Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/one-click-selling/

by joallard • 13 years ago

306 91 13 years ago

wired.com

acgourley• 13 years ago

The devil is in the details, not the idea, here. But I hope they can get them right!

jonny_eh• 13 years ago

I could swear this has been tried many times before. I could be wrong though. Best of luck to them!

jlogsdon• 13 years ago

Gazelle[1] does it for devices. _edit:_ I thought they sent you a box, but you have to ship it to them yourself.

[1] http://www.gazelle.com/

slg• 13 years ago

They will only send you a box if they think your product is worth enough. They also greatly reduced the number of products they buy recently. It used to be virtually any gadget, now it is mostly limited to recent smartphones and Apple devices.

chaz• 13 years ago

Glyde sends you a box. It comes with a shipping label that goes directly to the buyer. http://glyde.com/sell?via=welcome_page

tomku• 13 years ago

The main one that I'm aware of is Glyde (http://glyde.com/), but they only handle video games and Apple mobile devices.

joshdance• 13 years ago

It is a great idea. I hope it works. I tried selling some memory and an iPhone on the service. Neither was accepted. The memory was too old, and I didn't have the actually iPhone (I was selling it for someone else) to take pictures of. I tried to use stock photos but didn't go. Overall, liked the idea, liked the service, liked the app. Hope it takes off.

axxl3• 13 years ago

Interesting idea, however I just don't think the issue with selling most items is the box. The post office has plenty of free boxes you can take, and if it's a bit too big you can usually pad it with newspaper. They specifically say they're only supporting small objects so that ruins any argument about something big. When the author says "As someone who hardly ever sells anything online in part because I never have the right box", I just don't feel like this solves some of the issues that seem to be bigger in selling.

Now the other aspect of the service, which is where they will post the item for you and set up the description, price etc and handle dealing with the customer, that's where the value seems to be. Most people don't sell items online because they have to set up an account, figure out pricing, make sure they have good ratings so people will still buy for them and deal with chargebacks.

taylorwc• 13 years ago

I can relate to the pain involved of not having a box. Unless I just got something from Amazon, I won't have a usable box. And while the post office may have free boxes, the trip to the post office in and of itself is pain enough to cause breakage [1].

[1] I think I'd rather have my fingers run over by the car than make a trip to the US Post Office. Right up there with the DMV.

xur172• 13 years ago

I agree. When I was selling online more frequently, I had a collection of Priority Mail boxes to use, and this still didn't cover all of the sizes I needed. As dumb as it sounds, shipping me the properly sized box would be amazing.

I'm curious if they provide packing material too - that was the other big issue for me. I typically used newspaper or peanuts from a box I had sitting around, but I still ran into trouble a fair amount of the time.

Domenic_S5• 13 years ago

USPS will ship you free boxes, for free.

https://store.usps.com/store/browse/subcategory.jsp?category...

lanstein• 13 years ago

For those who don't know, in CA, you can do a lot of the DMV stuff that you can't do online at a AAA office. Cash/check and membership required are the only caveats.

Lewisham• 13 years ago

Gotta say that I disagree (yes, yes, it's all anecdotal). I find a great deal of the hassle in selling stuff online is the shipping aspect: how much does it cost? Will I have to travel to the Post Office? How long will I have to be there? Do I have the packing material? Should I insure the box?

Going to the Post Office is a huge hassle. Even when I don't have to go to them, but say, FedEx Kinkos, I have to deal with them instead (I literally had a FedEx Kinkos employee punch the top of my box repeatedly to prove that it wasn't taped up well enough for their transportation, to which one can only think "It's not my bloody fault that you don't treat packages with any respect.")

I think a great deal of the anxiety in selling is not collecting money (eBay and Amazon both make this trivial) but the worry about holding up your end of the deal, and whether the lost opportunity cost of the hassle outweighs the value of doing the deal.

I know I just put everything in a giant box to Amazon's trade-in system because I only have to worry about shipping once, even though I'd probably get far more if I sold it all piecemeal.

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

As someone who has bought bikes off of ebay and have had to deal with shipping damage nearly every time, I have to agree. I'd never want to deal with that kind of stuff as a seller.

