eBay have launched a new Assisted Selling Pilot to help consumers cash in and sell with an absolute minimum of effort.
eBay’s research shows that the average UK house has up to £4K worth of unwanted sellable items. But they know that many people are short of time, so are hoping to lower the barriers to selling your stuff online.
eBay are working on the pilot with a trusted seller and the pilot is expected to run for the next six weeks.
eBay’s Partner – Stuff U Sell
We’re absolutely thrilled to reveal that eBay have chosen to partner with Stuff U Sell which is run by David Brackin, a regular Tamebay Guest Author.
David told us “We’re delighted to be partnering with eBay to bring this service to everyone in the UK who has thought about selling on eBay, but not yet got round to it. With our expertise, and this fantastic offer, there really is no reason not to do a little Spring cleaning and have a go. We believe it really should be as easy to sell on eBay as it is to buy“.
eBay Assisted Selling: The details
The deal is an outstanding one for consumers, Stuff U Sell will collect a box of goods by courier from your home or work address totally free of charge and sell them for 30% commission. If you compare this with typical costs to sell yourself (~10% eBay fees + 3.4% PayPal fees) it’s pretty favourable considering that there are no shipping costs for you to worry about. It’s also worth remembering that with Stuff U Sell’s expertise and eBay reputation, they’re likely to attain a higher selling price than a casual seller might achieve.
There are few conditions to worry about, but Stuff U Sell may reject low value (sub £25) items and fake or unsellable items in which case they’ll dispose of them free of charge (typically these go to charity) or the seller can have them back for £10 a box.
Sellers can set their own first starting price if they wish and Stuff U Sell manage pricing after that. They take photos, provided descriptions and listings and deal with buyers payment, postage and returns. If the seller wants to include additional information about an item in the form or in the box then they’ll use that too, but for most items it isn’t necessary. It’s the same core service that Stuff U Sell have been offering to sellers for 12 years now, so they reckon that they’re pretty good it – They’ve put live over 1/4 million items in that time.
The service isn’t just a single listing – Stuff U Sell will keep relisting and retrying until the item sells, or if the seller wants to withdraw it then they pay £25 to cover costs and have the item returned.
Payment is made when the batch has all sold and the returns window closed on the last transaction.
Will Weightman Head of C2C at eBay told us “We’re delighted to be launching our first Assisted Selling pilot in the UK. We want to make selling as easy as possible, and for those short on time or even brand new to selling on eBay, this is a great way to sell in the most convenient way“.
Our first eBay Assisted Selling shipment
David told us that “While this is already an amazing offering, it is a pilot phase and we expect to continue to improve the offering as we go along and we’re keen for feedback about every aspect of the service”.
Here at Tamebay HQ we’re also keen to see how the service goes, so I’ve packed a box of random item laying around the house – all things I should really have listed on eBay myself and simply haven’t got around to doing so.
The items are ready to be sent off for sale and we’ll report back our personal experience with the eBay and Stuff U Sell Assisted Selling program in due course. It’s looking good though, registering, listing the items and booking a courier is the work of a couple of minutes.
To sum the service up, you list what you want to sell, box your goods and Stuff U Sell send a courier (free to you) to collect. They assess, photograph, research and list your items for sale and once sold send you 70% of the final sale price. That’s it!
25 Responses
Hope it all goes well David, congratulations!
Well done David. Good luck with the pilot.
Congrats David and the team at Stuff U Sell, highly recommended company!
give these guys therapy or a medal ,the very thought of the grief thats coming their way gives me the screaming abb dabs
Is it legal to dispose of fake goods by giving them to a charity?
It will be interesting when they sell someone’s goods the buyer breaks the item or returns a fake who will be footing the bill them their customer or eBay ?
eBay is not a safe place to sell your own goods never mind someone else’s goods they are very brave and I wish them well good luck.
The companies feedback is not very good 99.1% and very poor response to feedback comments.
Lets see if it improves now they are in bed with eBay and now a “Trusted Seller”
I think its a good idea.
But how eBay and stuffusell are going to get all this hunky dory could be a minefield.
Presumably there is going to be some ‘goodwill’ from eBay with things like feedback, returns etc?
Hi – thanks for all the supportive comments and the questions.
Just to clarify on fakes – we hate counterfeit goods and have several steps in our process to identify them. It’s never black and white, but if we suspect an item is fake, we will not sell it. We typically contact the seller and ask for further proof. Without that we’ll either return it or destroy it. We do our best to keep fakes out of charity consignments (the charities have their own sorting facilities and are very picky about what they will and will not accept in any case) — donations are typically made up of the lower value clothing items.
If anyone has any questions or comments on the service, then I am personally overseeing it and am very interested in how we can improve it for everyone.
I’ve used David’s company (and still do) to sell excess stock. An excellent operation and well worthwhile
Best of luck to David and the team.
We operate in a similar space to David, however we withdrew from the C2C operation quite a few years ago. It is a bit of a minefield and our conclusion was that it was too much of a headache. We have found that the B2C consignment approach has been more scaleable and ultimately more controllable.
On another note, any feedback rating above 99%, with this model, is a significant achievement and is testament to the business ethics of David and his team.
Fill your boots!
Thank-you all for the kind words. We’ll look forward to Chris’s test consignment and if anyone has feedback on the service, I will of course be delighted to hear what works and what doesn’t.
my experience working as volunteer, of charities with fake clothing for example,
they either remove the stitched / fake branding (depending one ease) or cover up with something non descript such as a white panel, or even the charities own logo, and give to the homeless to use.
or they get ragged, and the thread / fabric recycled for new clothing