Just got sent an email from ebay Valet which offers to sell all your DVDs and books etc if you send a box of them in
Anyone tried this before? it seems too good to be true frankly. I've never bothered trying to sell some of these things because it takes too long to list them in order to maybe make $2.50
I'm super curious as well. Tempting offer to get rid of some stuff. Hopefully someone here has used it.
With books and DVDs you can usually use the ISBN and barcodes to upload them. It makes it a lot quicker.
Looks like this is just using Fishponds smart sell with eBay branding.
I used smart sell for a while - generally speaking some things sell well, others they slowly lower the price until you end up getting like 20c per book or cd or DVD. There's no limit to how long they'll go.
Signed up to fishpond to do this. The courier pick up fee is $24.95 per box and they take 22% of the sale price after deducting shipping cost. They take all of that from the proceeds of the sale so you don't pay for anything if they don't make over $24.95 on your stuff.
With the $0 inbound shipping deal, I reckon it's worth it but otherwise, it's just a way of disposing specific stuff since you can only sell books, DVDs, CDs, collectible toys and video games. But nothing that contains batteries and the video games must not require licence/code to use.
The fees are a bit cruel
Item Selling Price You earn
=$500.00 80%
$250.00 - $499.99 70%
$100.00 - $249.99 60%
$50.00 - $99.99 50%
$25.00 - $49.99 40%
<$25.00 25%
So for every items that are sold less than $25.00 - you will only get 25% of it. This is after they deduct $24.95 pick up fee.
You're looking at the American eBay Valet FAQ, the commission for the Australian eBay Valet is 22% (after deducting the inbound and outbound shipping costs). So you get the remaining $78%.
You can used their app, it wouldnt take that much of time to list an item. It just like write a title, and the condition with some photos. Much faster than using their website.
Don't do it. Its an absolute nightmare. Give them $600 worth of books & you will be lucky to get maybe $150 out of it after ALL the FEES and the POSTAGE. They lose your booking order, they get your bank details wrong, they cannot find your books, then they cannot find the payment you have deposited into THEIR bank account to get your books returned AFTER you have realised what a shonky absolute rip off service it is and that you must evacuate yourself and your items from their company at lightning speed. They are a total nightmare to deal with and you will NEVER be in contact with the same person twice.
SAVE YOURSELVES EVERYONE AND STAY AWAY FROM THIS SHOCKING EXAMPLE OF INCOMPETENCY & rip off!!!
I answered the same inducement email from 'eBay valet service' and foolishly got involved. Sent over 100 books. All in great condition. All popular kids books. Its been now 10 weeks since sending the books and no-one from this service have been able to tell me where my books are actually listed. They originally told me they would appear on fishpond.com.au (as they said "Fishpond.com is in partnership with eBay valet service") and went on to give me a link at fishpond.com.au to manage my account and monitor the books. The link seemed to work and I could log in ok. I saw most of my books but for over 6 weeks now they have remained with a " $0.00 " next to the listing with only a handful of my books showing an actual dollar amount.
After numerous emails from me asking what's going on and asking Management to contact me, I kept getting different replies and excuses (they "do not take phone enquiries, only emails"). At one stage I was told " we know how frustrated you must be but the delay for listing your books is due to the books having been "referred to their compliance and regulation department" for investigation" . Still no explanation as to what that was about . Still no-one representing themselves as management has replied.
After me complaining yet again again that I still have no idea what is going on, I get an email from them today (I say "them" as now I am not sure who the actual company with whom it is that I am dealing) Fispond.com or eBay Valet) asking me if I have looked on "eBay valet service" for my books as that is where the they are listed and not fishpond.com.au. Remember , this is after "them' giving me the link to fishpondcom.au saying I can manage my account and telling me that is the "market place where they will be sold" What the? I just want to see my books for sale….somewhere , anywhere.
I will post again if I actually find where my books are and when they have a dollar value next to them.
(PS curiously Fishpond.com.au site (NOT eBay Valet service) emailed me to say I have sold one book. One book in 6 weeks. (after you allow the 30 days for them to list from the date I paid their courier to pick up the books…that one sale still leaving me still in the red after the courier fees ). I live in hope.
I only created a profile on here to specifically comment on this - eBay vallet is a front for Fishpond.com.au
I would NOT RECOMMEND selling your stuff this way!! I signed up directly with Fishpond some time ago to sell baby play mats.
They created terrible listings and a title name that didn't even match the product with no photo. They have sold only 3 in 18 months.
