Buuy.co.uk is calling on sellers to pay £10 a month for a shop to ensure its continued survival, according to an email we’ve seen that’s been sent to merchants.
In 2017, we wrote about Buuy several times. Including a report on a crowd-funding campaign that appears to have been unsuccessful. You can read that article here.
Buuy’s USP has previously been that they were totally free to sellers. But it’s clear too that this bold approach has meant that they have been lacking in resources. It seems that the marketplace had been due to close on the 2nd of January.
But the email to sellers offers an alternative. By introducing a £10 monthly fee, they hope to keep going. And if there is enough interest that fee may well be less. Sellers have been given until 21st January to express whether they’re willing to make a commitment.
They say: “Once this date as been we will then see how many store holders are willing to pay the monthly fee of £10.00 and then make a final decision – an email will go out – either way. If we get the min amount of stores needed, we will contact all store holders with bank details to make payment for the first month (Feb).
We have more than 330 stores open on Buuy.co.uk at the moment, and to make it worth while, we need at least 30% of these to cover all costs and keep us going.”
And the Buuy team is calling on all sellers to help them spread the word: “Now your bit.. In order to really make Buuy.co.uk work, you need to promote everywhere you sell. So your own Facebook and Twitter accounts – business and personal. Instagram, Snapchat, Pintrest – you get the idea. If you sell on “other” sites, get a flyer in to every sale promoting your store on Buuy.co.uk. Change your URL in the bio on Twitter to your store on Buuy, the more people know about your store and of course Buuy, the faster we grow, the more revenue we make and things like app’s etc happen a lot quicker.”
We expect to be writing more about Buuy in the next few days as we hear more. But we’d love to hear from Buuy Sellers and whether you are willing to pay a fee to a marketplace with an uncertain future.
8 Responses
I received the initial email saying that they were shutting down, so I removed all my listings! Now they say they MAY keep going. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a single sale or enquiry while my listings were live, so I will not be paying £10 a month.
As a comparison, I ran the same items on eBay and Buuy – the sales score was 27-0.
Plenty of sellers on here complain about ebay and amazon fees yet the one thing both of them do is bring in customers as they spend big money on advertising. ebay recently run a promotion over Christmas offering 20% off one afternoon which no doubt cost them a lot of money, but brought in a lot of sales for sellers.
The alternatives out there try to win sellers with little or no fees but if they are making very little money how can they advertise to bring in new customers.
Yes I would rather lower fees just like customers want free postage and returns. But on ebay I am able to ship around the world with little hassle so have 100s of millions of buyers for 10% or pay little or no fees but have a few 100 thousand buys and little to no sales.
We were trying Buuy and had no sales and we also are on the other site OnBuy which has grown brilliantly and is much cheaper than eBay and for the duration of 2018 is free every month except your final value fees which are again less than eBay.
We gave Buuy a shot, we only ever got about 40 live listings on compared to our top selling market with over 300. You have to eat at the end of the day.
We had one sale, what seemed like a lot of watchers but nothing else, and we had top products on. I was even clicking into the ads on my phone in the evening while waiting to pick up the other half from the train.
We had to remove the stock in the end as we got busy with the FeeBay and some of our EU sites. Right now am still trying to work through the Dec carnage, we pretty much sold out.
Socially the users have never got involved and that was a very important part, unless you have a huge marketing budget don’t expect it to just come to you. People were moaning and complaining about not having sales (just like on eBay) but did nothing, they do not get it.
Plus the owners need to understand how social marketing works their is no point having thousands of followers on twitter, you need the correct type of follower. Plus the FB page needed totally reworked and it needs some spend.
I think they need a partner with some bang and understanding.
As we head into 2018 we are having to be more nimple than ever, we will send Justin over £10 we can afford it, we want to see alternatives away from the US tax dodgers, and the UK market needs competition more than any other one.
TIP for Buuy hardly anyone knows about you, get on eBay get those email addresses get sellers. This is how Marketplaces are getting sellers now, the last two we signed up for emailed US about their markets.
It is actually STILL totally FREE you only pay the £10 if you want the STORE by the way.
If you product fails to sell on eBay or amazon it’s not wanted or it’s the wrong price
Moving your stock to the dark side of the moon will not improve its desirability
In reply to jrichie.
You say “You have to understand that Buuy don’t have anywhere near the level of visibility that ebay do! What were you expecting…. a miracle?”
No, I wasn’t expecting a miracle, I’ve been doing this for far too long! What I was hoping for was at least a hint of a sale or enquiry to keep me interested.
I listed some stock on Buuy for several months, all at a 20% discount to the same listings on eBay, but with zero sales or enquiries on Buuy, but 27 sales on eBay.
When I received the initial email from Buuy saying that they were shutting the doors, I simply re-allocated my stock back to eBay, where it is still selling well and removed my listings from Buuy – I know that they said that they would do so, but hey, over the years I have learned that there is only one person in this world who I can rely on to do what they say they are going to do – that’s me!
You say that I will now have to re-list. No I won’t – I’ve made a decision and, unlike Buuy, I will stick to it and not change my mind again next week. My decision was not based on a fee of a tenner, I was just disappointed with the lack of traffic on Buuy so did not want to waste any more of my very valuable time – I gave it a shot, but it hasn’t worked.
I agree with Northumbrian – but my products do sell on eBay so I have no need to try the dark side of the moon.
I was a supporter of buuy from the start and tried hard to make it work for me, I did have sales but not enough to warrant spending £10.00 on a store. My store at the time had over 1000 listings. When the email came out about the £10 for a store I decided there and then I was not going to get involved. I would as many would have stayed if they had introduced a percentage at the point of sale. A 10% charge on all sales I thought was the way to go, that way if a seller made money so did Buuy. The problem with charging an upfront fee reminds me to much of what Ebid have done for their lifetime shop subscription. Many took up that offer with no rewards. By charging up front you just sit back and watch the monies roll in. By charging a point of sale percentage you both have to work at it. I still maintain that if this had been the route taken many would have still stuck by them. I know this because people have contacted me direct and said as much.
Now I see via Twitter that the whole site / Company is up for sale, this only tells you that asking for an up front fee has not worked. When the forum was up and running many said they would happily pay an end of sale percentage. Again this was overlooked. The idea was fine but the organisation was not so good. Using FB & Twitter as your main advertising is never ever going to work if you expect to go up against the big boys. Many many sellers new full well and stuck with listing on eBay while trying out Buuy, I do not know of one seller who took all their listings down from eBay. That alone would have been business suicide.
Now if my maths are correct they wanted at least 3% of shop owners to take up the offer from the 300 stores they had. That as I say if I am correct would total £900 a month. I have no idea how much it costs to run servers for a month ?
Now if you have confidence in your own platform then asking for cash up front does not bode well, as it clearly states we have no confidence. By charging a percentage you are at least telling your customers ” we can work together ” and both pay into the pot. I have to be honest, when the crowdfunding was announced to me that was the first nail in the coffin, and many others thought the same. It was far to early to announce to the general public we are in trouble and can not cope. Ideally that would have been the time to take a step back and rethink the whole idea.
There will be more of these ideas popping up in the future, but this is a word of warning, unless you have major backing do not try to run before you can walk.