(broken right brifter, badly bent rear triangle / rear dropouts, etc)

axxl3• 13 years ago

Hmm, valid points. I guess I'm not trying to say that the box isn't useful, it is easier undoubtedly (if you have an item that fits), I just feel like the rest of the service seems like it could be the better aspect. And actually after watching their promo video they seem to emphasize the service a lot more than the box, which the article seems more focused on.

Domenic_S5• 13 years ago

> how much does it cost? Will I have to travel to the Post Office? How long will I have to be there? Do I have the packing material? Should I insure the box?

Simple solution: use flat rate USPS priority boxes. Order a few of each size for free and stick them in your closet with a roll of packing tape.

You know exactly what it will cost, you can get a free next-day pickup from your house, and you can use newspaper for packing material.

Only works if you ship small-ish stuff, but it's brilliantly easy if you sink 10-15 minutes into the prep.

jarrett3• 13 years ago

For me, the biggest hurdle to selling my personal items online is flaky and/or malicious buyers.

On Craigslist, buyers tend to be extremely flaky. Every time I've sold something there, I've wasted substantial time with people who arrange meeting times and don't show up. This happens many times per item. It's also overrun with scammers, although those are easy to spot if you know the signs. (Bad grammar, being unrealistically enthusiastic to the point of offering more than the asking price, mentions of out-of-state or overseas transactions, etc..)

On eBay, you have the ever-present risk of fraud. A typical scam goes something like this: Someone buys your item, you ship it, the buyer files a dispute, and eBay/PayPal take back the money. The scammer was planning to file a dispute all along, even if you did everything right. There's very little you can do to combat this, in part because eBay tends to favor buyers over sellers.

If Sold takes on all the hassle and risk of consumer-to-consumer selling, then I'll definitely consider using it.

bittercynic• 13 years ago

For me, the worst part about using ebay is the stench.

Ebay has done so much to build ill-will with sellers over the years, and with the recent fee increases it was almost too much for me to continue. I decide to hold my nose and list a couple of items anyway this past week, but the listing page is now broken in both Firefox and Chrome on linux!

Enough is enough.

It is a shame, though. The users generally seem to be pretty good, and I almost always enjoy dealing with them.

axxl3• 13 years ago

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say as well, that seems to be the biggest advantage. It would take the hassle out of setting up and selling. Now if they just pass along those disputes to you, you're not really that much better off :\. I don't know their policy however.

blueprint• 13 years ago

You might want to check out Bondsy, a way to trade with friends :) You shouldn't have to worry about fraud if you trust your friends. https://www.bondsy.com

(disclosure: i'm the lead mobile dev at Bondsy)

Domenic_S5• 13 years ago

The message appears to be "buyers suck", which should not be surprising if you've ever worked retail!

skybrian• 13 years ago

Perhaps for small-ticket items, the rule should be that if there's any dispute, the money goes to a charity that was agreed on before the transaction. :-)

capecodcarl• 13 years ago

What would be nice is a package escrow service for one-off purchases here or there that are not time critical. You sell your item on eBay (or wherever) as normal, but the buyer pays the escrow service. Then when they confirm payment, you ship your item to the escrow service who then unpacks the item, verifies the contents are as described and functional, and then repacks it and ships it on to the buyer. Then they release the payment to you.

If the buyer tries to scam them by saying the item was not as described, the escrow service (presumably insured some way) would deal with them and you're out of the picture.

It would add a few days of delay to purchases, but for casual items already being sent UPS or Fedex Ground that aren't time critical it seems like it could add considerable piece of mind to small time sellers and buyers.

pseut• 13 years ago

I may have read it differently, but I don't think the big pain point was literally the box, but that it was just a stand in for all of the uncertainty that comes with selling something. As someone who doesn't sell stuff online, I'd definitely love to have a service where I knew the effort, time, cost, etc was bounded at ~10 minutes total.

btilly• 13 years ago

Reminds me. Some day I should sell that mint condition Aibo ERS-210 that I have gathering dust. It was a gift from my sister that didn't fit my life, so has spent most of its time in a box, with the original manual.

rj2hhhhh• 13 years ago

I'd say that this is a really cool approach. The number of times that I have wanted to sell an item but procrastinated thinking of the posting + shipping hassles are countless. This obviously is targeted at a lazy ass like myself and my bet is that there a bunch like me around. Good luck to these guys. I for one plan to try it out.

danso• 13 years ago

I think the motivation behind the service is definitely sound...I'm just not sure that the service, as described, solves the most pertinent pain points...and part of the problem is, the pain points are different depending on whether you're a very casual seller, or a regular one (i.e. several products a week).

