[danso]

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?

[jarrett]

> 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]

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]

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.