Guide: Eqotime sells a watch on Tradera

Text/Photo: Albin Johansson & Aleksandar Mladenovic

In collaboration with Tradera it was high time for us at Eqotime to sell a watch via their platform. In an earlier article we got to experience how smooth it was to buy a watch, which you can read about here. Now we are selling the same watch via Tradera to get a better picture of how the listing, the auction and the selling process itself work, which was fun and instructive from beginning to end.

Tradera

At Tradera there are around 10.000 watches and watch related items for sale and every year over 200.000 watches are put up on Tradera of all types of brands and price ranges. There is also a large selection of spare parts and accessories such as links, boxes, tools and other accessories.

We have previously made a guide together with Tradera for how to think in a safe and simple way when you are looking to buy or sell a watch. Also don't miss the dedicated episode of Eqotime Podcast where we talk about buying and selling watches the right way.

Also don't miss the article where we bought the watch we have now sold, you will find it here.

Ahead of the Sale

We at Eqotime have solid experience of buying and selling watches and it was now time to sell a watch via Tradera. There are many tips and tricks with watch sales but most of them come down to good pictures and as well described an item as possible. This of course applies to all sorts of sales and not just watches on Tradera, but watches are collector's items and often something of significant value. Given this, more detailed descriptions and pictures are as a rule required as well as clear communication when potential buyers ask questions (which they will do). There is also the possibility of listings with a fixed price on Tradera but that is not something we will focus on in this sale.

Item – The watch we sold was an unusual Longines with a fun engraving and provenance

Pictures – We wanted to take as attractive and clear pictures as possible, both for condition description and ”feel”

Description – We wanted as clear, informative and entertaining a description as possible

Buyer – We wanted a buyer within Europe so you reach as many as possible while at the same time it is easy to ship the watch

Putting up an auction

The process of putting up an auction is very smooth. Tradera is filled with different categories of goods and watches have one entirely of their own (in turn filled with thousands of auctions and listings). On top of this there are subcategories such as year, size, movement type and even for better known brands. As you can see in the picture the listing ended up in several different categories in order to reach the right target groups. When you put up the listing Tradera automatically helps with suggestions so it ended up in the category for the brand Longines and a few other categories that fitted.

In the text it is important to give as much information as you can and a good overall description . There is room for 6 pictures so see it is a matter of choosing the right pictures and using that opportunity fully.

On top of this we made add-ons such as the item ending up higher in the view in the watch category which means that more people set eyes on the listing. This costs a few kronor extra but is well worth it if you want to stand out with your item. We also put the estimate at one krona to attract more users to the bidding.

In the last steps you choose options for shipping and how long the auction should be up. We chose free shipping within Sweden for the shipping, which we think is appreciated by potential buyers.

Auction, payment and shipping

The auction itself is fun to follow and a full 21 bids came in during the days the listing was active. There were also 37 users who followed the auction and the final sum was 1910kr. We feel the final price turned out well since we only had the watch up for auction for a few days (you can have the auction up for a whole month if you want), and the final price was also higher than what we had paid for the watch when we bought it on Tradera. The last minutes during the auction are also very fun since you can see all the bids come in live.

When the watch is sold you get an order confirmation right afterwards with the buyer's details so you can arrange shipping. As soon as the buyer has paid (which took about 10 minutes) it is time to look over the shipping. We have certain routines when it comes to receiving and sending watches so we always film and weigh the package before we send it with insured and trackable shipping (prints from mobile film below). We are very careful with packaging, which we talk about in our Guide for buying and selling watches that we made earlier with Tradera, which you will find here.

There are several different good options for shipping companies via Tradera and we chose to use PostNord's service for registered letter which is both quick, trackable and insured. With this shipping method you can also share the tracking number with the buyer so they can follow the package's journey and pick it up as soon as it has arrived at a collection point. In this case it took twenty four hours before the buyer had the watch and could leave a positive review.

Summary of part 2

Both buying and selling watches on Tradera is safe and simple. As a customer you notice that the platform has existed and been developed continuously over time. When you put a watch up for auction you are guided through the whole process in everything from categories and shipping to good things to think about generally when you advertise. If you become unsure there is always a customer service that helps you, and the security for sellers with clear instructions and information about bidding, who is buying and the options for shipping make Tradera a really good platform for buying and selling watches on. On top of this the fees are small in relation to what you get back.

Thanks to Tradera for a fun and good collaboration.