Items sold for $29, they charged shipping of $20 - my portion was 17% of the $9 only (not the total selling price). So basically have been paid
nothing because they deduct payments towards the selling fee ($9.95 per box x3 boxes I sent them).
Customer service is only via email and it takes them DAYS to respond. I initially contacted them about fixing up the listings, after months was given access to do this myself with a business account.
In between that communication I received an email from another department saying since nothing was sold within 3 months my stuff would be returned, or if I did not respond destroyed.
I tried to have my remaining items returned to me only to be told I would have to pay $450 shipping! I have disputed this and even tried to arrange collection which I was told is not possible.
I gave up in the end…my stuff is still listed on their website but nothing has sold in over 12 months and I haven't received any further correspondence.
The whole thing was a complete nightmare and waste of time and money.
In my opinion, it is by far worth the time spent to do your own listings and retain control of your stuff and payments.
AVOID at all cost!!!
Don't do it. Its an absolute nightmare. Give them $600 worth of books & you will be lucky to get maybe $150 out of it after ALL the FEES and the POSTAGE. They lose your booking order, they get your bank details wrong, they cannot find your books, then they cannot find the payment you have deposited into THEIR bank account to get your books returned AFTER you have realised what a shonky absolute rip off service it is and that you must evacuate yourself and your items from their company at lightning speed. They are a total nightmare to deal with and you will NEVER be in contact with the same person twice.
SAVE YOURSELVES EVERYONE AND STAY AWAY FROM THIS SHOCKING EXAMPLE OF INCOMPETENCY & rip off!!!
I totally agree with pepperfox200.
Stay away from it.
Their staff are TOTALLY incompetent.
Since my last post, Fishpond.com.au emailed me to say all my books suddenly now have a $ price .. but no matter what the book or condition every one has $13.05 entered as was told YES they are on the fishpond market place (the 12 they priced at the start actually had values that differed according to popularity and demand )…but not for the rest . Lazy.
In 2.5 months I have sold 10 out of 139, and am no-where near paying off my initial shipping.
EG After their shipping and fees for selling e.g. for 2 books I got .75c (their shipping and fees $12.30 ) for each.
None of my books show up in Fishpond market place as they tell me.
Got an email last might when I asked again where the heck are they (5th email asking why) , the Customer "Service" Operator replies try looking on eBay"…..agghh and send me a link to fishpond "my account" to check status the books and their prices. Out of 11 emails , never to do I get the same person replying. None of then know whet they are talking about.
Cannot find my books on eBay/
Contacted e Bay , some overseas call centre and after being put through to three different operators , none were able to help me with eBay valet service saying its not another department , but they could not find which one. One even suggested me trying to contact Fishpond.
Effectively , I have given the books away to this incompetent company to make whatever they like however they like .To get my books back, they want more shipping costs.
The only parties that make money are the courier at the start and fishpond.com.au. (or is it eBay valet?) The Mad Hatters tea party .
Ridiculous. A complete and utter con. Waste of time and money.
The mother of all nightmares.
Old thread but is there anything else similar to this? I'm tempted just because it's better than me trying to list a million DVDs/Blurays (some unopened since I bought them during JB sales.. d'oh). I'm not trying to make much money out of it, but just want a way to get them off my hands easily, letting them go to a better place (ie not the bin) and maybe make a few bucks since many are brand new.
EDIT: Not literally a million… but more than I can be bothered to list and individually ship should one piece sell rather than all.
I sent a box of stuff in Dec and stuff is listed on Fishpond, but I'm not sure if they're on ebay at all? I don't really care if I only get a few dollars back, I'm decluttering.
The only thing I'm annoyed about is that quite a few items say "Item cannot be listed due to regulatory and compliance issues". For CDs I figure it's a licensing issue? But there are other products brand new that weren't listed that I could have sold separately.
I'm thinking of sending a box of old books and PS3 games, maybe some Wii games too, have used the old bigpond service a few years ago and got a good price for a recent Wii game, Mario World or something, which made it worthwhile. Some items sold for $1, but it was good to not deal with posting each item, and listing each one.
Is it still alive? Fishpond seem to not be taking in new orders for Smart Sell, and eBay stopped promoting them as part of eBay Valet (and instead suggesting Airtasker lol).
Seems like their warehouse is full, so dead, shame.
Do u know how long it’s been full? That is, is there any hope it’ll clear up anytime soon.
Fishpond have been doing this for a while…
http://www.fishpond.com.au/page/how-to-sell-on-fishpond
http://www.fishpond.com.au/page/smartsell
http://www.fishpond.com.au/sellyours/sell/