Ooops, there was a gap yesterday in my writing. To my defense I might add that it was a pretty busy day, spent mostly packing up and cleaning the house. I’ve been selling our household appliances through Craigslist recently and have had a few thoughts around it.
- Sell items on a first-come-first-served basis. This avoids late cancellations, etc.
- It’s hard to believe in 2016 but there still is no good system for transferring money fast between individuals! Many times when someone wants to buy an item and wants me to hold it for them for a while, I’d like to ask them to give me a security deposit so that they don’t back out in the last minute. Unless they visit me and hand me the money, I don’t know of a good way to do it on a short schedule (on a minute scale, maybe up to a few hours, but definitely not days!). It would be even better if there was an Escrow account like that for additional security and peace of mind for both parties.
- If you’re lowering the price because there’s no interest in the item, do it gradually, don’t drop by 50% in one go. Requires time though.
- Start selling early. You’ll have more time to gauge the interest in the item, lower the price gradually in steps if it’s initially too high and have time for back-and-forth email exchanges.
- Be upfront about the item’s condition, take good pictures, but don’t oversell the item. I’m sure there is a whole science on selling stuff so excuse me if all this seems naive and very basic, but that’s just the lessons I’ve learnt the hard way while selling on CL.