they may not be wearing baseball uniforms, but they'll be buying your stuff!! And best of all... YOU get to keep your profits!
I have been doing research on online marketplaces where I can sell my handmade jewelry and couture lingerie since etsy decided to sick it’s “Integrity Team” on me for no apparent reason – leaving me and my beautiful items homeless. I considered Amazon Marketplace. In fact, it was suggested to me by a good friend.
I looked into it. I signed up. Guess what? You need to get their permission to sell ANY jewelry, clothing, accessories, etc… I applied for permission. They said I would have a response within 72 hours. You have to provide them with 500 photos and ALL of them must have NO background. Meaning you have to find a way to cut the backgrounds (some which I painstakingly INTENDED) of every angle of EVERY SINGLE ITEM that you intend to sell. I ended up hiring someone – PAYING them to cut my items out for me because it was just too overwhelming. And after all of that? Guess what. FOUR WEEKS LATER they wrote to me saying they could not approve my items because SOME contained models. How are you supposed to show how a ring fits or how a corset looks without having a model??? People don’t want to just guess! Then I looked into their fees… First of all, in order to even SELL on Amazon Marketplace you have to PAY THEM a $40 fee. Which I had to pay before I could even APPLY to be denied. Plus they take an ENORMOUS amount of your final sale value – a larger amount than any other marketplace I have ever encountered.
I could go on and on. But, I’ll spare you. It’s all bad.
Long story short? AVOID AMAZON MARKETPLACE.
I considered eBay for a moment. And I even posted a few items… remembering you are charged even if your items don’t sell. You have to pay them just for the privilege of having your items appear in searches where you will be BOMBARDED by suspicious accusations and questions from “potential buyers” who are “kicking the tires” and generally wasting your time because #1 – they won’t be buying your item. #2 – if they DO buy it, they will end up finding something to complain about. That is just how eBay’s community of miserable buyers is – there’s no explanation for it. and #3 – They will want to pay NO MORE than 35 cents for a 14k gold diamond ring. Otherwise they’re not having it. No thank you, eBay.
SO… I stumbled across this up-and-coming site that has me very hopeful!! In a sea of miserable options I have found one that is the opposite of all of those terrible theives and dishonest, corrupt companies out there (ehem, etsy…) It is called Auctionopia.com. It is SUPER awesome! I will list the reasons below:
- They do NOT charge a monthly fee
- They do not charge you to list an item
- They do not take ANYTHING from your final value sale
- They have an integrated instant messaging system so that you can communicate on-on-one with your customers! So, those super-paranoid ones can be reassured a lot more easily. So that instead of it taking 3 months to ease their paranoia, it takes 3 minutes!
- They give you the option to have a set price, or set it up as an auction! And it does not cost anything regardless of your choice!!
- They are on the side of the seller UNLIKE eBay, etsy, Amazon Marketplace, etc…
- They are fully integrated with PayPal
- The site is extremely user-friendly
- They have this really cool “fast auction” option where you can basically haggle with online prospective buyers over a short period of time – which encourages them to try to WIN (it’s only human!) which means they will bid higher and higher based on the pressure of competition. Win for us, the seller!!
- You can discover quickly, through the INSTANT messaging system if someone will be a problem buyer or not.
- They allow html and have a simple WYSIWYG panel that you can work with to personalize each listing to the maximum!
- Their customer service is AWESOME, personal and super-responsive!
- IT IS COMPLETELY FREE!!!
- They’re up-and-coming quickly and, as far as I can see… will be HUGE in no time because they are everything we have all been looking for!
I have to say… I am THRILLED to have found them! I love nothing more than taking business away from etsy and I invite all of you to follow me onto Auctionopia.com where we can be FREE from fees, etsy’s BULLSHIT, eBay’s horrid community of buyers and complete lack of seller protection, and unreasonable rules and regulations.
The more of us who set up on there, the more people will come. You know what they say… “If you build it, they will come…” But, in this case it’s not nearly as creepy 🙂 Feel free to write if you have any questions or comments!
ineptsy 