For example, the auto-marketing of the product:

> With Sold’s app, you take a picture of the thing you want to sell and write a description. The company uses a mix of algorithmic and human judgment to figure out how much you can probably get for the item and sends you the proposed price. If you accept, Sold posts your product on whatever online marketplace the company determine is best—eBay, Amazon or smaller niche sites, depending on what you’re selling.

OK, let's assume Sold's price assessment goes without a hitch (and that's a big, big if)...there are a few things that it seems users will always want control of. If Sold decides my product would work best on eBay, then is there the appropriate configuration options so that I can define minimum bid and user reputation?

And if so, how much convenience does Sold's wrapper over this process give me over just directly using the service itself? And is it worth the fee that Sold charges (I'm assuming that it charges some kind of overhead)?

Now if I were selling lots of things in a fairly regular interval...how does Sold scale? If I were a craft maker/vintage seller, why would I pick Sold over Etsy, for instance?

jarrett3• 13 years ago

> If Sold decides my product would work best on eBay, then is there the appropriate configuration options so that I can define minimum bid and user reputation?

I don't know if this is the case, but I'd hope they would completely abstract away the particulars of eBay vs Craigslist vs anything else. I.e. you wouldn't have to know or care about minimum bids or buyer reputation. Sold just tells you the price, you accept it, and they pay you. Problems with the eBay buyer? Sold absorbs that time and money cost. At least that's how I would want it to work.

> And if so, how much convenience does Sold's wrapper over this process give me over just directly using the service itself?

If all the effort and risk of selling an item is abstracted away as I suggested above, then that would be a great deal of value added, at least for me.

> Now if I were selling lots of things in a fairly regular interval...how does Sold scale?

I don't know the numbers yet, but I'd have to guess you'd be better off managing your own sales and shipping at that point. You could still use a marketplace site like Etsy or eBay. But I don't think you'd want a second layer of middlemen, which Sold is. It sounds like Sold is for one-off, consumer-to-consumer transactions.

princess3000• 13 years ago

It seems like this is targeted more at people who have a handful of smaller items that they'd like to get some cash for. If you're a power seller or running your own crafts store you'd probably not want to use Sold since they're going to take a cut anyway, and I would assume that their pricing models are designed for things like iPhones and don't work well for unique or handmade items.

If this works as described I see it as a simple way of getting some money for things you no longer need. You know that you could probably get more cash if you did all of the legwork yourself, but if you just want something gone in exchange for a few bucks then this seems like a fairly painless way to accomplish that.

jinushaun• 13 years ago

Sold abstracts that away from you. You take a pic on your phone, send it to Sold and they come back with a price they think they can sell it for. If you agree, they'll send you a box, you ship it to them and you get the money. You're not supposed to know how they sell it.

This is drastically more convenient than dealing with EBay, answering emails, making calls, screening real buyers from non-buyers, or going to Starbucks to make a Craigslist deal.

kevingibbon4• 13 years ago

Love the idea and execution (from watching the video). I put a bunch of random crap I had lying around on ebay and started the auctions at a dollar. I would have happily used Sold and saved the shipping hassle.

dxbydt• 13 years ago

Send me an empty box ? Why not send me a Google Glass. I'll put on the glass, look at the object I want to sell, and say "Glass, Sell!". It will then take a picture of the object, upload to cloud, run a few ML algos to figure out a competitive price point & vendor site ( ebay, amazon, niche ) & list my item on vendor with a auto-generated description ( standard summarization algos ). If it were smart enough, it would run a second price auction of the item on my behalf, perhaps flag bidder bots as well, and auto-tweet me when the item was sold. I'd walk out the door with the object & an unmanned Google Car would be waiting outside. Toss the object into the car & the amount gets credited to my Google Wallet. Fun times...

eru2• 13 years ago

If the item is small enough, the tacocopter could take it on its return journey.

jmhain• 13 years ago

From watching their videos it looks like they're huge Apple fanboys. I doubt they'll ever support Google anything.

shurcooL• 13 years ago

Now this is something I want.

