Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box

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.<p>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.

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.<p>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.

Video is great. App/service looks solid. But marketplaces are <i>so tough</i> that I feel you almost HAVE TO START IN A NICHE and take the bowling pin strategy [1].<p>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.<p>Poshmark, on the other hand, is niche-focused (women's fashion) and seems to be growing well. Raised $15.5M. [2]<p>[1] <a href="http://cdixon.org/2010/08/21/the-bowling-pin-strategy/" rel="nofollow">http://cdixon.org/2010/08/21/the-bowling-pin-strategy/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/04/poshmark-nabs-12m-series-b-led-by-menlo-ventures-to-expand-its-mobile-fashion-marketplace-beyond-ios/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/04/poshmark-nabs-12m-series-b-...</a>

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.

Irrelevant nitpick, but including punctuation in their trademark makes their marketing materials pretty hard to read: <i>"Not only are Sold. boxes free, but they come pre-paid, pre-labeled, pre-insured, tracked, and filled with bubble wrap"</i><p>Reading this stuff requires two passes for me.<p>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.

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.<p>Please bring this to Europe, we need it too.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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...<p>Also reminds me of <a href="https://www.getyardsale.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.getyardsale.com/</a>

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 &#38; vendor site ( ebay, amazon, niche ) &#38; 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 &#38; an unmanned Google Car would be waiting outside. Toss the object into the car &#38; the amount gets credited to my Google Wallet. Fun times...

&#62;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.<p>Yeah, if something so trivial like find the right box stop you from make money, Bryan, selling is really not something for you.

Or.. you can just order free boxes at USPS: <a href="https://store.usps.com/store/browse/subcategory.jsp?categoryId=subcatMSS_B_Free" rel="nofollow">https://store.usps.com/store/browse/subcategory.jsp?category...</a>

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.

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.<p>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.

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.<p>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.

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

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?<p>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.

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.<p>Which gets me to thinking, do services like Gazzelle make money?

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)?

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).<p>For example, the auto-marketing of the product:<p>&#62; <i>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.</i><p>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?<p>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)?<p>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?

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

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.

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?

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

Amazon runs a service like this, I'm surprised it's not better known: <a href="http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/how-it-works.htm?ld=NSGoogleAS" rel="nofollow">http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/how-it-work...</a>

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.

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.

Now this is something I want.<p>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.

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!

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.

Fuck this is awesome. Can I invest in them?

You'd think three guys from MIT could come up with a better idea.<p>The whole point of this is to generate enough press to sell to ebay or amazon right?

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