Recently, I've been forced into the position where I need to sell a lot of stuff. I've also taken tons of stuff to the local charity shops, but so much of it is too valuable to just give away, especially when I could do with the money, so I've started to sell on online sites. First port of call was EBay. Now I've not done badly as an ebayer, although I suppose I could do better; at first there was a promotion on so I could put as much stuff as I liked on for sale, and listing fees were free. This was fine as I ploughed a lot of items on, had a few sales, and for those that didn't sell, nothing was lost. The problem began when the free listings ran out as I was racking up listing fees which was a waste of money for my non sales. The 20 free listings a month just isn't enough for me. But apart from this, I found ebay an excellent way to say, it's straight forward and well run and I've had no problems with my buyers so far. They have all paid promptly and in the case of home collections, have arrived when they said they would.
The next online market place I tried was Shpock, currently advertised on television as a sort of online car boot sale. Totally free for the standard service. I immediately listed several items with plenty of decent photographs.........and heard nothing! I persevered with Shpock though and finally got some offers through, but not one of them he been finalised. After showing interest or making offers, people just seem to disappear. A couple of people who have made offers on very low cost items of around £5 (and worth a lot more) have expected me to travel to town to meet them and bring the item, which would cost me about £3.50 for the train fare. One man made a £5 offer on a brand new child's duvet and pillow set, still in its plastic wrapping, which I accepted, stating that it would be a home pick up or he must pay postage. I then asked him if he lived close to me and he sent a curt message back just containing the word 'no' and nothing else. I tried to instigate some further correspondence on how we will proceed, but have heard nothing further from him. Don't people understand that if they can't collect they must pay postage? So now I'm tied into what Shpock call a legally binding arrangement with someone who doesn't intend to take up the offer after all. The trouble with Shpock seems to be that people make offers without any serious intent to buy or without finding out collection details. Unfortunately, this experience isn't unusual and sadly some people seem to act like idiots on this site. I have also tried selling on Gumtree and Preloved and haven't had a single successful sale through any of them. I thought that Preloved seemed to be a slightly better organised site and invested £25 for a year of the premium option, but don't know whether I've wasted my money. Reading some of the blogs that people have written on Preloved, it seems maybe I have, as there are complaints of it being a waste of time from the selling community.
Another option I looked at was Amazon and I registered as an Amazon seller. Somehow though, it all seems far to complicated, although people do very well on there as there is a vast global market place. I don't think it's for me though.
Meanwhile, back to EBay, and quite a few of my items have been bid on this week, although sellers charges are mountin up significantly. It seems like Ebaying is the only viable option for me and I am wasting far too much time listing items on sites that don't seem to have the traffic or where people want stuff for next to nothing. Or actually nothing! Perhaps other people have had great experiences with the likes of Shpock, Gumtree or Preloved; If anyone has, please let me know, I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong...........
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