Monday, March 5, 2012

Craigslist Crazies

The last 2 weeks I've been listing things on Craigslist for sale. It's a version of Spring cleaning, and decluttering. The fact is, we have too many things, and it's time to minimize. Of course minimizing doesn't include yarn stashes or spinning wheels. That's a different thing altogether.

The beauty of Craigslist is it's an online community of people who will happily trade, barter, and otherwise take your castoffs and put them to use. Of course like any other community it's eclectic, and some are downright weird.

Take for example the people who made arrangements to buy the car we were selling, only to call right before we were taking it to meet them with the title to say they decided they needed a seat that adjusted in height.

Or the person who e-mailed me and chewed me out for pricing an aquarium at too high of a price.

The person who asked for the stove we were giving away and then requested we put it outside for them at 4:00AM.

Or the lady with the pet rescue who went to the wrong home improvement store, to meet us.

The guy who made arrangements to meet us to buy a dresser and then arrived to the pickup location in a car filled with other items and nowhere to put the dresser in the car.

The person who e-mailed 14 questions over a free fish tank. 

My hints for selling on Craigslist:

  • Price your item low, but 30% more than what you want to sell it for. If you want 50.00, price it at 80.00, and then negotiate. 
  • Don't waste your time with tire kickers. Answer 2 emails and that's it. NEVER take your listing down until they've picked up the item.
  • Keep it public. Unless it's way too big of an item meet in a public area. Take someone with you if possible.
  • A sense of humor is necessary, people are crazy, it's fun.
  • Make sure to fit them into your schedule, don't move things around. Someone who can only pick up something RIGHT NOW probably isn't going to show anyway.
  • If someone emails with stupid questions just delete. Someone who asks how wide a dresser is when you put it in the ad, or how many gallons your 30 gallon tank is, is a waste of time. You can't cure stupid.

I love Craigslist, it's like the great American Garage sale.. Fascinating funny,  and my garage is getting empty!

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