Alternatives to ebay?

[Bill]

I'm getting increasingly fed up with ebay, having apparently been escalated to the black hole that is "Level 2 support" on one complaint, and having multiple sales blown away by non-existent zero feedback bidders. Computer related items seem particularly affected by this latter for some reason

I need to get rid of a lot of elderly but usable stuff fairly quickly to free up space here. It would be nice to get a bit of cash as we are having to pay out for all the bills relating to the house of the disabled person we now nurse.

Gumtree looks awful. Has anyone found a promising auction site like ebay, but that has not lost the plot?

[Huge]

No. They all suck, because you're dealing with the general public. You can't even give the stuff away; I've just deleted my Freegle account because of the huge number of knobheads there.

[GB]

I prefer local marketing. You don't get top dollar, but people come round, look at the stuff, pay and take it away or they leave it. There's less hassle.

Round here, there are some active facebook marketing pages. Also, gumtree isn't too bad, just keep your wits about you.

Ebay is a gigantic PITA. Apart from anything else, you have to pay for shipping. OTOH for esoteric items, such as old computery bits, it does reach a large audience.

[ARW]

On 13/06/2018 19:11, Huge wrote: I've just deleted my Freegle account

Oh Yes. Freegle.

About as much use as a condom machine in the Vatican.

Mind you someone in the Barnsley area was offering free used popcorn tubs on there not so long ago[1]. At least the condoms bought in the Vatican would be unused.

[1] I cannot see a demand for these free used popcorn tubs ever taking off.

[Bill]

Freegle is just annoying, but I've been reasonably happy with the general public I've met or corresponded with through Freecycle, ebay and at the tip. In fact, I've met some extremely interesting people.

It looks as though the ebay problems relate to insufficiently tested programming and children pratting about with scripts.

[T i m]

A mate sells *loads* of stuff and fairly quickly on eBay (and a lot of it computer related) but rarely puts any of it up as an auction but buy-it-now.

So, if you weren't actually meaning an auction but an online sales outlet then I've also done a few bits (both ways) on Shpock and it worked out ok.

Talking of Freegle ... I've also done quite a bit of stuff in both directions and again, in most cases it was pretty straightforward but some of that could be down to how you word the Offered and respond to them etc.

Cheers, T i m

[Bill Wright]

Facebook local sales.

Bill

[Brian Gaff]

There are people over there trying to sell knackered old 45rpm singles at over 6 quid each and they are not rare as even I have most of them!

What about some kind of specialist site or merely advertising them with no safety net on forums that allow it..

it cannot be worse. Brian

[Bill]

In message , Bill Wright writes

I appreciate the suggestion, and that this seems to be an option.

I do have serious problems with Facebook, though.

First, no-one I know, with the exception of one son who used to use it as a promotional tool, is on Facebook.

Second, I did join years ago because of this son, but for safety reasons have a profile that includes no pictures, has an absurd dob etc.

Third, I may sound paranoid, but I wonder why I keep getting suggestions from FB about people I have never heard of but that I might want to befriend. I wonder if my name is being thrown out there in this way by FB.

Fourth, nothing I have seen or read about FB is at all attractive to me.

However, I have updated my profile to make it secret that I live somewhere else, I had no college education and didn't go to school and was born before 1910. I have now applied to join the local buy and sell group. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

[Clive Page]

On 14/06/2018 10:33, Bill wrote: [snip]

I too feel that joining facebook would be an unnecessary invitation to overmuch intrusion, but maybe it's possible to limit the information that one provides. But if you give too many fake details, doesn't that make it harder to make contact with potential buyers of your stuff? Let us know how you get on, some of us would be interested...

[Huge]

[20 lines snipped]

No-one in their right minds put their real details on FB.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It's odd the way certain things on Ebay seem to attract time wasters, etc. Classic car sales being one. And now computer parts?

I must only have to deal with the good guys.

[Jim White]

There is a great add-on called FBPurity which allows radical pruning of the f/b crap. Works well here :-) Google will find it for you.

Jim

[Huge]

+1

It's a great piece of software.

[Bob Eager]

Also look at Social Fixer.

[tim...]

It's just random spam

I get invitations to "friend" people on FB in my mailbox and I don't have a FB account.

tim

[ARW]

Always worth a check after a van break in to see if your tools are on sale.

[Dave W]

As I subscribe to many Freecycle and Freegle groups to increase my chances of seeing rare items, bearing in mind that posts to these groups are often not in the areas they claim to serve, I investigated Facebook selling and giveaway groups. I subscribed to 35 of them, and found that anyone can start a group, and a lot cover overlapping areas. (Facebook wouldn't let me join all of them in one go because their engine decided I was a spammer).

Unfortunately I find the groups useless, as I can't get one-line titles on them into one place, postings are not in date order, often just a photo of items is shown with no descriptions. I have tried setting up a notification for posts containing one word such as "satellite", which has to be set up individually for each group. This reduces the amount of guff coming my way, but will only show that one topic which might refer to a dish, a receiver, a TV or a computer. When tired of that I have to disable the notification from each group individually.

Mind you, I did buy the laptop I'm using now from a Facebook group.

[JoeJoe]

I started to use Gumtree a year ago, and found it a pretty good alternative.

I never give my phone/mobile number and opened a throwaway email account just for that to make sure the idiots cannot bombard me with communication. I always do the exchange in a neutral place (even at the end of the street), so people can't harass me later (I am honest and never try to cheat anyone).

I set the price I want, and always add an extra £5 because everyone there seem to be asking for a discount, so I give it to them...

Good points: - No double commission as in eBay (as in ebay AND PayPal) - No postage hassle etc - Things often shift within a day or two - There is always the option of eBay if things don't work

Bad points: - Much smaller audience, so doesn't work for everything - a chance for a better selling price on eBay, but I set the price I happy to sell at. - Never, ever, give anything for free there - it then becomes the same idiot-magnet as Freegle. Always set a price, even for things you want simply rid of, say £2, which magically weeds them out.

[Robert]

eBay -agree using Buy it Now or best offer especially with immediate PayPal payment required can help . Also set your Buyers requirements to block people with a history of non-payment and policy violations. Some specialist Forums have Buy or Sale sections which have worked okay for me for car parts.

Think Facebook selling groups , Gumtree etc depends where you are in the country, may not work in the more rural areas. I've failed to give away stuff on the "local" Facebook sellings groups which I then sold on eBay. Freegle works reasonably well here, no very active Freecycle groups as they all migrated to Freegle a few years ago. Most users dont care about the politics of Freecycle v Freegle , just want a group that works !