What the heck is WhatNot?
This article is more in line with my previous articles about general technology issues.
WhatNot is an app that I learned about sometime in the summer. Before you can understand WhatNot, you need to understand what happens to items you return to Amazon and other big-box stores.
I stood in line at the UPS Store one day a couple of years ago and witnessed the person ahead of me returning dozens of things to Amazon. It was many small kitchen gadgets, like spatulas, and other household items.
None were in original packaging; the UPS guy put them in a bag and slapped a return label on them. There had to be more than fifty items.
What I did not know then, and do know now, is that none of those items will go back on a shelf to be sold. They are tossed into large and small bins and stored in a warehouse. At some point, each bin is being sold at a discount to someone who will consume or resell those items.
I’ve heard of stores opening that buy these containers and resell those items, hopefully for a profit.
Amazon is not the only retailer that does this. Many big-box stores accumulate and resell returned goods to bulk liquidators.
The WhatNot app is an auction marketplace for selling open-box, returned, and potentially damaged items. People are auctioning off things like close-out electronics, snacks and candy, perfume, and every oddball household item you can think of
But it is not just like any auction site I have ever seen. Each auction is live and lasts 10 to 30 SECONDS. The longest I witnessed was a minute.
Before you can bid on an auction, you have to have a payment method set up and all your address/contact information. Eventually, I decided to buy a couple of items. The first item I bid on was a home security camera kit.
How did it work?
- The auctioneer held up the security camera and read any information on the box.
- Started the auction.
- Starting bid $1 with free shipping.
- I bid twice.
- The auction ended.
- I received a notification that my Venmo account was charged $38 plus tax.
The whole process took about 20 seconds. The Venmo notice told me I had won.
Now it was time to wait for the item to ship. I was impressed. I learned that most vendors sell on one day and ship the next. And I got emails at every step of the shipping process. I received emails when it was ready to ship, when it did ship, and when a tracking number was available. When it was enroute and when it was delivered.
I bought the home security system on a Saturday, and I opened the box the following Friday. All in all, I was impressed with how efficient the process was.
The second item I purchased was a refurbished 2022 iPad 11. Its starting bid was $390. Previously, I had looked at similar iPads on Apple’s refurbished site, and the same iPad was priced at over $800.
This auction was early Sunday afternoon. Only 11 people were watching the auction, and this guy had three identical iPads. The auction started, I bid, no one else did, and it was over in 15 seconds.
Payment occurred automatically and immediately. I got all the emails, and the iPad arrived on Wednesday. It was exactly what I wanted, and it worked perfectly.
BUT… Like any system, it is not necessarily all positive.
Like any live auction, you do not always know if what you are buying was represented well. If you panic in intense live auction bidding, this may not be the place for you.
Here are the caveats:
- If you are compulsive and impulsive, you may want to avoid this app. It is easy to get sucked in.
- You can easily bid higher than you intended.
- Know what you are buying. I had already researched the iPads and knew what I was buying was at a reasonable price. Like any auction, I had to accept that I may have been disappointed with my purchase.
- Some vendors have a return policy, but check.
- Shipping and sales tax are applied to both auctions, so there is an added cost.
- You have to be watching the auction to buy. You can waste a lot of time watching auctions you do not care about.
- Some vendors list their items in their stores, so you can see what is coming up. You can even pre-bid on items, letting them know someone is watching and wants them. But not all vendors do that.
In conclusion, I was impressed with WhatNot, but there is risk. Some of the deals are incredible. I may buy from them again.
The home security cameras do have their own story, which I’ll cover next month.