eBay personal shopper/concierge - does something like this exist?

January 4, 2018 11:47 AM

Does such thing as an eBay concierge or personal shopper exist - helping you find specific items you're looking for? Or, other interesting things like the now-defunct Apartment Therapy Craigslist Scavenger?

To be clear, I'm talking about buying not help selling. I have saved searches for most things, but if I'm, say, looking for a matching vintage doorknob that looks like this, there is no easy way to have a saved search for that particular thing, you just have to page through hundreds of listings every week until you eventually come across that thing (or not).

I was curious if anyone has made a business out of this, receiving a commission or a fee from buyers for finding particular odd items?

Similarly, I loved (and still missed) Apartment Therapy's Craigslist Scavenger entries (showcasing a list of a half dozen interesting things on craigslist every week for a particular city). I actually bought a chair featured in one years ago (which was subsequently lost by my movers, boo). Collector's Weekly does something like that, but it is never quite as interesting. Best of craigslist is not what I'm looking for. Anyone aware of anyone who still does this?

posted by arnicae to Shopping (1 answer total)

Sourcing specific oddities is rough from a profitability perspective....I don’t know of any businesses that specialize in that specifically. I do limited sourcing (memail) because I end up digging through deep corners of the global internets and real life venues for product dev and research clients. Personal shopping for the esoteric is fun but difficult: usually I have to make an offer on the spot, and often must buy out an entire inventory to acquire a single item.
posted by Kalatraz at 4:18 PM on January 4, 2018