The 5 kinds of sellers you’ll find on popular online market places

1. The professional
2. The liquidator
3. The Marie Kondo
4. The Hobbyist
5. Other (drop shipper, crafters, white label)

The Professional:

These are people who run businesses on eBay, they source from individuals and other businesses and sell at full retail value. For a reseller like myself, you can buy the right items at the wrong price. The way to buy from these sellers is to contact them directly, offer to spend more money but on a bundle of items. This can help save on shipping and can grease the wheels. I purchased watches from a small Japanese watch shop this way, I paid less than asking but on items that have low value in japan and have niche collectability here in the states.

The clue you’re working with a professional is they have a lot of listings for the same item and their product photography is usually pretty good.

The Liquidator:

Liquidators buy in bulk from all over the web and local area and are parting stuff out with limited knowledge about it. They don’t necessarily care about what items they have, they just want to move them. This means they may not be as thorough with their listings or their inspection of the items. when buying from these sellers you have to check the photo and description and see if things are matching up. Some sources of merchandise include storage lockers and returns. Returns are often returned because they’re damaged or broken. In the watch industry there are “reps” which are incredibly detailed and accurate and extremely hard to verify, so it’s even possible some returns could be counterfeit from scammers who bought a rep and a real one and returned the rep to the big box seller. Counterfeits are not just for expensive watches either and having seen a cheap watch that was counterfeit I know they can be very convincing. You have to really learn the product.

The dead giveaway you’re working with a liquidator is if they have lots of listings for a lot of different categories or items. Clothes, shoes, electronics, etc. Their product photos are often stock photos and not very good, they may use good lighting and a good camera but they have a lot of items to photograph and usually only include a few. Not being familiar with every item they may frustratingly not photograph the serial numbers or other important parts.

The Marie Kondo:

These people are good, they have a yardsaler mentality. Something does not spark joy, they want it gone. They often don’t know or care about the item or what it’s worth.

Clues you’re working with a Marie Kondo type, they have fewer listings for a wide variety of items. Their product photos are usually taken around the house, so if the seller is selling a blouse or bag the photos will be on top of her bed or dresser. The Marie Kondo type seller will use natural lighting and a cell phone for photos. This seller is unfamiliar with the merchandise many times and doesn’t have great product listings or descriptions and will often neglect photographing the item’s most important aspects, for watches, that’s the numbers on the back of the case.

Most “Marie Kondo” types are women. Men usually don’t bother with reselling although there are some that do usually in the next category.

The Hobbyist:

The hobbyist is the ideal seller for me. They know what they have and they want a fair price but they aren’t necessarily in it for the money. You will pay more from a hobbyist than from a Marie Kondo or Reseller type but you will typically get a product that is listed correctly and matches the description.

The hobbyist will have Marie Kondo style product photos, meaning taken at home. Their product photography is usually good but not on the level of a shop which will be using professional lighting and cameras. They will make use of window lighting and have very basic photos without a lot of props. The hobbyist knows what information is important to a buyer and usually will include photos of the serial numbers, books, boxes, and tag if still present.

The hobbyist will have fewer listings but mostly for the same category and will often disclose they’re a hobbyist in their description and that they’re selling to “thin out the collection” or something similar, but not always.

Other sellers:

There are other sellers that I haven’t run into, like drop shippers, home crafters and white label sellers. These sellers aren’t common in the used watch market but may be found in clothing, electronics, food and beverage, supplements etc.