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[ Benefits of Selling Here: ]
- Effective Advertising ~ Your item will be advertised to over 7,000 Goths on the Velvet Garden [ Mailing List ] as soon as it is posted! You cannot get that kind of targeted marketing on auction sites where buyers have to search for your items. Auction sites offer nothing that can compare to this service!
- High Traffic ~ According to Alexa.com, the traffic rank for The Velvet Garden is 288,724! That means it is currently ranked among the top 300,000 websites in the world! Here are some comparisons: Goth Auctions is ranked at 312,300, and Gothic Auctions is 1,075,528.
- Generous Timeframe ~ Your items will be listed on Velvet Garden for one full YEAR! Auction sites only give you one WEEK, and then they charge you re-listing fees.
- Fast Sales ~ Because there is no bidding, items are selling very quickly. Items often sell the same day that they are posted on the Velvet Garden.
- No Re-Listing Hassles ~ If a buyer doesn't send in payment, your item will still be listed on Velvet Garden, you won't have to deal with re-listing hassles or pay any extra fees.
- Less Stress ~ Since this is not an auction site, you can name your own price and wait for a buyer to agree to it (which usually happens very quickly!). There is much less stress and anxiety involved for the buyer and seller than there is on auction sites. Sellers know exactly what their items will sell for, and buyers know exactly what they will be paying.
- Website Integrity ~ The Velvet Garden is incredibly well-established. It has been online since August 1998 (over 9 years!), and has an amazing customer base. According to our site stats, we receive an average of over 5,500 hits per day! Items are being sold every day!
- Free Image Help ~ I will take care of all the graphics for you. I will retouch, crop, fix the color balance, and create thumbnails for any images you send me. There is no extra charge for this, it's all included in the posting fee.
- Free Image Hosting ~ All images are hosted on our servers. Once you send the images in, you don't need to worry about them any more.
- No Hidden Fees ~ You never have to give out your credit card number, or worry about hidden fees. The posting fee is paid once, up front, and there are no other charges or closing fees to worry about!
Anyone can sell items on The Velvet Garden! If you would like to sell your items on The Velvet Garden, please write to alison@velvetgarden.net with a list of the items you would like to sell. [ Please include: ]
- Title ~ Each item should have a fairly short, but descriptive title. It is not necessary to list size or quality in the title, but brand names are sometimes helpful.
- Description ~ Sometimes photos don't turn out so well, especially when the item is black, so please try to include a brief description of what you are selling.
- Size ~ Include the size, and measurements if possible.
- Quality ~ Describe the quality accurately, please mention any rips, stains, fading, missing buttons, etc...
- Price ~ The price should be a fair estimation of what you think the item is worth. If it doesn't sell at your asking price, you can always lower the price later.
- Shipping Costs ~ How much you'll charge for shipping and handling. If you're having trouble with this, I'd suggest looking through the site to see what others are charging for shipping on similar items.
- Photos ~ Please send images to me as .jpg attachments. Usually one or two images per item is sufficient, but there is no limit on the number of images you can send. However, Velvet Garden images are usually no larger than about 500 x 500 pixels, so if you send lots of photos then once they are combined they may each end up being rather small. Please do not use other people's photos without permission.
- Quantity ~ Let me know if you have more than one of a particular item. The posting fee covers the sale of one item only and it is important that you notify me when the sale has been made. If it sells quickly, and you have (or can make) more of them, I'd be happy to help you sell those on Velvet Garden, but a posting fee needs to be paid for each item that you wish to sell.
- Form of Payment ~ Let me know what forms of payment you accept, such as PayPal, money orders, checks, concealed cash, etc...
- Country ~ Please let me know if you are not located in the US.
[ More About Selling: ]
"Velvet Garden is a very smooth-running machine which offers an excellent alternative venue for the buying and selling of Gothic what-nots. The level of communication between sellers and store owner/diva is a much-appreciated change from the Ebayesque ambiance of other auction sites/online stores." ~ from Morbid Outlook's "Customer Service" Article
- Approval ~ Please do not send your posting fee payment until you have contacted me with a list of the items you want to sell, and your items have been approved. I reserve the right to refuse to advertise any item, on the grounds that I feel it does not fit with the goals of this site.
- Duration ~ Your item will be listed for ONE full year. If your item has not sold after a period of one year, then I reserve the right to remove that item from the site. You will receive a warning email before your items are removed so that you can save the images and description.
- Valid Email ~ Sellers must provide a valid email adddress so that the buyers can get in touch with them. If mail cannot be delivered to your email address for more than two weeks in a row, then I reserve the right to remove your items.
- Sale Updates ~ Please tell me as soon as you receive payment for your items so that I can keep this site properly updated, and so that people will not keep emailing you about it.
- Sale Terms ~ These are the sale terms used on The Velvet Garden:
SOLD! = You have received cash, a money order, or a PayPal payment, and the item has been shipped out.
Sale Pending! = You have received a personal check or eCheck and are waiting for it to clear before sending out the item.
Waiting List = You have received emails from more than 4 people who are interested in buying the item, but no one has sent in payment yet. I never mark things as "Reserved" or "On Hold" because the first person who asks to buy something does not always send in payment.
Please be very careful to use these terms properly. If you tell me that an item is sold, then it will be marked as "sold" for several days, and then deleted from the site. Deleted items cannot be replaced on the site once they have been deleted (unless you want to send the descriptions, images and posting fee again).- Disclaimer ~ All transactions are to be conducted directly between the Buyer and Seller, The Velvet Garden is not an intermediary in any sales, and responsibility for fulfillment of all transactions lies wholly with the Buyer and Seller. However, if you do have problems, please inform us immediately. Abuses to this system will not be tolerated.
- Posting Fees ~ A small posting fee is charged to sell items on the Velvet Garden. This fee covers the time and effort it takes me to maintain this site, and it helps to pay for our web hosting and other operating costs. The posting fee basically amounts to my hourly wage for maintaining and marketing the site, getting you in touch with buyers, and making sure that a place like this exists.
The posting fee is 10% of the asking price of your item. Thus, if you are selling one item for $30, then the posting fee would be only $3 (simply multiply the asking price by 0.1). The posting fee is always paid in advance, because unlike a physical store, I really have no way of keeping track of when your things sell. There is a minimum per-item posting fee of $1 - so if you want to sell something for $8, the posting fee for that item would be $1 (rather than $0.80). Posting fees are non-refundable.
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