FINDING the stuff you need on the worldwide web is getting harder and harder as long as Internet rapidly is growing! Since the beginning, 14 years ago, the Norwegian online service FINN.NO (meaning: to find) is getting more and more popular! Here you can sell your old stuff you don’t need, everything from small items to cars and houses!
They have also extended their services to everything else, like travel searches from real agencies, price comparisasion between all stores, currencies and there is actually no limit… When Finn arrived 14 years ago, the World Wide Web was actually much smaller than today, and the entire web was not completely shaped yet! We had one service called QXL, a bit like ebay auctions…
(In Norway we are still a bit behind the rest of the world, and in 2014 we still don’t have amazon neither ebay. On Finn the seller’s dont build review lists, so it’s impossible to know if you find reliable people or not. I have shipped expensive products and got it in return some weeks later…
The Norwegian toll rules make it difficult for Norwegians to buy stuff from other countries. We are punished with high taxes and fees for everything that cost more than 18 EUROS. That makes life a bit difficult to find the best deals and buy what we want.) Actually FINN can say thank you to the Norwegian government that has not changed the toll rules since 1980! The 18 Euro limit has never been updated. 18 Euros in 1980 were worth a lot more 30 years ago than today. With FINN we find the best domestic offers.
The services from FINN work ok. I have used it a lot. I have sold my computers, cell phones, and furnitures, even my apartment in Oslo and a Nissan Primera car. And I have applied for jobs! My experiences are varied. They charge a lot for the ads (from 4 euros and up to 100 depending of what you want to sell, and if you want header titles or just a basic ad in the bottom of the site where nobody looks.
Actually, I sold my products very fast some years ago. Today it’s getting more difficult. I can put many ads, and not get any real response (expect from Nigerian spammers that offer to buy everything on Paypal and that I should arrange the shipping to Africa or where their son or daughter is living… Of course I never reply to them, but these mails are coming all the time! So I think the Nigerians can thank Finn a lot as well. There are lots of naive sellers out there that probably have trusted them, and that’s why they still are working on their business!
I’m not a big fan of services where you can’t choose different providers. I have friends that use Finn for everything in their life. If they need to find out something, they just go to Finn and they don’t question their service at all. For example if they want to buy flights to another country, they go to Finn and order it there. I want to check external pages as well, like expedia, momondo, cheaptickets and so on! I’m an individualist that really want to have more than just 1 provider! What happens if FINN should own the world? I’m happy they just exist in little Norway! Other providers close their online services after years without making money in Norway. Finn is dominating everything!
But Finn is practical and easy to use. I use it a lot, and will probably continue as long as I’m located in Norway. FINN opens their first physical store tomorrow in Norway! It will be “a kind of store”, according to their website. It will be a mix of a museum with lots of old products, a discovery centre and promotion store for all their different services.
It is located in Grensen 3, Oslo, if you want to visit it!
