Annoyance of selling stuff

Cl

I've found that with CL most people are shopping, not necessarily buying. The "what is the lowest you'll take" is someone looking for a steal, most of the time they aren't truly interested in what you are selling. When I list an item for sale, I post my phone number. If someone really wants what I'm selling they will call. All the low ball offers come from email or text, so I ignore them. The insulting low ball email offers usually get their email address added to a furries mailing list :lol:

 

Check out this email:
Pivot 429 Small for sale

Hi,



1)is this item still available for sale?



2)where are you located?



3)may i know why, you want to sell it?



4)Has this item has any damage before?



5)can i see more picx?



6)do i need to repair?



7)what year is this item manufactured?



8)what is the final price?



9)can you help me determine the weight?



10)i have a friegth company on my own will be available for pick-up of the
item? because the operate 7:00am to 7:00pm mon-saturday will you accept a
certified cashiers check or a postal money order,i will like to know your
full name and address with your phone number so that my

secretary can issue the payment out to you and i will be glad to read from
you soonest.....
Pretty sure someones trying to take me for a fool. With all the errors, this guy has a secretary? Not to mention every question there is answered in the ad

 

I've got a Redline SS for sale and this just happened to me:

dude: I'm interested in your bike and can spend $XXX MAX.
me: ok, I'll sell it to you for that.
dude: Great, I need to get the funds together.
(week goes by)
dude: Haven't forgotten about you, still trying to sell some stuff
me: Ok, let me know
(week goes by)
me: You still interested in the bike?
dude: No.

If you want to buy my bike, then BUY it, don't offer me money you don't have.

 

That right there is a sure sign of a scam. People can create these fake checks/money orders and you end up being responsible for them:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams

 

The automotive world is even worse...

 

a tip I learned a long time ago selling out of the Recycler. Never and I mean never let anyone in your house or garage. I tell them to call me when they are close so I can put my dogs in the back yard. At that time I take the item outside and wait for them. Some people just want to case out your place and trust me as I learned that the hard way. And yes it was automotive related parts but could be anything.

I will go on to say selling retail is not much better. Every day a guy or 5 walks into my shop and asks "how much?". I look up the prices and tell them. Next questions is "but what's my price??". WTF! So I add 20 ~ 50 bucks to it. lol

 

Resurrecting this thread to complain about sellers!!

If the item is sold take it off the classifieds or at least e-mail the guy back who keeps asking you about it informing him that it is sold. Otherwise he might think you just didn't get his e-mail!!

Oh well, I will keep sending messages to the 3 ads that I am interested in daily until one of them responds and they will all be the same.

"Hello, I am interested in your bike. Is this still available? Can you give me a time when I can come check it out? My contact info is...."

 

I am guilty of this. When I sell something, I respond to buyers in the order of their response to my ad. The item may not be sold yet but there may be buyers in front of you.

 

Same here. Every once in a while I get someone who thinks they're stealing a deal from me, and they get all antsy insisting I take the ad down immediately. Usually those are the people that then show up and try to lowball you with a new price other than the one you agreed upon, and "well otherwise you'll have to relist it" always comes up. So no. Show up with the money we agreed upon, take the deal or not, and then the ad comes down.

 

I think it works both ways, especially on Craigslist. To me, a CL price should be half of retail if the product is in good shape. Everytime I sell something and price it that way I get serious buyer's and they usually don't haggle much. People who post stuff at higher prices are going to get no response or low ballers. And yes in negotiating, the first person who speaks basically reveals his "cards." If you want a good deal, go see the product and have the cash in your pocket, just got a TTR-50 for my son for $600 without insulting the seller and he was happy to stop responding to "buyers" who never show up.

As a seller, I value my time highly, so if the offer is decent, I take it and move on. So, my advice for you selling, is to have a decent price to get someone over to see it, then negotiate in person. If they are coming from far away, I would give the lowest price you are OK with and then they can decide if it is worth the drive.

I also don't let people into my garage (unless they are STR peeps). I meet them on the street in front of my house. I would rather people not know exactly what I have in there!

 

I always meet in a neutral location....never allow people to come to my home.

 

I think the best method is to meet people at a public location...Target parking lot, book store, etc. Of course, it depends on what you're selling.

 

Funny you mention that...I almost always meet people in a Target parking lot right next to a freeway interchange - easy in-and-out transaction.

Although I've shared many of the frustrations listed above, the end result is that I've met a lot of good people here on STR while buying and selling stuff, and I have zero regrets how any of the final deals went. That's not to say that I haven't had a lot of jackasses trying to deal in stupid ways, but that's expected. I weed those out, which is probably why I've always had all good transaction experiences. The way I look at it...of course the buyer must approve of the seller in some form, but the seller also has to approve of the buyer as well.

 

closing thread.

bottom line when selling stuff: expect lowballers, expect flakes, expect frustration, etc...