View Full Version : Selling on Craig's list
There was probably alot about this on the old forum, but nothing here now.
Anyone sell on Craig's List, and was it a good experience? Seems alot easier than eBay. Are there any cautions I should be aware of? What's the best way of payment? Who gets it first.........the payment, or the merchandise?
Thanks!
I've sold quite a few things on Craig's List. Smaller items I'll meet the people in some well populated parking lot like where our Target/HomeDepo are. Always cash.
I've recently sold a sofa, vintage chair, and concrete blocks and had the people come to my house. No problems but I always make sure they come when my husband is home.
I like Craig's List. It's really good for selling items that it's just not possible to mail.
I've never run into a dud or a no-show but I know they are out there. My husband wanted to sell something, met the guy 40 miles away and the guy tried to talk him down by more than half of the agreed upon price with the old 'oh we've all driven all this way I'm sure you don't want to go away empty handed but I only brought $30 with me'. Husband just walked away which was the smart thing to do. Thankfully he'd not made the drive just for that transaction.
I LOVE CL. And, my 83 year old Mom sells on CL regularly. Meet folks in a public place - it's the only time I go to the mall! I meet people in the parking lot. Agree upon price, and be open to negotiation if you have the room. I've bought things from CL and negotiated price on the spot to great success. It's part of the deal to me, and I've also given deals.
Thanks Float On and redfox,
If I want to sell a couple prom dresses, what is the routine.......do they try them on and if so, where?
I think CL is a great thing. I'd say meet in public or, at the very least, make sure there are others in the house with you when your customers come. I've never dealt with a bad seed through CL, but I am sure they are out there. Safety first!
Take a photo of the prom dresses on someone, cutting off the head (!) Things with pics or links to the catalog sell fast. Put "firm" on things you don't want to haggle over and "or best offer" if you want to to.
And, if you want to market to teens looking, put in a snazzy title like this:
'Yes, the boy of my dreams asked me to dance at the Prom IN THIS DRESS!'
'Please your mom AND be drop-dead hot IN THIS DRESS!'
'The best date of your life will be IN THIS DRESS!'
You get my gist. I once sold a very old car by advertising it as a dependable old grey mare who was looking for the right home. It was snapped up - after an earlier, simply factual ad. Use emotion, jazz it up, and get some inquiries.
Personally, I don't include best offer, as I leave it up to the buyer to bring up negotiations. If they seem interested and hesitant, ask what would get them to yes. If it's price, you can open up the subject of negotiation, but make them do the work.
Do people ever insist on trying on the dress? And if so, where?
I've had decent success with a few things including a slightly higher priced bicycle. Most people expect to bargain, so be prepared or price accordingly.
I've gotten a few generic responses to ads, like, "I want to buy this and can pick up tomorrow", or "Is this still availible". With no reference to the name of the item being sold. And no phone number in the message. My brother thinks that some of these are sent out en mass and he got onto a spam list by responding to one of these, thereby verifying his email. Anyone else have this happen? So far I've not responded to these or anything else that sounds sort of wierd. I've never had a problem with people coming to my house, but maybe am ignorant on that, too.
I prefer eBay for most things that are easy to pack and ship. A larger audience and it's over in a week. No bargaining. Worth the cut eBay and Paypal take, but I'm used to doing eBay sales.
When it comes to buying things, I've been burned a couple of times on eBay and am pretty cautious there.
i want to sell a sewing maching but dh doesn't want me to do it; i can't use it; i never could sew things; too detailsed and my mom got me turned on to fushion; but its almost brand new; thats the problem; the haggling; probably only get 50.00 when its a $100.00 sewing machine; can't take a picture; we still buy disposable cameras
babr anyone with an avg cell phone could click a pic and email it to you? We meet buyers at storage unit we have to sell bigger items, even when not stored there. Secure, security cameras and relatively private.
I have had good luck selling things on craigslist but trying to set up day/time to meet and figuring out who should get the item first / when to move on to the next person can be hard.
Cell Phone Culture DOES NOT make it easy. Cell Phone Culture is all about last minute spontaneous no-time-day commitments. "I'll be in the area on Monday" is a typical cell phone thing to say instead of "I'll meet you on Monday at 3pm"
All that back and forth can be exhuasting and totally takes up my life energy. Sometimes it is just not worth the 10 bucks I'm getting.
Also, many times people will not show up or will not call to cancel. Rarely will someone who says they want the item respond and tell you they are no longer intersted. This makes it hard knowing when to abandon person number 1 and move on to person number 2.
Sometimes I'll get like 10 responses to an item in the first day and I'm not sure on if I should write to all of them or to just start with the first person and wait for that to fizzle before going on to the next person. Sometimes that first person takes days of my time that I feel dumb just responding to person number 2 like a week later.
My DS isn't having a very good experience. He had a really nice laptop for sale on Craigslist. A guy called him and said he'd pay him $100 more than the asking price, just to "reserve" it until he could "send his courier" to pick it up. He asked for DS's name and address so he could send him a certified check. Well, DS waited a day or 2 and didn't hear anymore from him. He emailed him back, and still nothing a week later. Why do people have to be this way? Why couldn't he have at least emailed him back, saying he changed his mind?
CathyA - someone sending their "courier" and paying more than the asking price, and wanting to give you a check, even if it is so called "certified" sounds like a big old S, C, A, M !!!!!
CathyA, I agree with heydude. That is a SCAM. I get those kind of email replys to my ads on CL all the time and just delete any that mention 'courier' or say 'is this item still available, do you have a photo, how much are you wanting?' I've already answered those questions and always post 2-4 photos in my ad and those emails are just pfishing for more info (valid emails and phone numbers). I do not use my regular email address for craigslist but set up a seperate yahoo account just for that. I can't believe the amount of junk mail that I get on that email account and it's all due to CL.
CathyA, in regards to prom dresses you might spend some time reading thru your CL clothing ads and see how others are posting/listing prom dresses. Usually a photo of a person wearing it, is better than the dress just hanging on a hanger on the back of a door. Just cut the head off the person in the photo. Give accurate size, measurements and lengths. Maybe offer a discount if someone takes all the dresses. You can mention that you have several dresses posted. Cash sales only. Yes you are going to have to meet and allow them to try them on. If you aren't comfortable with allowing them to come to your house (if it's a prom dress I imagine it would be several girls or girl/mom) does your local mall have a public restroom near the food court area? Ours does and it has full length mirror. Meeting at the library is good too, our library has a nice lobby with restrooms and full length mirrors.
But why would anyone want to do this scam? Is it some nut job who gets pleasure out of building up someone's hopes, and then disappearing? Its not like he got anything out of it (cash, equipment, etc.) Actually......when it appeared to fall through, I cautioned DS to be extra vigilant. I was concerned that now this guy knew where DS lived and maybe he would try to steal something.
I guess DS and I just have to learn some of the warning signs, when using CL.
thanks for all the great info!
treehugger
2-3-11, 12:03pm
But why would anyone want to do this scam? Is it some nut job who gets pleasure out of building up someone's hopes, and then disappearing?
You truly can't takes these kinds of things personally. There's no point in trying to figure out the scammer's motivation, especially since many of the emails are sent by 'bot. In my experience, 75% of the emails I get in response to trying to sell something on CL are scams. Just the "price" of doing business with free CL. They do a pretty good job of weeding out scam postings, but there's nothing in place to prevent scam responses.
Some of it is just harvesting email addresses for junk mail lists, if they start asking for alot of personal info I guess you could get worried about ID theft.
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