Assuming the price I get is over half of what I'd expect to be able to get for it myself if I put in a lot of time, effort, and luck.

jlgreco2• 13 years ago

Irrelevant nitpick, but including punctuation in their trademark makes their marketing materials pretty hard to read: "Not only are Sold. boxes free, but they come pre-paid, pre-labeled, pre-insured, tracked, and filled with bubble wrap"

Reading this stuff requires two passes for me.

Anyway, neat company. Unfortunately I don't think I have anything they would be willing to sell. This is something I would be interested in trying if I did.

earh• 13 years ago

Yahoo! had similar problems

melvinmt• 13 years ago

Or.. you can just order free boxes at USPS: https://store.usps.com/store/browse/subcategory.jsp?category...

dbh937• 13 years ago

It doesn't seem like you actually read the article. The service doesn't just send you a box, but appraises and lists the item you're trying to sell.

mtct• 13 years ago

>As someone who hardly ever sells anything online in part because I never have the right box, I am clearly the target market for Sold.

Yeah, if something so trivial like find the right box stop you from make money, Bryan, selling is really not something for you.

kriro• 13 years ago

Seems legit to me. I feel quite a bit of pain that can be solved. I usually just don't sell stuff because it's quite the hassle to go out, get a box, ship the stuff at the post office etc.

If they can just solve that for some fee I'd be pretty happy already. Buyout from Ebay/Amazon is likely if this works.

Basically I'd like my workflow to be: Put stuff on Amazon/Ebay...when it's bought the postman will come the next day and pick it up and deliver it for me. Kind of like a reverse Amazon-Prime.

Domenic_S5• 13 years ago

Hmm, that's the workflow already. If you're shipping at least one Priority package, the postman will pick up your packages for free. They'll deliver boxes to your door for free, too.

kevingibbon4• 13 years ago

USPS only pickup somewhere between 10-2 M-S and its still a pain unless you do it a ton.

Don't mean to take anything away from sold (amazing product) but we are starting a company that takes care of the shipping, for anything. Check it out if interested http://shyp.co

ereckers• 13 years ago

Sounds cool and the mechanics of it seem to be really well thought out. However, the service seems to provide a lot of value-add that will eventually have to be paid for. "Sold" will have to make a pretty compelling argument to the seller that losing 25%? from just doing it themselves is going to be worth it.

Which gets me to thinking, do services like Gazzelle make money?

thoughtcriminal• 13 years ago

I like the idea, I just can't picture someone like my Aunt Jeanne using the service.

sharkweek• 13 years ago

I imagine my dad, a man so engrained in the craigslist marketplace, would really struggle with any sort of technological advancement in this system. He likes the "old-fashioned" way of posting the item himself at a price he wants to sell for then having someone come by to check it out.

Anything else is going to be too complicated for him.

callmeed• 13 years ago

Video is great. App/service looks solid. But marketplaces are so tough that I feel you almost HAVE TO START IN A NICHE and take the bowling pin strategy [1].

Look at Yardsale–they're a YC company and doing essentiall the same as Sold. I haven't seen much press about growth or follow-on funding.

