I have recently teamed up with Gaurav Mehra (of Shop Mehra,) another player in the shoe industry to create what we hope will become the number place one for Shoe Brands to sell off their hard to sell stock, whether that be ‘seconds,’ old stock, MTO’s made incorrectly, returns etc. And thus create a place for the customers to easily get a chance to find things that would otherwise cost a trip to Europe, or wherever, to queue up at the factory store and potentially find nothing. It would be the perfect option for both the vendor and customer to find a way to both be happy by selling off undesirables, customers getting what they want and all doing so at minimal risk. And so we have created ‘The Shoe Snob Marketplace.’
However, as this is a new venture, what we have decided to do in order to build this into our grand idea is to first allow normal individuals, like you or me, to sell off their shoes and for other normal people to buy them, much like any buy & sell forum. (When I say at first, I don’t mean that it will every stop). A shoe company will only be enticed to set up shop on this Marketplace when they see it thriving with other people taking part. That being, we need lots of people to start taking part to make this a place where anyone can find a great deal and certainly something that will entice them, not only to buy but to keep coming back. The more people that join by listing their shoes, the more people that come to buy, the more traffic the Marketplace has, all equates to the more likely some English, Italian or Japanese shoe brand that everyone wants will be enticed to list off those 50 pairs they have had sitting in their factory that they just can’t seem to get rid of and list them at a great price!
Can you see our vision? Once we get the brands on board, it will be a great place to find things you wouldn’t otherwise find by simply entering a shop. It will be like an online sample sale at all times!
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I am going to start this off by listing 15 or so pairs of my own shoes to show you that this is a safe, trustworthy and easy site to buy and sell from. We have built a relatively foolproof system that anyone can take part in and do so quite easily. So allow me to explain what is required to be a purchaser and a vendor.
1. To be a purchaser, you simply need a regular Paypal account. This is the only thing required and of course to set up an account with the Marketplace. But this is easy and is the standard when joining any buy and sell forum.
–One thing to note as a purchaser is that if you are buying from a business, you will be liable for taxation based on the state/country’s tax laws
2. To be a seller is not difficult but slightly more involved.
–To ensure more safety and security for all, one must register a business account with Paypal. THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU NEED TO OWN A BUSINESS. It is just a business account that makes it more secure for both sellers and the buyers.
–Setting up a new product takes about 2 minutes. Everything is pretty much listed there for you with drop down boxes. Simply select and click, upload your images and write as much description you want.
–We take a 5% cut on all transactions. This comes directly out of your sale and the rest goes straight into your Paypal account.
–You can set up shipping prices by continent and within each continent can dictate prices on individual countries too if you want to have separate charges for each country.
–When you have a message you will see ‘My Account’ button flashing which is a prompt to check your messages. From the messages, you can edit the pricing on a product from an inquiry from a purchaser, on both product price and shipping costs
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There are some slight drawbacks though that I want to discuss, for both vendors and purchasers.
- Multiple products cannot be added to the cart. This is for several reasons. One because vendors could be different. Two, to prevent fraud. The way to get around this for example if you want to buy multiple shoes from one vendor is to simply send a message to the vendor from one of their product pages. You will find a message box at the bottom of the page (see screenshot). From here, the vendor can make a custom price on both the product and the shipping.
- Alternatively, you can make refunds to orders after the fact. So if you sell 3 pairs of shoes and 3x shipping prices, and want to offer some refunds on the shipping, you can always do that after the orders have been made.
- Customer support can be found by emailing: [email protected]
I am sure that there will be more questions that I might have missed but hopefully you all find this to be a useful venue for finding things you wouldn’t elsewhere and also have a new place to sell of your shoes, with a target audience catered to being interested in shoes as this will be consistently marketed by The Shoe Snob Blog.
See below the pairs that I am selling off, one Gaziano & Girling included.
Happy Shopping and Selling!!
Justin FitzPatrick
https://marketplace.theshoesnobblog.com/
