When you want to sell your old smartphone, where do you go? There's eBay, Craiglist, or a gadget re-seller like Gazelle. What about a chair you don't want anymore? Or a game console?
In a sea of online marketplaces for selling everything imaginable, a new startup called Sell It Easy wants to make the process of selling your stuff as streamlined as possible.
“We make it super simple," explained Sell It East co-founder Ben Rahnema to Tech Insider. "If you have something laying around, it’s not really worth your time to sell it because of how long challenging it is to sell things now."
His argument is thus: eBay has become "hostile" to sellers because they primarily focus on pleasing buyers, you deal with a lot of scammers and flaky people on Craigslist, and you eventually "end up spending so much time selling your item that it actually costs you more to sell it than what you get back.”
On Sell It Easy's website, you enter the item you want to sell with a short description that includes its condition quality and a few images. The service gives you a quote, and if you agree, a prepaid shipping label to mail the item to its headquarters in San Francisco. From there, Sell It Easy determines the best way to sell the item online and facilities the process through the final transaction. You never have to deal with potential buyers.
Most items sell within two weeks, but if something hasn’t sold in a month, Sell It Easy will get in touch and ask the seller to consider lowering the price. The item will be shipped back free of charge if that's what the seller prefers.
In San Francisco, the startup is including a complimentary concierge service where someone shows up to your door to take your stuff for you. Rahnema told TI that Sell It Easy is evaluating looking into partnerships to offer the same service elsewhere. Development of a mobile app is also underway.
Sell It Easy is free to use, but there's a catch. A small fee is tacked onto every order, but the fee depends on what's being sold and will never be more than 12% of what you're paid for your item. For comparison, eBay offers a similar kind of service that promises sellers will keep up to 80% of what their items sell for.
“Even though we take a small cut, you’re still making a lot more because you’re saving your time," Rahnema said.
Is there a limit to what Sell It Easy will accept? Illegal items are of course off the table, but when I asked if I could send something as large as a mattress, Rahnema said they "don’t have any formal restrictions on items. It’s kind of an item by item basis at this point.”
