Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion What's New At Axiom Axiom Auctions

Everyone,

We have been working on a way for people to be able to sell the audio gear they do not use any more and buy some new Axiom product. The desire to have something like this came up many times in our surveys and phone calls with customers.

The idea was formed to have an auction place on our site for exactly this purpose. We have now finished all the programming and it is ready to try out in beta at http://deals.axiomaudio.com . It would be greatly appreciated if you could let us know what you think of the concept and the usability. We also need to complete the list of categories on the left; so any thoughts there would be great too.

The basic way it works is the following:

A great way to turn your used audio gear into Axiom Dollars.
1. Upon successful completion of the sale of your goods you will receive 100% of the selling price in Axiom Dollars redeemable for anything sold on our website.
2. Axiom will charge the buyer the freight and you will receive a pre-paid label to ship the goods to the successful buyer.
3. Axiom will verify the original purchase date of the product you are selling for the buyer if it was originally purchased from Axiom.

A secure way to purchase used or Axiom refurbished audio products
1. Payments are processed by Axiom.
2. The buyer has 1 week from time of receiving the product to opt to return it to the seller (freight is paid both ways by the buyer).
3. Axiom will return the funds to the buyer if a product is returned less the freight charges.
4. For a quote of the freight charges please e-mail noreen@axiomaudio.com with your zip code and the ID number of the product you wish to bid on.
5. All Axiom Refurbished products are sold with a full warranty, shipping included. Our regular 30-day return policy applies.

This will also be a vehicle that we will use to sell refurbished, overstock, or factory seconds of Axiom products we may have from time to time. To give everyone the ability to try it out we have put some overstock products and some products we used in a photo shoot up for auction. If you want to bid on these (for real, not as a test bid) or list a product of your own you can log in using your e-mail address associated with your Axiom account (not your message board account) and password. If you do not have an Axiom account we will be finishing off the ability to make one at http://deals.axiomaudio.com later today. Soon we will also have available an automatic freight quoting option. All you would need to do is put in your zip code and the program will come back with a freight quote on the item you want to bid on. In the meantime Noreen will respond quickly by e-mail with the freight quotes.

This sounds really good. The only issue I can think of is that most people selling equipment will want to apply the Axiom Dollars to the purchase of the new speakers they bought a week *before* selling the old ones...

The obvious solution is to "suck it up" and survive a few weeks without speakers (between selling the old and receiving the new), but I think most people here would rather donate a kidney or something instead

Questions aside, thank you very much for setting this up.

Very cool and will be useful to sell my vp150 when I have the funds to upgrade. Thank you Axiom.

Yeah, this is cool! Now I can put my M60tis up for sale and patiently wait to buy some M80s. Patience is gonna be the hardest part!

BTW...does Axiom still offer the 'trade up' program?

I would like to upgrade my IWOW VP100 for an OW (preferably) or an IWOW VP150. Black (or Cinnamon Beech. Yeah, like there's going to be a glut of THEM...) But, not right now... Money issues... etc, etc.

I would like to know also, in case I trade up my VP150 to VP180.

Interesting concept indeed. Ties me into a future Axiom purchase but it gets rid of all the call taking, starnge visitors and haggling and such. I really dislike that whole process and those things are why I rarely put anything up for sale when I should and then I end up giving something away or letting it disappear into the closet universe. I could see me using this someday.

I too am wondering if this might replace the Trade Up program. I can see this being usefull for those of us with older Axioms while the trade up program could remain for those with newer speakers that garner more money from the trade up.

Sounds like an interesting project. Just a couple comments and questions.



If my assumption is correct that the “selling price” you are referring to here is the winning bid you might want to make the wording more specific or someone might mistakenly think it’s the original selling price.

If the Axiom dollars are received “upon successful completion of the sale” can they be spent immediately? If so what happens if the buyer changes their mind and returns the item?

I see a potential for fraud in the present arrangement. I could put my speakers up for auction and have a friend (Sean would be to obvious) put in a high bit that is say only 10% - 20% below the original selling price (have to keep it somewhat real). I keep my speakers and buy the ones that my friend wants using my Axiom dollars meaning I’m getting the speakers for 10% - 20% of what they really cost. Under the present arrangement I see no way of preventing this type of scam happening at least once per buyer. Perhaps more if they are sneaky about how they do it. Doing this someone could easily get Axiom speakers for themselves or others for 80%-90% off the retail price.

I would still prefer to sell/buy used privately. There is very much a gray area buying used audio gear online and I prefer the matters being dealt with directly between buyer/seller. As a buyer/seller of used gear they are assuming all the risk and to have the funds tied up with a middleman complicates matters especially if problems arise with the product and refunds. For example an individual buys a used receiver and it breaks down in 14 days. That is past the return period but as a seller I would still refund them but can't because that money is tied up in credit. As a credible seller I still refund them the money and take a big hit. Getting cash on a sale is always better than store credit and any small unused credit after upgrading is pretty much useless like $20 or possibly even $100. I would rather have that $20 or $100 in my pocket.

The only advantage I see over selling privately in a classifieds section on a audio forum with Paypal is transaction security and bringing a level of legitimacy to the seller.