The Hunt For An Alternative To Greedbay

We've been here in Europe now for about a year. During that whole time I have been 'road testing' every single online selling venue I could find or heard about, including quite a few which are no longer around (unsuprisingly).

Each and every one had a fair (and long) trial, but there was always one or two things which niggled and made me uncomfortable selling in those places. And some of them just never sold anything anyhow, despite my best efforts and rock bottom prices with FREE worldwide postage. Heck, I may as well just give the stuff away I thought!

The first one I tried was Etsy. I understood that it was for crafters selling their handmade wears, but they soon developed a vintage costume jewellery selling category.

Since I have some vintage costume jewellery which is broken, or needs a slight repair, from rhinestone pieces which need new ones sourcing, and sticking back in, to necklaces where the silk cord had rotted and the whole thing needs re-stringing, I thought I could list these and get rid of them.

I also have a stash of vintage findings (the metal parts on costume jewellery) because my Aunt Dolly bought out many retiring jewellers and even one small factory - and they are only the ones I know about. I suspect there were many more, knowing her.

As to fixing them myself as someone suggested to me once
"Oh it's easy" says she.
"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" said I.
Not for someone like me who is notoriously 'cack-handed'. So no, I would not even attempt that kind of thing myself, so Etsy seemed heaven-sent, at first that is.

Anyhow, long story short, visited the Forums for tips and advice and was astounded at the number of 'F Bombs' being hurled around willy nilly. Now I am no prude (very far from it), but saw no need for language like that on a public board. That was the first nail in the coffin.

Contacting one of the admin people to ask why such language was tolerated resulted (three weeks later) in a note saying perhaps since I was not an 'artist' the site was not the best fit for me, because in artistic circles any language is acceptable. Well, I took the hint and moved on.

Next came eCrater. Easy interface, lots of hits, but not good categories for me. My stuff just did not seem to fit into any of the existing ones. So a nice email was sent suggesting a couple of new ones which may help. No reply. I left it for a month and still probably have some stuff sitting there, I just never heard from them again. Time to move on yet again.

Finding it hard to get into the apartment for boxes of stuff waiting to be sold, I re-investigated the dark side - greedbay. Could the fee's really be that high? Does that really matter if it means I get rid of some stuff? I tried to justify jumping on the ebay bandwagon even though the rules seemed often pointless and directed at the wrong people. It would be easier than enduring these hopeless ebay wannabes who just could not cut it in my eyes.

Then they (greedbay) introduced the 'no bad feedback for buyers no matter how awful they are' rule. Well that woke me up big-time. No way am I going to put my heart and soul into selling, braving -12 weather to get to the post office fast to post their parcel and then get a bad feedback for something completely bogus. No way!

So back to the alternatives - had a good look at Ruby Lane whose fees are high, but who now have quite a good reputation. But they too had arbitrary rules one effecting a major producer of vintage costume jewellery.

The company named D&E (Delizza & Elster) has fairly recently been discovered as having made exceptionally high quality jewellery, for themselves (Juliana) and for other big names, like Weiss, Kramer and Eisenberg. Ruby Lane unilaterally decided that jewels which had passed the very rigorous online testing for 'verification' of genuineness (is that a word?) could not be advertised as such on 'The Lane'. Big black mark for Miss Ruby I am afraid, so crossed that one off the ever decreasing list.

But that was not the last, by any means, that I tested. There were some early start-ups which pure and simply did not work. Clicking on something brought up something else. And nice emails telling them this received no reply at all.

Of course, I noticed that all of these greedbay clones were springing up in the good old USA, there simply MUST be one here in Europe surely? But Googling my eyes out for days at a time, I only found one poor old neglected half built site from a Frenchman. Say no more.

The saga continues.....................................