Selling Soles To The Highest Bidder

I am not my shoes. It's just as easy to fall out of love with a pair as it is to discard a prospective suitor. Blame it on my HD version of ADD.

When I received an e-mail to visit a site called If The Shoe Doesn't Fit, the shoe snob in me immediately brushed it off. Visions of gently-worn Crocs danced in my head, and I for one had no interest. Until I realized I need to purge styles that I'm just not that into (not to mention make room in my closet for the glorious new styles enticing me from the SS 2011 collections). Out with the old, in with the new!

But then I thought; I regularly peruse the designer shoes on eBay, questioning most of their low starting bids and authenticity. ITSDF is a concentrated place to sell strictly footwear for men, women and children without wading through mountains of Star Trek memorabilia.

I decided I would test-strut ITSDF by posting a pair of shoes on eBay and their site simultaneously.

Setting up an account was easy-breezy, as the navigation on the site is simplistic and realistic. The first thing I noticed was all the freebies of multiple images, and their only charge is an upfront $1.00 fee for posting the ad. Quite the opposite of eBay bleeding me with nickel-and-dime charges for insertion fees, final value fees, additional pics, etc. ITSDF even gives you the option of having your shoes as a Homepage Feature, within their Homepage Gallery, Highlight & Bold Listings and Category Featured - all at no additional cost. Yes, please!

Choosing the shortest time of three days (that ADHD thing), I activated auctions on both sites. Immediately, eBay's listing of the shoes was added to watch lists. ITSDF, not so much. On day three, the shoes were sold on eBay at the starting price. It was at this time I noticed ITSDF had featured my listing on their Twitter account, so I informed them that my shoes had sold - but not with them.

Here's where they impressed me; they responded by giving me a discount code for posting FIVE more pairs of shoes for free! Hmmm, I think I can do without those boots...

And just like that, shoe selling became a slight - um, addiction. So I posted two pairs of boots on both sites (coughing up the chump change to eBay), to up the ante. I guess you already know; it was a repeat of the original auction.

One can come to two conclusions from my experience: ITSDF has yet to reach the audience that eBay has built, or the shoppers on ITSDF do not possess the passionate taste for designer shoes (my starting price was much higher than most of their listings).

I suggest you give If The Shoe Doesn't Fit a try; the good news is your investment is only the time it takes to post an ad, versus concurrent fees of eBay that eventually add up.