Buying metal back from customers is already something you do. It happens by phone and email, and it works. The question here is only how much of it the website should take on, and how soon. The expensive parts of a buyback system are sending purchase orders upstream automatically, locking a price at the moment a customer commits, and tracking settlement through to payment. At today's volume all three are cheaper handled by hand. What the website can usefully do now is show a number and take the request properly.
Two options below. The second includes everything in the first, so this is a decision about where to stop rather than a sequence you have to complete. Neither sends anything to PlatformGold automatically; you continue to enter purchase orders the way you do now.
Where the effort goes
Figures are cumulative. Option 2 includes Option 1. Most of the value sits in the first option, because showing a price is what removes the back and forth; the second option is about handling volume once there is some.
Buyback Pricing & RequestsOption 1
$3,500–5,065
Plus Full Catalog & Order RecordsOption 2
$6,460–9,690
Option detail
Option 2 is described by what it adds. Its range breakdown shows only the new work; the chart above and the total at the end show the running figure.
Option 1
Buyback Pricing & Requests
$3,500–5,065
A complete working buyback · The recommended starting point
- Customers see what you will pay. A buyback price appears on the product page for a core list of coins and bars, drawn from PlatformGold's bid with your own markdown applied. Most of the work in a buyback is establishing the number, and this removes it before anyone picks up a phone.
- A core list, not the whole catalog. Something in the range of one to two hundred of the products people actually search for: Eagles, Buffalos, Maples, Krugerrands, common bars, junk silver. What you buy back is always a mix, so everything outside that list still comes through the form with a free text option.
- A proper front door instead of a phone call. A customer says what they have, how much of it, and how they would like to ship. You get a notification with everything you need, rather than a voicemail and a callback. Requests land in one queue with a status on each, so nothing sits forgotten between the enquiry and the metal arriving.
- The quoted number travels with the request. When a customer submits, the price they were looking at comes through with it, so you both know what was on screen rather than reconstructing it afterwards.
- Shown as indicative and confirmed on receipt. The number is not locked at submission. This is normal for buybacks, and it is what keeps the build small, because locking a price properly means holding a position against the market until the metal arrives.
- A control sheet does the pricing. PlatformGold's bid comes into a sheet, you set one markdown per product, and finished prices go to the site. You change what you pay by changing a number in a spreadsheet, without calling us.
- That sheet is not throwaway. It is the first working piece of the pricing engine described in the wholesale roadmap, built smaller and pointed at one job. If the wholesale platform goes ahead later, this is the foundation already in place rather than the same work done twice.
Range breakdown
Sell-to-us form, product picker & confirmations$640–960
Admin queue, statuses & notifications$320–480
Control sheet, bid pull for the core list$925–1,295
Bid push & product field$740–1,110
Buyback price on the product template$555–740
Quoted price carried into the request$320–480
Built with Gravity Forms, which is already on your site. No new order type and nothing sent to PlatformGold. Assumes the core list is settled before the build starts.
What moves the range
How many products carry a price and how often it refreshes. A hundred products updating a few times a day, with a short form, is the low end. A larger list refreshing more frequently, with an override so you can hold a price where you want to, and a longer form that captures enough detail to quote without calling first, is the high end.
Option 2
Plus Full Catalog & Order Records
$6,460–9,690
Includes Option 1 · Only when volume justifies it
- Every product carries a buyback price. The core list extends to the full catalog, so anything you sell can be quoted back automatically.
- Buybacks become records rather than form entries. They get stored properly, with their own list, their own statuses and a history against the customer. This is what you will want once there are enough of them that working through form submissions stops being manageable.
- Payout tracking. What has been quoted, what has shipped, what has arrived and what is owed, in one view.
- Still no automatic purchase orders. You continue to enter these into PlatformGold yourself. That step is deliberately left out of both options, because it is the single most expensive piece to build and the least painful to do by hand.
- The honest test for this option is whether you are spending real time each week managing buyback requests. If you are not, Option 1 is where to stop, and nothing here is lost by waiting.
Range breakdown · adds to Option 1
Extend pricing to the full catalog$555–925
Buyback order records & admin list$1,480–2,220
Status workflow & payout tracking$925–1,480
Running total including Option 1 is $6,460 to $9,690.
What moves the range
Whether buybacks become a proper order type or stay a lighter record with statuses on it. The lighter version covers everything you need to work a queue. The full order type gives customer history, searchable records and reporting, and costs more to build.
Total investment
Planning range · cumulative
Option 1, buyback pricing and requests A complete working buyback$3,500–5,065
Option 2, plus full catalog and order records Includes Option 1$6,460–9,690
What stays manual, and why
A note on what is deliberately left out
Three things make a buyback system expensive, and none of them are in either option.
Sending purchase orders to PlatformGold automatically. Their plugin only sends sales orders, so buying would have to be written against their interface directly, and that is the largest single piece of work in the whole idea. Entering them yourself costs a few minutes per buyback and nothing to build.
Locking a price at the moment a customer commits. A locked price is a position held against the market until the metal arrives. Quoting as indicative and confirming on receipt is how most of this trade already works, and it removes the exposure along with the cost.
Tracking settlement automatically. Worth building when there are enough buybacks in flight that keeping track becomes a job. Not before.
If buyback volume grows enough that any of these start costing you real time, each can be added later without unpicking what is here.
Boundaries
To get started
- The core list. Which products carry a price on the page. We can suggest a starting set from what sells, but it is your call.
Not included
- Automatic purchase orders to PlatformGold. Entered by you, as now.
- A locked price at submission. Quotes are indicative and confirmed on receipt.
- Automatic settlement and payout processing. Option 2 tracks what is owed; paying it stays with you.
- Shipping labels. Handled the way you handle them today.
- The wholesale dealer platform. A separate plan. The pricing sheet built in Option 1 would carry forward into it.