Pandora fans launch charms listings site

2.4 k views | Posted November 09, 2010 | By Lorna Goodyer

Two Pandora collectors have launched a transactional listings website for charms after becoming frustrated by the amount of counterfeit jewellery being sold on trading sites such as eBay.

The website, called Tradeyourcharms.com, is based in Queensland and run by locals Vanessa Roy and Emma Nancarrow-Abbas. The point of difference between their site and the bigger trading sites, they say, is that they are only interested in sellers of “authentic” charms.

“What we found on eBay and some other trading sites was this horrendous amount of fake Pandora. We read all the forums and could see that people were being burnt everywhere,” said Roy, “What we needed was somewhere that people could buy, without all these fakes around.”

Roy said she had been duped into buying fake charms herself, and the biggest frustration was that she could find no means of getting her money back or taking the seller to task over false advertising. “The trade sites said ‘It’s all your fault’,” she complained.

Tradeyourcharms.com vets potential sellers using a detailed questionnaire followed up by telephone communication. Roy said, “We get a lot of information about the sellers – more so than other listings sites would."

"We get their PayPal numbers, addresses, etc. To sell anything on the site they have to give us this information. And then we contact them. We build a relationship with the seller.”

The business also markets the charms listed on its site through its social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and through the owners’ blog. On Facebook, the website has already been given support by Pandora, which has added Tradeyourcharms.com as a ‘favourite’ site on its own company page.

“They can see that having a site for authentic sales that are already happening isn’t taking anything away from them and can only be of assistance to them,” Roy explained.

Tradeyourcharms.com is already working with Pandora to identify counterfeit charm sellers that are using the brand name online. Eventually, she hopes to align the site with all the big charm brands and has contacted Pandora Australia’s managing director Karin Adcock to get the ball rolling.

Tradeyourcharms.com was set up last November and registered users are based all over the world, in areas including Europe, the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Listings on the site can be set up to run for a period of 30 days or until they sell. Although prices on Tradeyourcharms.com are fixed, sellers can edit the price as they see fit. Anyone can browse the site, but visitors need to be registered with the site to sell or buy.

According to Roy, pre-owned charms and beads are becoming an area of the market in their own right, because when the brands stop manufacturing them they become collectibles, warranting higher prices.

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