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There's actually a fast growing trend to use Facebook groups to sell things. They call them "24/7 Yardsales". They'll make a group for each city and then people
by vyrotek 14y ago
There's actually a fast growing trend to use Facebook groups to sell things. They call them "24/7 Yardsales". They'll make a group for each city and then people bid through the comments. Some of the groups have over 8000 members. The experience is a bit different though compared to normal classifieds. The reason they refer to them as yardsales is because the members of the groups usually aren't looking for something specific. They're all just 'window shopping' for deals and Facebook notifies them instantly when something new is available.
My wife was pretty active in these groups and eventually came to me saying that a lot of people wished there was a better way to do this. So, I did what any good husband would do and spent a few weeks putting a site together for them. I combined her two favorite things. Pinterest & Yardsales. http://yardable.com http://yardable.com (It was a nice excuse to play with some new tech too :P) All the items and users on the site are legit. I found some humor in the fact that the first items officially sold on Yardable were my old CS college books. I felt as if I had passed on the torch.
I wish I had more time to work on this. I got as far as building an API for a few people who wanted to build the mobile app for me. It seems like there's some interest in something better than Craigslist with more 'browsing' type features. There are a few startups out there working on this I believe. One of them is a YC company called http://www.getyardsale.com http://www.getyardsale.com which went with the mobile approach first. Monetizing these ideas through something besides ads seems a bit challenging though.
- revorad 14y agoSurely making money on these ideas is straightforward - take a cut of the transaction. The hard part is solving the chicken-and-egg problem. The Yardsale app seems quite good, but no one uses it here in London. Is it popular in SF or other parts of America?
- vyrotek 14y agoYou can't take a part of the transaction since they all happen in-person with cash. Not sure about Yardsale. None of the people around here knew about it. There's definitely a chicken & egg problem in this space. But I could see these things spread through small communities first. I had hundreds of registered users in a couple of weeks from Utah and watched it spread to Idaho and Arizona pretty quickly.
- revorad 14y agoYou can't take a part of the transaction since they all happen in-person with cash. Ebay proves otherwise.
- vyrotek 14y agoWell, eBay allows people to sell things to each other across the world/country which solves a different problem. Most of the people selling things on classifieds have no interest in having to go to the post office to ship your item and deal with paypal or something to get money. The items on these yardsale groups sell within minutes and someone comes to your door with cash in hand and the item is gone. People really like and trust the community aspect of selling things this way.
- revorad 14y agoPlenty of people buy and sell on ebay within small local communities with a pickup only option. The trust factor comes from being in the same community and doing at least one good transaction. The mode of payment has nothing to do with it. In fact, it would be better if you didn't have to deal with cash. Just because things have been done in a certain way doesn't mean they can't be done better.