Always a topic that causes lots of discussion, today we’re looking at whether it is acceptable to sell items that you no longer need or love, even if they were sent to you to review.
We were reminded of this blogger dilemma when the fab Jayne tweeted…
…and she received some interesting responses…
https://twitter.com/modelrecommends/status/453185279302844416
https://twitter.com/modelrecommends/status/453185040571449344
https://twitter.com/modelrecommends/status/453185279302844416
Some of the suggestions on what to do with the items you don’t want included selling it and giving the money to a charity, or sending to a charity like Give and Make Up (who we’ve talked about previously – check out why they need your products here)
You could also arrange a swap with some of your blogging friends (or even get some of your non blogging friends involved) – just because a product doesn’t (or did!) work for you, the opposite might be true for your friends – helpful to the reader to get more than one opinion, and helpful for your blogging friends because they’ll get to try out products they might not have been sent themselves.
The overwhelming opinion on getting rid of items is that it’s incredibly off putting to a reader if they see you reviewing (and raving) over a product, then selling it within a month or so – some even reported seeing items up on eBay within a week of the post going live! Incredibly uncool – and think how this is looking to the person who sent you the item to review.
If you do decide that you want to sell the items, then check out this post about organising a blog sale. If you do sell the items to donate to charity, make this as clear as possible – potential buyers may be more willing to buy from you if it is going to a charity they support. Be honest about why you don’t want the item any more – if you reviewed the item and said how much you looooooooooooved this foundation because it was oh so perfect for your skin in the blog post, then a week later on Twitter you say you’re selling it because you just couldn’t get on with it – readers may wonder if you were just saying how amazing the product was to please the person who sent you the item.
So what do you think? Do you have your own policy on what to do with the unwanted items? We’d love to hear your opinions!
