I'd say that this is a really cool approach. The number of times that I have wanted to sell an item but procrastinated thinking of the posting + shipping hassles are countless. This obviously is targeted at a lazy ass like myself and my bet is that there a bunch like me around. Good luck to these guys. I for one plan to try it out.
Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box
11–20 of 96 posts
Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box
#12Interesting idea, however I just don't think the issue with selling most items is the box. The post office has plenty of free boxes you can take, and if it's a bit too big you can usually pad it with newspaper. They specifically say they're only supporting small objects so that ruins any argument about something big. When the author says "As someone who hardly ever sells anything online in part because I never have t…
For me, the biggest hurdle to selling my personal items online is flaky and/or malicious buyers.
On Craigslist, buyers tend to be extremely flaky. Every time I've sold something there, I've wasted substantial time with people who arrange meeting times and don't show up. This happens many times per item. It's also overrun with scammers, although those are easy to spot if you know the signs. (Bad grammar, being unrealistically enthusiastic to the point of offering more than the asking price, mentions of out-of-state or overseas transactions, etc..)
On eBay, you have the ever-present risk of fraud. A typical scam goes something like this: Someone buys your item, you ship it, the buyer files a dispute, and eBay/PayPal take back the money. The scammer was planning to file a dispute all along, even if you did everything right. There's very little you can do to combat this, in part because eBay tends to favor buyers over sellers.
If Sold takes on all the hassle and risk of consumer-to-consumer selling, then I'll definitely consider using it.
Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box
#13I think the motivation behind the service is definitely sound...I'm just not sure that the service, as described, solves the most pertinent pain points...and part of the problem is, the pain points are different depending on whether you're a very casual seller, or a regular one (i.e. several products a week).
For example, the auto-marketing of the product:
> With Sold’s app, you take a picture of the thing you want to sell and write a description. The company uses a mix of algorithmic and human judgment to figure out how much you can probably get for the item and sends you the proposed price. If you accept, Sold posts your product on whatever online marketplace the company determine is best—eBay, Amazon or smaller niche sites, depending on what you’re selling.
OK, let's assume Sold's price assessment goes without a hitch (and that's a big, big if)...there are a few things that it seems users will always want control of. If Sold decides my product would work best on eBay, then is there the appropriate configuration options so that I can define minimum bid and user reputation?
And if so, how much convenience does Sold's wrapper over this process give me over just directly using the service itself? And is it worth the fee that Sold charges (I'm assuming that it charges some kind of overhead)?
Now if I were selling lots of things in a fairly regular interval...how does Sold scale? If I were a craft maker/vintage seller, why would I pick Sold over Etsy, for instance?
Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box
#14Interesting idea, however I just don't think the issue with selling most items is the box. The post office has plenty of free boxes you can take, and if it's a bit too big you can usually pad it with newspaper. They specifically say they're only supporting small objects so that ruins any argument about something big. When the author says "As someone who hardly ever sells anything online in part because I never have t…
Gotta say that I disagree (yes, yes, it's all anecdotal). I find a great deal of the hassle in selling stuff online is the shipping aspect: how much does it cost? Will I have to travel to the Post Office? How long will I have to be there? Do I have the packing material? Should I insure the box? Going to the Post Office is a huge hassle. Even when I don't have to go to them, but say, FedEx Kinkos, I have to deal with…
As someone who has bought bikes off of ebay and have had to deal with shipping damage nearly every time, I have to agree. I'd never want to deal with that kind of stuff as a seller.
(broken right brifter, badly bent rear triangle / rear dropouts, etc)
Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box
#15Love the idea and execution (from watching the video). I put a bunch of random crap I had lying around on ebay and started the auctions at a dollar. I would have happily used Sold and saved the shipping hassle.
Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box
#16I could swear this has been tried many times before. I could be wrong though. Best of luck to them!
Gazelle[1] does it for devices. _edit:_ I thought they sent you a box, but you have to ship it to them yourself. [1] http://www.gazelle.com/
They will only send you a box if they think your product is worth enough. They also greatly reduced the number of products they buy recently. It used to be virtually any gadget, now it is mostly limited to recent smartphones and Apple devices.
Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box
#17Send me an empty box ? Why not send me a Google Glass. I'll put on the glass, look at the object I want to sell, and say "Glass, Sell!". It will then take a picture of the object, upload to cloud, run a few ML algos to figure out a competitive price point & vendor site ( ebay, amazon, niche ) & list my item on vendor with a auto-generated description ( standard summarization algos ). If it were smart enough, it would run a second price auction of the item on my behalf, perhaps flag bidder bots as well, and auto-tweet me when the item was sold. I'd walk out the door with the object & an unmanned Google Car would be waiting outside. Toss the object into the car & the amount gets credited to my Google Wallet. Fun times...
Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box
#18Interesting idea, however I just don't think the issue with selling most items is the box. The post office has plenty of free boxes you can take, and if it's a bit too big you can usually pad it with newspaper. They specifically say they're only supporting small objects so that ruins any argument about something big. When the author says "As someone who hardly ever sells anything online in part because I never have t…
For me, the biggest hurdle to selling my personal items online is flaky and/or malicious buyers. On Craigslist, buyers tend to be extremely flaky. Every time I've sold something there, I've wasted substantial time with people who arrange meeting times and don't show up. This happens many times per item. It's also overrun with scammers, although those are easy to spot if you know the signs. (Bad grammar, being unreali…
For me, the worst part about using ebay is the stench.
Ebay has done so much to build ill-will with sellers over the years, and with the recent fee increases it was almost too much for me to continue. I decide to hold my nose and list a couple of items anyway this past week, but the listing page is now broken in both Firefox and Chrome on linux!
Enough is enough.
It is a shame, though. The users generally seem to be pretty good, and I almost always enjoy dealing with them.
Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box
#19I could swear this has been tried many times before. I could be wrong though. Best of luck to them!
The main one that I'm aware of is Glyde (http://glyde.com/), but they only handle video games and Apple mobile devices.
Re: Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box
#20I could swear this has been tried many times before. I could be wrong though. Best of luck to them!
Gazelle[1] does it for devices. _edit:_ I thought they sent you a box, but you have to ship it to them yourself. [1] http://www.gazelle.com/
Glyde sends you a box. It comes with a shipping label that goes directly to the buyer. http://glyde.com/sell?via=welcome_page