Grailed to Start Charging Sales Fee for Newly Posted Items on 12:00 PM 2/5/2016

Grailed has become very popular in just a few short years since its inception with guys trying to sell their used style merchandise at a site with a more curated selection and discerning customer base than marketplaces like eBay. Better, that service has been free up until now. Here's an excerpt from a Complex interview in Jan 2015:

Wow, so with each sale does Grailed make a percentage of the transaction? How is it making money?

It’s all free right now, other than the processing cut Paypal takes. We’re just trying to spread the site as much as possible, since it was just me working on the site, the initial costs weren’t super high. Now that the site is getting more traffic and it’s becoming more popular, we probably have to re-think that in the new year. Right now we’re still focused on spreading the message and getting people to use it.​

Starting tomorrow, the secondhand sales site is going to start charging a 6% sales fee for newly listed items (in addition to PayPal fees), starting at noon tomorrow. While understandable to support their site and business, it will be interesting to see how this affects their market going forward.

Here is a transcript of the e-mail sent out today:

Hello,

As a member of our community marketplace, you are a huge part of what makes Grailed great. Grailed just turned 2 years old, and thanks to you we've grown to become the premier destination for buying and selling menswear online. However, with that popularity comes some very real costs. In addition to handling our growing traffic, we work hard to prevent fraud, assist you during transactions, develop new features, and most importantly, attract more buyers and sellers to the site. For example, we recently released the Grailed iOS app and redesigned the Grailed website.

We exist to serve you. In order to keep doing that well, starting tomorrow we will begin charging a small sales fee for newly posted items. It bugs us that eBay charges 10% (plus PayPal), has additional hidden fees, and then even shows ads. Our goal is to be as low as possible while still constantly improving the marketplace. We think we'll be able to do that with just 6% (plus PayPal). This will only apply to items posted after 12pm Eastern Time on Friday, February 5th. All current items, and those posted before that time, will continue to be free, even if they are sold weeks or months from now. That means today is a good time to post anything you've been meaning to sell.

Now that we're out of Beta we'll be able to bring you even more improvements, even faster. To protect you against fraud and make the marketplace as safe as possible we are now offering Grailed Buyer and Seller Protection on top of PayPal's Protection. If PayPal unfairly sides with the other party you can file a claim with Grailed and we will help you recover any lost funds (see the About page for more details). And, we have many more new features lined up, including Binding Offers, an improved international shipping system, and selling directly from the iOS app.

Thanks so much for being a Grailed user. Remember, we're always here to help with anything you need. Stay tuned for a big event this Tuesday.

-Grailed Team