All about Fickle Resale Charlotte & a Smarty Steal

written by Guest Blogger April 28, 2015

I had the chance recently to get all the details from Fickle Resale founder, Jenny Houser Kramer. Read below to find out about Charlotte’s newest resale opportunity, Fickle Resale. Fickle is a locals-only, web-based selling and buying platform for lightly used or discounted high-end items. I’ve been following them lately, and they have some great items for sale. Below is my conversation with Jenny!

Tell us how you came about starting Fickle?
Two years ago I wanted to sell some children’s clothing. I took it to a consignment shop. When I picked up the checks, I was disappointed with the 50% transaction fee. Afterwards, I tried eBay and did not have much luck, not to mention that it was a hassle to go to the post office with kids in tow!

So I decided to post items for sale on Facebook and eventually created a Facebook group and was surprised at how fast it grew. At this point, nobody else was selling on Facebook groups, and quickly, we had a boatload of members – it was amazing! As the group grew, it became hard for members to navigate, people could not easily find their items to bump them, it took them a long time to find and delete their posts after items sold. Also, because the feed was continuous people who could only log on 1 or 2 times per day were disappointed and it was hard for them to find just the new stuff. We decided to see if we could find a better way…..

And, did you find a better way?
We considered many ideas, and in the end we decided to invest some money and create the Fickle website. Our intent was to make it easier and less time consuming for people to shop while allowing them to keep 100% of the selling price. We love Facebook, but for what our members wanted to do it was becoming too cumbersome.

And what are some of the benefits to Fickle compared to a local Facebook page?
We think that Fickle is easier to shop than a Facebook group: in Facebook: things get lost, hassles of “interested” and “next” method for the sellers. (on fickle, the buyer clicks a “buy” button and all sales are recorded in the system for sellers and buyers to easily reference. Sales are considered final) We give ways for customers to follow their favorite sellers and even get previews before that seller’s listing goes live, so you get a heads up to listings!

Generally, when people compare Fickle to social media groups, they tell us that we have a better, faster shopping and selling environment.

There are many, but some of the things we hear the most often are:
– No clutter – you can sort and filter by category, most recent, most popular, by member, etc.
– All items are curated before release to insure that they are appropriate for our site. We do not post things that are too old or do not meet our quality standards.
– It is easy to sort and find specific categories of items
– No need to manually delete sold items as they move to the sold section automatically
– You can easily see items that have sold in the past in order to get a feel for successful pricing.
– No need to scroll forever to find the types of items they are looking for,
– The ability to see items posted ‘by seller’ if you have favorite sellers

Tell me about the Curating – how does this works to find items better?
Each day, we review all listings so that our members don’t have to sift through at a lot of items that would be more appropriate for a garage sale. This helps keep the content more appealing to Fickle members.

What about Fickle’s transaction fees and membership fees?
The best example I can think of is if a women wants to sell a dress that she thinks is worth $100, and she does it on one of the consignment websites, she will walk away with somewhere around $60-70 after the transaction fees. If this were sold on Fickle instead, a member’s entire $30 per year membership fee would be made up on just this one sale because the seller keeps 100% of the sales price. Our members can list as many things as they want for the entire 12 months for only $30. This saves sellers a tremendous amount of money, while still allowing buyers to find great deals on the site.

How is pick up and payment handled?
Pickup and payment is handled between the buyers and sellers, just like on Facebook groups. We do suggest PayPal for security and ease.

Fickle Client Testimonial
“I love Fickle for many reasons! It is so fun to see all the wonderful items that are posted each day and to find such good deals! I’ve also enjoyed making a little fickle money too! Not only are the deals amazing but I have really enjoyed meeting new ladies from Fickle! Fickle makes the world seem a little smaller, better decorated and budget friendly!” ~D. B.

Smarty Steal: Free Trial to Fickle Resale

Try Fickle Resale for free! Simply email Keaton@fickleresale.com with code SP101 – she will hook you up for your free trial for 30 days. Happy shopping!