In a box? In a bin? Or just dumped in a beach tote in the back of your closet? Scattered throughout your house? No matter where you keep your unloved beauty products, let's call it what it is. The Beauty Graveyard. Don't think you have one? Let's not pretend you don't have a baggie of samples you've been "meaning to try".
No one knows the competitor landscape for Glou Marketplace better than me. So here it is. Us versus all your other options. Here is the lay of the land. The down low. Are you ready for your choices?
New, used, or swatched, here are your options when it comes to rehoming your unloved products, and where you can find amazing deals on popular products that didn't work out for other people. At the end of the day buying gently used from someone is still safer and more hygienic than using testers, so it's an inexpensive way to try out a new brand/product without committing to the retail price.
Pros:
110% money back Glou Guarantee. This is important because I don't want any buyer's remorse around here. If what you received isn't what was in the listing, you'll get your money back. No need to file any paperwork and wait weeks for it to be processed - I've gotchu.
We take action against bad sellers. What I hated about other options was how easy it was for scammers to make a new account and take advantage of people all over again.
Seller reviews. I get it. When you're buying someone else's beauty products, you don't want to read reviews about what they sold, but who sold it. And we don't supply you with canned reviews that say "Great!". Reviews are written by real people and displayed on the seller's profile.
Custom shipping options. If you want to use our USPS calculator, great. You want to use a flat rate mailer (which you can get for free btw), sure. Or, you just want to set your own custom rate, that's an option too. Would you prefer to meet-up locally? It's a pandemic so I advise against it, but that's available as an option too. I personally hate it when I'm forced to pay shipping fees that don't make sense and I feel like the company is making money off of me off sham shipping fees. I'm not about that.
Easy multi-listing process that was built for beauty. I know what a pain it is to create one listing at a time when you're trying to sell a dozen items. I'm also working to make this even simpler with the help of more advanced technologies. It should be as simple as scanning the item with your phone and stating your price.
Cons:
I'm going to be straight up with you. This is my baby, and I know she ain't perfect.
Glou Marketplace can be a little more user friendly, a little sleeker, faster. Trust me, I know. And our biggest draw back? We are new and don't have that network effect yet. However, the goal is to centralize the secondary market for beauty so that one day we can tackle one of the industry's biggest issues: counterfeits. As you will see below, people are selling all over the place, so we can't identify that bad guys because they pop up everywhere. But one day, when our community is strong enough, it becomes a possibility and one that I'm stoked for. I'm also very excited about introducing ways to verify proof of purchase of authentic products.
Most companies would never be this transparent with you. But I want you to trust me, because I really want you to believe and support in Glou as much as I do. By selling/buying from our platform, and telling your friends about us, you're helping us reach out potential little by little. It means more to me that you can possibly know.
Facebook Groups
Pros:
Active communities. Some groups are big, some are small. Generally the bigger groups constantly have a stream of activity so you know people will see your stuff.
Easily share your listing into the general marketplace. Get your listings out to a wider audience is easy.
Cons:
DRAMA. Just reading about the stuff that goes down in the comments blows my mind. Anyone else get flashbacks to middle-school?
Inefficient transactions. Okay, seriously, no one has the time to field that many DMs for each item someone is interested in. And then you have to create an invoice. It takes hours to manage a small batch sale. It's a very involving process. Not to mention the prevalence of...
Time wasters and ghosting shoppers. You know the type. They claim and item, then you can't contact them, then they make you hold the item, and then a week later they're like, "nvm something came up, I don't want it anymore".
Seller feedback is a joke. There's no way to see who's a trusted seller and not. You can join a separate discussion group dedicated to feedback on sellers. But there's no one feedback group you can join. And people are inconsistent about reporting back unless they had an awful experience. And it's easy for scammers to create new accounts under new names and wreak havoc all over again.
Reliance on Paypal for buyer protection. Paypal is a big corporation and can't react very quickly to requests.
Reddit: r/makeupexchange (and similar subreddits)
A lot of this is similar to Facebook, because they are both discussion platforms people have adapted to transact.
Pros:
Active subreddit communities. You'll be able to get interested eyeballs on your stuff for sale. As a buyer it's easy to search Reddit.
Cons:
A lot of this is similar to Facebook, because they are both discussion platforms people have adapted to transact.
Inefficient transactions.
Reliance on Paypal for buyer protection.
Absent mods.
Poshmark
Pros:
Established marketplace. This is definitely nice because people have heard of it. They also have their own money-back guarantee and don't tolerate the sale of inauthentic goods.
Web + app platforms. The option and convenience is nice for browsing on-the-go, and quickly snapping a pic of whatever you wanna sell.
Cons:
People are always offer insultingly low prices. You state a very reasonable price and someone will submit an offer that challenges your intelligence. I'm so over this back and forth process when I always offer my lowest price right off the bat. This culture needs to go away like tipping.
This is a fashion marketplace. Beauty is kinda like a side thought, and beauty is such a fundamentally different category than clothes. Like, hello, would you sell your car on Poshmark? That's how different we are talking. Things like product condition become a lot more important.
$3 commission for under $15, otherwise 20% commission. Does anyone else feel like they're being robbed a little? It might not be so bad trying to sell a $60 dress, but when your items are mostly $5-20 each... It just doesn't make sense.
Mercari
Pros:
Easy to list anything. Although it will still take a minute to list a lot of beauty products.
Money back guarantee. I have not personally experienced how their process works and how much hassle is involved. However, you need to report it within three days of receipt and not rate the seller (which completes the transaction). But sometimes you don't know if something is wrong or filled with fake filler until it's too late. Too bad.
Cons:
Most seller ratings are auto-generated. You can't tell who to trust when all the reviews are automated when people don't write one. It defaults to a neutral review. This isn't real data you can use to inform whether or not to trust a seller to sell you something you might put on your face.
Ebay
Pros:
Well known brand and established marketplace.
Cons:
Fakes are everywhere. From brushes (yes, fake brushes) to makeup... you really don't know what you're gonna get.
Glambot
Pros:
They "sanitize" your makeup. For the most part... it's not anything you can't do yourself at home. It's a lot of wiping down the exterior of the package, or taking the top layer of product off.
They will list all your products for you.
Cons:
You get pennies for your products. Sure it's convenient that you can ship them all your products in one go. But you're only going to get a buck or two for each products they decide to keep. As for the rest? You're never going to see your stuff again.
As a buyer, you barely save. Look, if I'm only saving a couple bucks for a used product, why wouldn't I just buy it new. What am I getting from this deal? I don't know...
You can only sell from a select list of brands...
MUABS
Pros:
It's a makeup focused listings site (albeit a sketchy looking one).
Cons:
Literally all guarantees and policies piggy-back off Paypal. They take no accountability for the happenings on their site.
MySubscriptionAddiction Swap Site
Pros:
Find those subscription beauty box items you wanted. We all know that those beauty boxes are a constant stream of products that we don't want. So if you want to rehome your stuff with someone who wanted what you got, and you want what they got, this is a place you can go.
Cons:
Buying and selling is not allowed. Yeah, it's just for swapping. Sometimes people have their Ebay listings attached. But again, be super wary of Ebay.
No one will transact with you if you're new. So you need some kind souls to trust you blindly before you can build enough of a reputation to be able to use the site with any sort of regularity.
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