If you live in Revelstoke and you are on Facebook, you have likely perused or utilized the buy and sell page, RevySell.
The site boasts over 13,861 members and encourages locals to buy, sell, give away, or advertise their skills. Everything listed for sale must be based out of Revelstoke; a newer rule due to the high amount of out of town listings.
The page was started by Niccki Deveral back in 2010.
“I didn’t drive and my kids were small, and there wasn’t a lot of local options for selling/buying kid stuff at the time,” says Niccki. “I did a lot of online shopping and figured if I could do that locally it would make things easier for other moms in the same position.”
Back then, buy and sell groups were not as prominent as nowadays, so Niccki figured she would start a page and invite all of the mom friends she had.
“It was super easy to moderate in the beginning,” she says. The size of the group started to snowball as friends invited friends and before she knew it, Revysell was the go to Facebook buy and sell site for Revelstoke.
“I remember when it hit 1,000 people and I was like ‘holy cow!’ As it started to get busier and as more members joined, I asked Crystal to be an administrator to help me out.”
With her close friend Crystal Wuhlar on board, RevySell continued to grow.
“I started checking the page and making sure inappropriate things and sold items were getting deleted,” explains Crystal, “and there are literally hundreds of people who have been asking to join every day for the past couple of years. It can be hard to keep up. A lot of people message me to ask why they aren’t being accepted to the page right away. I have to tell them that I go through every profile to make sure they are real people and not scammers.”
“Crystal is amazing at checking out members and adding them daily,” Niccki says. “That’s not my forte.”
RevySell is the place to buy and sell items in Revelstoke, and the journey has been rewarding for both women. For Niccki, hearing about it in coffee shop conversations is pretty incredible. “It still blows my mind how it took off,” she says.
“I love RevySell, it is something that I mostly look forward to,” says Crystal.
Of course, with the good comes the bad, and the two women have had to deal with users’ unrealistic expectations of moderating transactions. “It can get pretty nasty,” says Niccki. “It’s a buy and sell page, it’s use at your own risk, like any buy and sell page.”
“Lots of people do get kicked out if there is drama happening. Sometimes I don’t get to delete the posts in time. It could become a full-time non-paid job otherwise,” Crystal jokes.
Nine years later, RevySell is more popular than ever. Niccki and Crystal are happy to keep it going and are thrilled with how useful it has become to the residents of Revelstoke.
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