I came across Sell Simply at the recently concluded Innovate 2011 conference held by eBay (and their humongous list of partners and vendors!).  Sell Simply caught my attention because there was a large crowd gathered around their booth and owner Chris Teso was enthusiastically explaining his company’s concept.  To be honest,  I was already excited earlier that day as I was seeing the future of e-commerce move at warp speed at the Moscone Center where the event was held.  Tomorrow’s commerce was changing, right there before my eyes.  It was happening, right then and now.  Scratch that, it was already happening!  Social Media has found its place  into the social commerce sphere.  How we transact sales, how we buy and sell and how we find our market ~ was about to take a giant leap forward.  Meet a pioneer.

Sell Simply enables businesses and consumers to buy, sell and transact on Twitter.  Tweets are turned into transactions.  They call it  T-commerce.

Shopping some Etsy items on Sell Simply

Tweets are transactions

Sell Simply transforms Twitter into a marketplace. It enables anyone to buy and sell anything over Twitter just by replying “buy” to any listing Tweet. Whether you list an item on Sell Simply, or import one from Etsy, Ebay, Craigslist, ArtFire or Bonanza, it is automatically Tweeted out for sale. When someone responds to that Tweet with the word “buy” Sell Simply makes a PayPal transaction happen. Boom, you just bought or sold something with one Tweet. Even retweets are transaction-able.

A Twitter transaction via @SellSimply

Curious as to how the concept came to fruition, I had the pleasure of engaging with Chris Teso and had a short Q&A with him.

Chris Teso is a solo founder. The inspiration behind Sell Simply was originally to simplify the entire process of selling online. It was born out of frustration using Craigslist. The entire concept for transforming Twitter into a marketplace fit right into this idea. What could be simpler than selling something with one tweet?  There is no checkout process.  It’s one Tweet to list and a reply Tweet to buy. This VIDEO  may shed some more light on the history and story.

Sell Simply went live July of this year and is based in Portland, Oregon.   There are no hashtags used specifically for Sell Simply transactions but you can however easily search by location, description and price on http://sellsimp.ly/ or see the latest listings on Twitter HERE.  

C&A :  With Twitter, how would I know if what someone is selling is legit?  Twitter doesn’t require a real name so a fly-by-night person could sell something then take the money and run and delete an account. Please explain the trust issue here.  Is there a verification system on Sell Simply prior to being able to sell?

Chris Teso:  Twitter has inherent trust built in. For example, you can tell which Twitter accounts are legit and which are fly-by-night very easily. Things like follower count, number of Tweets, the content people are tweeting, photos, and the link set in ones profile all give clues about who is legit or not.  In fact, I’d say it’s one of the best platform of easily recognizing false profiles.  Aside from that every transaction is processed on the back end with PayPal.  Since PayPal has dispute management built in it is no different that buying on any other marketplace such as Etsy or Ebay.  If a transaction did go awry you can easily dispute it with them.  In the end we believe we have an added advantage over Etsy and Ebay because a Twitter account is fully public, as compared to a private Etsy or Ebay account. This combined with the added security of PayPal gives us twice the validity.

C&A: How do you monetize.  There is a 3% fee for PayPal; is there an additional transaction fee for Sell Simply? 

CT: We take 4% of all transactions. We actually just blogged about comparisons with Ebay and Etsy. I’d love for you to check out how we stack up in terms of features and monetization. View it here

C&A: Why would I go through Sell Simply on Twitter versus including a link to what I’m selling on a tweet

CT:  Easy: When going through Sell Simply we turn that Tweet into a transaction where people can buy just by replying with the word “buy”. All other Tweets are just broadcast ads. We enable you to increase sales percentage by removing frictions. More on that here.

Where Should You Sell Online?

So, I’ve been following @SellSimply on Twitter for a few weeks now and have seen transactions happening.  I checked with Chris who commented that they just concluded their best month this last October.  They also launched Chirp which allows one to accept payments via Twitter.

Sell Simply's Chirp

and the best news of the day:   Sell Simply was featured on The Today Show today, November 4, 2011 as one of the best shopping websites!

On the Today Show 11/04/11

Click on image to view video

It’s  a way big month for you, Sell Simply!  We’re happy to help spread the word!

Now I know a few good friends and family who have a LOT of wonderful things in their closets that they can monetize for some extra cash.   Sell Simply is just a Tweet and a Chirp away!    Happy Holidays!