Poshmark, on the other hand, is niche-focused (women's fashion) and seems to be growing well. Raised $15.5M. [2]

[1] http://cdixon.org/2010/08/21/the-bowling-pin-strategy/

[2] http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/04/poshmark-nabs-12m-series-b-...

tenpoundhammer• 13 years ago

I think the main problem most people(not people on hacker news) have is that they value their crap higher than anyone else values it. When they add in the actual cost of their time the end result is that most people would rather keep the item or give it to charity.

nextstep• 13 years ago

This seems like really cool service. I don't think the name "Sold" is a smart choice, however. It quickly gets confusing in a "Who's on First" sort of way when talking about this service in conversation.

lucb1e• 13 years ago

Although the title is obviously clickbait, it's one of the few that make their promise totally true. They really do want to send you an empty box!

downandout• 13 years ago

The problem they are trying to solve is real. Many people don't know or want to know how to market things they don't want anymore. They just want to sell them. This is the same reason that Google now offers assistance with Adwords campaigns - many businesses don't want to have to become Internet marketing experts, but need customers.

I think that without a local presence where items are screened, fraud/product misrepresentation/stolen items will be a significant issue - perhaps enough to sink them. They are essentially saying "hey, use our eBay account to sell stuff and we'll send you money". They have serious logistical issues to deal with, but I wish them luck because they are solving a real problem with potentially massive rewards if they can get it right.

georgemcbay• 13 years ago

"The problem they are trying to solve is real."

It is absolutely real for me. I've got like two closets full of older but perfectly fine stuff (like the laptop I replaced with the laptop I bought this year) that I would feel bad throwing away but I don't want to bother selling through normal means (and none of my immediate friends is interested in having).

I would absolutely use this service to get rid of the stuff even if the offered price were marginal. In my case, I'd even be fine shipping the stuff out for free if the box shipping were pre-paid (but I may be an extreme case).

Having too much stuff is a first world problem, for sure, but sign me up.

nazgulnarsil• 13 years ago

A ship for free option where the proceeds go to charity could be a big win, but abuse could sink it.

wtvanhest• 13 years ago

The problem is real for me too. What is really crazy is that I may actually be too lazy to snap a picture and email it.

When I had more time and less money I would buy camera equipment from people on CL, and resell it for huge mark ups. Most people just wanted it gone and were willing to get a little cash.

I bet they do a lot more volume than people are giving them credit for. I also think a smart phone app that allows you to take a photo and immediately send it to the company would increase their potential merchandise.

Androsynth• 13 years ago

you could donate it.

thecosas• 13 years ago

I used the service and it was great. Had one hiccup (timer to ship out started on a Friday and no pickups til Monday), but reached out and support was on it lickety split. Great service.

MichaelApproved2• 13 years ago

Please find a charity you want to support and donate the laptop and other items in your closet. You'll get a tax write off which will give you the marginal return. You'll get two closets back. You'll support a cause you like. If it's a small charity, you could make a major impact. Do it before things depreciate more.

The non-profit will be very thankful and you won't have to keep wondering what to do with those closets.

sdfjkl• 13 years ago

I'd use that in a heartbeat. Here in the UK, there's only eBay and Gumtree where you can realistically sell used stuff and both are a total pain in the ass. eBay doesn't really want private sellers and lets you feel it, plus it forces you to use PayPal, which won't let you have your money for 21 days after you sold something. Gumtree is full of scammers and bullshitters and few buyers.

Please bring this to Europe, we need it too.

mietek• 13 years ago

This is so true. I can't believe how bad the online auction space is right now, and it's been like that for years!

orangethirty• 13 years ago

This is really interesting. I wonder how they will handle customer service, returns, etc. But its nice to see them try something new. Marketing/sales are quite challenging. Many great products have fled due to nor being marketed appropriately. Anyone interested in marketing as a service (Api based)?

J_Darnley• 13 years ago

From the terms: "[You may use us if] You have access to a compatible smartphone, mobile device or other device that is supported by our platform." Isn't a web browser supposed to be all you need these days? This looks to be a greater downside than the fact it is US only.

wtracy• 13 years ago

Yeah, I gave them my email and created an account only to realize that I can't use the service because I don't own an iPhone.

Noughmad• 13 years ago

The US-only thing I can understand, because international shipping is expensive and payments are difficult. But really, why do I need a phone with a particular OS just to send them a few pictures?

jroseattle2• 13 years ago

Interesting concept, but I question how defensible this service would be. It seems both Amazon and Ebay could simply offer this as an add-on service, and really...who is going to be better positioned to develop recommendation algorithms for marketing products?

eru2• 13 years ago

Customer service will make a huge difference. So that could be their moat.

jroseattle2• 13 years ago

I'm not sure I would expect customer service to be the difference maker in terms of separation from the competition. With Amazon, you're talking about existing world-class customer service. And doing customer service well at scale is a capital-intensive business.

