to only their specific geographic target market.
Displaying Products For Sale in TWM Wallet
Any product listed for sale in the TWM Wallet must first have a listing created on the blockchain, and then subsequently have that listing approved for display via the TWM-API. As noted above, when a listing is created on the blockchain, the Safex.ninja website will display it.
This 2-step approach allows merchants to check the blockchain item listing details for accuracy (eg. look at the listing on Safex.ninja) before allowing the TWM Wallet to display it for sale. It also allows merchants to remove items from sale without the need to send a blockchain transaction, as they can simply use the API to stop the product being displayed in the TWM Wallet.
This ability to remove items from sale using the API, rather than via blockchain transactions, allows merchants who list their products across multiple ecommerce platforms to react quickly (or even automate the process) and “pull” products from sale if stock levels are depleted, and can simply “wake up” the listings once stock levels have been renewed.
Note: Merchants can also edit their item listings on the blockchain, including stock levels, if they choose to.
Note 2: The Safex.ninja website is unable to determine if the product is displaying in the TWM Wallet, as it doesn’t see the API status for the items. It only shows it has been listed on the blockchain. Seeing an item on Safex.ninja doesn’t necessarily mean you will be able to purchase it - it could be geofenced to a particular region or country, or it could be currently unlisted at the API level.
Future GUI Wallets
As other Safex Marketplace GUI Wallets are developed and released, each will most likely come with their own API. Additionally, it is possible that wallets could be released with customizable APIs, where merchants release their own Safex wallet app that only shows their own products and nobody else's.
Some merchants may also choose to list their products across several different Wallets and APIs.
The important thing for shoppers to understand is that they should only buy a product via a wallet upon which the item was listed for sale.
To put it even simpler - if the item displays in the wallet you're using, and you aren’t using a VPN to spoof your location to another region or country, then you can buy it. For example, if you live in Australia, DO NOT set your VPN to somewhere in the USA and then view the products in the wallet - you will be seeing products intended for the USA, not Australia. Buying a product not intended for your region will result in loss of your SFX, as the item will never arrive.
Guidelines for Buying Products on the Safex Marketplace
- Do NOT use the CLI wallet to purchase products.
- Do NOT automatically expect products listed on Safex.ninja to be available for purchase.
- Do NOT change your geolocation via VPN, as you may end up seeing products in the wallet that can’t be delivered to your address.
- Do NOT tamper with the wallet API settings to see products that weren’t intended to be sold via that wallet.
- Have sufficient SFX, in the correct sized outputs, to make the purchase.
- Complete the necessary steps to buying the desired product.
Abide by the above guidelines, and you should have an enjoyable experience shopping on the Safex Marketplace.