Have You Shopped Yardsellr.com Yet?

There’s a relatively new kid on the block in the online person-to-person selling business. Yardsellr.com was founded in October 2009 as a platform for buyers and sellers to experience the informality and serendipity of browsing or holding a yard sale without leaving the comfort of home or office. You can keep your car in the garage and even stay in your jammies while you hunt for bargains and treasures.

Yardsellr.com sellers offer a huge variety of items ranging from antique to vintage, to new and gently used, to hand crafted, to products that can be customized for you. You will find items at yardsellr.com that you would expect to find in your neighborhood’s seasonal yard sales, local thrift shops, and artisan and hand crafters’ studios. 

To be sure, there are sellers on yardsellr.com who promote their existing businesses, so you will see some obvious drop-shipping and other commercial enterprises. However, there’s also a wealth of sellers wanting to connect from their home to yours.

It’s so easy it’s almost silly. Just type whatever your interest is into the search box at the top of the page and click Search. Or, scroll down the page to select one of the “Blocks,” Yardsellr's term for categories. There’s some pretty funky stuff out there, so have fun browsing.

You can browse to your heart’s content on yardsellr.com, but in order to make a purchase, you need to have a Facebook account. This is a bit different from well-known selling sites like eBay, Etsy, or Amazon. On those sites, you set up an account, specify the details of contact information and payment method, and shop away.

In contrast, Yardsellr is a social media shopping site that uses online “neighborhoods” to make connections between buyers and sellers, and this means you need to be part of that social network. If you don’t already have a Facebook account, you will have to create one.

Yardsellr is not an auction site Sellers set the price. Sellers also set the shipping and handling fee, which is prominently displayed in the item listing.

To learn more about a seller Click the seller’s Facebook page link.

To contact a seller There are three ways to contact a seller: you can leave a comment on the item listing, click the envelope icon on the item listing page, or send a message through the seller’s Facebook account.

Payment methods You can pay for your item with MasterCard, Visa, Discover, or PayPal.

You pay a fee to buy a Yardsellr item Sellers pay no fee to list and sell an item. You pay a small fee to buy an item, which you will see at checkout. And here’s the good news…

The buyer’s fee is easily offset by earning credits You can easily offset the buyer’s fee…and the price of your purchase…by earning credits called Photon$. Ten thousand Photon$ are worth ten US cents. Many opportunities exist across the site for earning these credits. For example, leaving a comment on an item listing will put a surprising number of Photon$ in your account, as will purchasing an item. I even earned 25,000 Photon$ one day just for logging in. Not to mention, when Yardsellr adds to your Photon$ bucket, it drops an animated sign on your page congratulating you for earning...kind of funky and funny.

After you select an item and make payment, Yardsellr notifies the seller of your purchase. The seller then ships the item to the mailing address you provided during checkout. If you have questions about shipping time, shipping method, or the seller’s return policy, you should contact the seller before you commit to buy.

You as a buyer can opt to Like Blocks or sellers. When you do, you will be notified through your Facebook news feed when new items are listed in the Blocks or by the sellers you opt to Like.

You may want to exercise a bit of caution about Liking. When I first started browsing Yardsellr, I Liked the Jewelry Block and found my Facebook news feed bombarded hour-by-hour with new jewelry listings. You might be OK with that, but I wasn’t! I later learned to be more discriminating about what I invited to appear in my Facebook news feed.

You will not find the guides, product reviews, seller and buyer feedback, and forums that you may be familiar with on sites such as eBay and Amazon. You will also not find a detailed help section. But, in a way, you don’t need one, because the site’s navigation and operation are so simple. If you do run into a blip, then you can email Yardsellr through their contact page.

The Yardsellr Blog Yardsellr staff publishes a blog which you access from the top of a Yardsellr page. It’s well worth your time as a buyer to frequent this lively venue for announcements, news, and tips.

The Yardsellr Leaderboard Also worthwhile is the Yardsellr Leaderboard, also accessed through a link at the top of a Yardsellr page. The Leaderboard displays member rankings and a comments section to which members can contribute.

I am giving Yardsellr a whirl, not only as a buyer but as a seller. Check out the Yardsellr site for unusual, collectible, fun and funky items as well as for surprisingly super deals.

I wonder if Yardsellr isn’t that new kid on the block that does manage to give eBay and other established online selling venues serious competition in the person-to-person marketplace. What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.