Snobologist
How our method is better.
Frustrated with selling online?

Frustrated with buying online?

How it works
Buying online?
Selling online?

Selling online seems like a convenient idea, but it's actually a lot more hassle than it seems with most other sites. First, you have to post the advertisement. You need to take a picture, create a description, and then set a price. Afterwards, come the responses. You have to sift through dozens of messages asking if it is still for sale, answering questions about your product, or even worse, negotiating. It's painful to take time to reject ridiculous offers for your valuable things. Even once you get a respectable offer, you have to continue fielding offers because you have no idea how serious the offer is until you have cash in hand. Finally, if the offer is good, you have to worry about the getting the goods from point A to B and get paid...

Buying a new something for yourself or someone else online can be fun and entertaining. However, when it comes to previously-owned things, the experience gets a little trickier. Ads are clumped together, items mis-categorized, descriptions are vague and not always helpful. You have no other way to get the information that you are looking for than messaging the sender or Googling it. Even if it is the thing that you want to buy, what shape is it in. How "mint" is "mint"? After all that, if you want to buy it, your challenge is not done. You have to stop by an ATM and find your way to who knows where hoping that you don't get robbed and everything is as described.

At Snobologist, we care about the online selling/buying experience, but most importantly, we care about you. We have tried to come up with the best system of putting quality things in the hands of people who want them and putting cash (figuratively) in the hands of people who have them.

How do we do this? Automation. Rules. Feedback.

Automation: We help the sellers put up easy, informational ads that help answer all of the potential questions a buyer may have. The better the ad, the less messages the seller will get asking (often) the same questions. Buyers won't have to wait hours or days for the seller to get back to them before they decide on the item or not. With higher quality ads, both buyers and sellers will be happier because when you are selling/buying and you get a message, you know it's a sale and when your buying and you send a message, it's because you want it.

Rules:The great part about most other online merchant sites is that they are open and free to all. Although we are open and free to all as well, we have rules in place that are there to make the online buying/selling experience best for all. We cover all the rules on your Rule Page, but it's important to note that we won't be afraid to use them in order to make sure Snobologist is a success for all.

Feedback:How do we know we suck unless someone tells us? In reality it's very important that everyone puts back into this community that we are building in order to make the experience the best possible. If an ad is incomplete, tells us and not only will we try to improve the ad, we'll use this feedback to help improve all future ads. Could we yet improve the buying and selling experience, let us know and your voice along with the rest of the community will help us be fluid and grow better every day.

The Process


  1. It all starts with the ads. Depending on what type of item you are placing an ad for, different things matter. Our dynamic templates will make sure that you provide the right information to potential buyers so you don't have answer the same questions over and over or to keep changing your ad. As time goes on, we will implement feedback from our community to make the templates better and better.

  2. Questions and responses are monitored for moderation. Questions relating to the item will be received by both the seller and our database. This will help us determine typical and common questions relating to specific ads, sellers and items. This will enable us to improve our ad templates and also moderate our sellers and buyers. Rude or vulgar messages will not be tolerated. This will help us stay classy. Also, buyers are not able to bid on ads with fixed prices. This will save everyone some time and frustration.

  3. Offers are handled automatically. Once a prospective buyer decides they would like to purchase an item, they can send a formal offer. This will require a temporary deposit on the item to make sure that the offer is serious. The item will be temporarily de-listed until the buying process is complete. This means that if an item is found in search, you know it's still available for sale. We could not even guess what percentages of messages on other sites are something like: "Is this still for sale?" Once the offer is processed, payment will be taken electronically. No need to exchange cash. If the buyer changes their mind, they will be refunded their deposit minus a small processing fee. Money will be transfered to the seller within 24 hours.

  4. Shipping the item will eventually be handled by Snobologist as well. As we grow into more cities and regions, we will establish contracts with companies who will be responsible for pickups and delivery. This keeps people safe as you do not have to travel to someone's home, office or public location to exchange your goods. It's also able value-added service that helps avoid barriers is sales where either shipper or seller are unwilling or unable to travel or meet at convenient times.

  5. Feedback and review will be captured at every step of the way. We will evaluate, ads, sellers, buyers and the process as a while in order to refine our methods. Any dispute will be taken very seriously. Misleading ads, poor quality items, rude comments, etc. will not be tolerated.
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