The separation from competition that I would see as valuable are the two other aspects of the service: algorithmic sales and logistical support.

Great ideas from these guys, but in terms of the resources to work with, all things considered I'd rather be in the position of the incumbents than the scrappy startup.

natemc• 13 years ago

Sounds like a beefed up Glyde. List your games/movies/books and when it sells they send you a SASE and they handle all the money etc. All you have to do is list condition, item, and price (it will suggest based on market value) then just put the item in an envelope when it sells.

Was the only way I was buying/selling PS3 games for quite some time.

quinndupont• 13 years ago

Either I'm missing something (or just struck upon a brilliant idea), but the important point of sending you an empty box isn't that they save you a trip to the postal office (although this is a nice side effect), but that the empty box psychologicaly induces you to sell your items, and Sold takes a cut on the sale. Just as charities figured out long ago, if you send someone a dollar or even a quarter they'll donate, same goes with an empty box. It is just too easy to sell something, and besides, they sent you this nice box! I think the psychology of this strategy is genius.

mesozoic• 13 years ago

This is cool. I sell on eBay a lot but would totally use this, except I mostly want to sell crap they probably wouldn't take.

marknutter• 13 years ago

Why is the "MIT Grads" part even relevant? Can't this idea stand on its own two feet?

ExpiredLink• 13 years ago

I remember having seen this idea before. The hard part is to implement it.

philsalesses• 13 years ago

I tried to post an iPhone but got stuck when I didn't post enough description. They emailed once reminding me but then that mail got buried and I forgot. They have an opportunity to fix that problem creatively, by maybe using different interfaces for different products, where each post screen is uniquely tailored to posting that specific product optimally.

They're definitely in the right path, but I think like any startup, they have some wrinkles to iron out. Luckily they have an amazing team and I think they'll do just fine in time.

jchrisa• 13 years ago

Fuck this is awesome. Can I invest in them?

tikhon• 13 years ago

This is a great competitor to Gazelle, a Boston-based startup that is doing really really well.

realdlee• 13 years ago

I've been a seller on eBay on and off since 1995. Selling is inconvenient and shipping has always been the biggest pain point. After the sale, it's rare where I feel like my time selling on eBay was well-spent, but it's kind of fun and I find it interesting to see how much my unwanted stuff can fetch.

I'm interested in seeing how Sold progresses. For the niche, pricier items that Sold is focusing on right now, I'd be more willing to invest the time to handle the sale myself since the payoff is presumably higher.

csomar• 13 years ago

Here is my take: Just send me the box, and I'll put the stuff. I don't want to take a photo and list it and then agree on the price. If I did that, I'll just go and sell it on eBay on my own. How is it different?

So I give you the stuff. You figure out if it can sell. You take a good percentage cut. You deposit the money for me. Just make the process transparent in case I cared about the details.

hcarvalhoalves• 13 years ago

I believe the difference is that they find the optimal price, deal with annoying buyers and pick it up at your house.

angrydev• 13 years ago

Amazon runs a service like this, I'm surprised it's not better known: http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/how-it-work...

xur172• 13 years ago

Sold is handling the pricing, listing, and dealing with customers. I sold a few things through Amazon FBA, and while it was pretty easy, I still had to list the items, and change the price a few times.

This takes it a step further, and deals with all of the headaches associated with selling. You just take a picture, place it in a box, and you're done. I can definitely see a market for this.

taigeair• 13 years ago

I'm reminded of startup in Europe that bought junk from you, sent you a box, and sold it. I met the founder at an event. Forgot the name though. It's a hard one to scale and not that easy to make money with...

Also reminds me of https://www.getyardsale.com/

canthonytucci• 13 years ago

You'd think three guys from MIT could come up with a better idea.

The whole point of this is to generate enough press to sell to ebay or amazon right?

Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box

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