Buying and Selling via Philofaxy Ad-Spot

From time to time I'm sure you all look at your little collection and think... I should really sell that organiser...it is only gathering dust on the shelf and I really fancy that new colour/model that Steve has been 'enabling' about...

Well Philofaxy is here to help sell your Filofax and other brands of organisers and accessories... is this negative enabling?

There are a lot of hints and tips as well as other information in this post, I apologise if some of it is common sense... but well you know.....

We have our Ad-spot page for readers adverts, firstly here are the rules for placing ads on the page:

• Preferably Filofax and other ring bound planner items only please... obvious really!
• No parallel Ebay adverts, if you have put it on Ebay, then please don't ask us to advertise your items as well. 
• We are serious when we request that you donate to our chosen charity, so please consider giving some form of donation if you are placing an item on the Ad-spot page.
  Consider what it would have cost to sell on Ebay, Philofaxy is visited by more than 3000 people every day... and they are an informed and targeted audience.
• Adverts will be on the page for no more than a calendar month, if it hasn't sold in that time it will be removed. 
• Please tell us when your item has sold so it can be removed from the page. 
• Once you have received the funds please despatch the item within 5 days. Don't accept the funds and leave it for 3 weeks, people tend to think they have been scammed when people do that. Inform the buyer when you have despatched the item include the tracking number if there is one. 
• If we get reports that you haven't responded to enquiries we will remove your advert immediately.
• Please put the text of your advert in the email exactly as you want it to appear, keep it concise and to the point, Steve will possibly reformat it, but he baulks at rewriting adverts from sketchy details. 
• The seller is responsible for paying Pay Pal fees, prices should include fees and buyers should pay via the Goods and Services option not Friends and Family option. This is to protect the buyer in case of any loss. 
• Remember you are entering in to a private sale between the buyer and seller, Philofaxy can not take any responsibility for the transaction going wrong in anyway. 

So those are the rules, nothing complicated and all very fair.

So what to include in your advert. Please make your advert as clear as possible, it should include:

• Details of the Model, size, colour, age if you know when it was originally bought
• Your location so an estimate on the cost of shipping can be estimated. You only need to go to country level.
• Condition, is it new, never been used, been in daily use, well used, broken in etc. 
• What is included in terms of inserts, diary inserts etc. 
• Where you are willing to ship the item to.
• Your contact details, an email address. 

• Smoking household or not. There is nothing worse as a non-smoker about receiving an article that stinks of tobacco smoke, this is nearly impossible to get rid of. 
• Some photographs, but please limit it to two photos per item. Please email these with your advert, or alternatively send us the links to your pictures. For better pictures please read this post on how to improve your pictures of Filofax Organisers.
• If you are taking your photos with your iPhone or other smart phone or tablet device, be aware that all the file names will be the same... and Steve will not be exactly pleased trying to sort out the pictures against the different items when he receives your request... transfer them to your PC and resize the pictures and rename them before emailing them as attachments with the text of your advert. Pictures don't need to be bigger than 1600 pixels on the longest side. 
• And price.... we can not handle auctions so the price has to be a fixed price. 

The price... I'm often asked 'how much should I ask for an xyz in Personal size'... I'm not the Quentin Wilson of the Filofax world, but here is some suggestions/tips on pricing...

• You can set the price to what ever you want it to be, I'm not going to stop you.....but......
• If the item is new but you have never used it, then I would suggest 15% -20% under what you paid for it. Remember the buyer might be able to buy one for same or less than the price you paid. If you have to add the price of shipping on top of the cost and remember some retailers offer free shipping. Look around at the prices that that item is available for, not just what the price is on the Filofax UK or USA site. We have all seen grossly inflated prices on Ebay for items... that didn't sell!
• If the item is used or may be not on current sale, then take a look at Ebay and look at completed sales to see what the average price has been on that particular model/size in the past.
• If you want the item to sell quickly be prepared to allow for some bargaining on your price. 
• Sellers must quote on the basis that they will be paying the Paypal fees and that buyers using Paypal will be specifying that they are purchasing goods.

When you have agreed a price for your item and you start to receive enquiries via Email, please try to answer them promptly. We suggest that you do any money transactions via a secure method, PayPal generally seems to work very well these days, it's very quick and secure.

Only use the paying for goods and services method of sending the funds, the receiver will be paying a small fee, but the consumer rights of the sender of the money are far more secure in case there are problems with the transaction.  To send funds you don't need to have a Paypal account yourself, you can pay with a credit or debit card

When you come to despatch the item to your lucky buyer, do be careful and pack your Filofax organiser well. Plenty of padding inside and outside of the organiser, I've repaired one or two and advised on others where they have become damaged in transit. Straightening out the ring mechanism after it's been trodden on is not easy! Read this post for details of how to pack your organiser. But still consider getting insurance on the parcel.

• Shipments made with standard postage, without tracking or insurance are “seller’s risk” – if the item does not arrive, sellers are expected to refund all money.
• If the seller wants to use insured or tracked postage that the buyer is unwilling to pay for, then the risk of lost items shifts to the buyer.
• Sellers must respect requests to use a premium shipping option (tracked, expedited, insured, etc.) that the buyer is paying for.

And once your sale is complete.... don't forget to tell Philofaxy of the completed sale so the advert can be withdrawn, we will acknowledge your instructions. Make your donation to Chimwemwe at this point as well.

For Wanted adverts things are a little bit simpler, you just need to specify the model, size, colour  and your contact email address. May be include your country location. Again format the text of your advert as you would like it to appear. Wanted adverts are currently shown on the page for 2 months.

All that is then left to do is to sit back and decide..... now what Filofax can I buy to replace the one I've just sold..... Enable Enable.... well there is a space on that shelf isn't there....

Contact Steve philofaxy at gmail dot com if you have any questions or you have an advert to post.