Simbi is a “alternative currency” website where people buy and sell goods and services; it has the feel of a “time dollar” or “time bank” community, with a lot of people offering spiritual advice. I used it to sell stuff, and also to buy some things.
What I bought were DVDs, a couple Zippo lighters, and a broken iPod, which I have yet to repair. I also bought some “digital products”, aka “blog posts.”
You can also sell services and get into chats with people. Overall, it was fun, but not lucrative, and I sold the following:
Art of Walt Disney book
ABCD3D book
Ice Haven book
Ripley’s comic book
Messenger Bag
Laptop Computer
I don’t remember how many things I listed, but it must have been at least three times as many things. Selling 1/4 of the hoard isn’t great, but, it’s also not that bad. I “cashed out” by purchasing things, as well.
The overall vibe here is feminine and trendy, with a bit of a hipster vibe.
The site went fallow, and now, a social enterprise of some kind has purchased it and is running it. The site has some problems, like a broken search feature. To search the site, use Google, and put “site:simbi.com” in the query. For example:
site:simbi.com dvd
That should bring up a bunch of possible DVD listings. One user, Maria P. has deals on DVDs (and a big collection). You might consider listing your sellable things on Simbi to collect enough points to purchase a set of DVDs.
How to “Win” at the Simbi Game
I’m terrible at gaming social media, but I did see one user who mastered the platform. It’s pretty basic. 1. be out there with a very positive, can-do, confident persona, 2. create a simple digital product that anyone can benefit from – just an article with some common sense advice. 3. charge a minimal price for it, and offer a money back guarantee – meaning 1 simbi. 4. take orders and deliver the product quickly.
That increases sales volume, and rank, and builds your network. To what end, I don’t know. Perhaps you get direct reach to users, to sell more expensive things. I suspect this user was involved in selling social media services, helping people to rank high and build a big social network on other platforms.
Pricing Strategies on Simbi.com
Simbi allows you to charge for shipping, in increments of a dollar. A typical object will ship from $3 to $8.
One pricing strategy is low simbi price, and a high or reasonable shipping cost. Eg. 5 simbi + $4 shipping.
The other is free shipping, and a high simbi price. Eg. 40 simbi + free shipping. This will cost you around $3 to ship a light book.
If you have a goal of purchasing something, you should just go with the high price and free shipping. Just work out how much it’ll cost. If you want the 10 DVDs for 250 simbi, and are willing to eat $12 in shipping costs to get those DVDs, you can list a bunch of books for 65 simbi each, and wait until you sell four. Then, you can buy the DVDs.
You could also offer free shipping but stipulate that people message you a PDF of a mailing label purchased from PayPal (or a site like Pirateship). This is more complicated, but could help to sell some more valuable items.
The main problem, at this time, is that the Simbi balances might be low, or abandoned. So an in-between strategy of a moderate simbi price, and $2 for shipping. $2 beats any online price for anything, and a low simbi price doesn’t hammer someone’s balance.
A workaround is to use new email addresses to recruit buyers. Someone jumping onto Simbi.com automatically gets 50 free coin, and can do tasks that will earn around 100 simbi. So, just starting out, people have over 100 simbi to spend on your stuff.
The other problem is that Simbi doesn’t necessarily generate that much traffic. During it’s heyday in 2016-2017, it was jammin’, but today, I see < 100 transactions a day. So I’ll need to do some offsite promotion to drive traffic to the platform.
If you want to sign up with simbi.com and help me out, click this link and join simbi.
My Simbi Journey
I’m going to list a box of books on Simbi and Listia to generate some sales, and clear out some space. Here’s the box:
I think I’ll probably be shifting some things in and out of this box, but it looks about right to me.
To keep things organized, I’m going to delist these books from Ebay and other sites, and make an inventory spreadsheet only for this project.
I’m also going to keep a folder full of photos for these book covers. I already have some, but it won’t take long to get them all saved.
Update, Nov 17
I’m completely ignoring Simbi. There’s just no time, and, frankly, I haven’t been able to find anything on there that I want I don’t want to be engaged in sales or buying services at this time.
I might start to offer a listing-writing service, to open the door to talking with other Ebayers.
To see what I’m doing, check out the post about Listia.