What Are The Best Tips And Tricks For Selling On Craigslist?
Craigslist has been a popular online buy-sell platform almost since its inception. It started in 1995 when founder Craig Newmark established it as a curated list of San Francisco events that was emailed to Newmark’s friends and colleagues. Today, the platform, though aesthetically bland and uninspiring, counts billions of page views every month and has an estimated revenue of more than $1 billion.
You can sell almost anything on Craigslist. In addition to the usual tech items, household items, cars, clothing, building materials, appliances and Jackpot Capital Bonus video games, people have posted items such as bottles of expired chocolate milk, a chicken suit, a chicken teddy-bear and even an outhouse.
Regardless of whether the item that you’re trying to sell is conventional or not, you want to move it fast and for as much money as possible. Some tips and tricks for selling on craigslist include:
Allowable Items
Before you post, take a moment to check and make sure that the item that you want to sell is allowable on Craigslist.
Items that you can’t sell on Craigslist include any type of weaponry or ammunition, any type of personal offering that may be seen as an offer for prostitution or human trafficking, controlled substances, medical devices, tobacco or alcohol, hazardous materials, prescription drugs, pets (re-homing is OK), personal information, government food assistance (food stamps, WIC vouchers, SNAP vouchers, etc), stolen property, ID cards or any service, content or goods that violate the law or legal rights of others.
Safety
Stay safe. Most transactions facilitated via Craigslist are problem-free but there have been some instances where people have been scammed and others where they have been physically harmed. For safety’s sake:
• Finalize the transaction in person whenever possible. Instead of relying on pictures and digital communication, view the item yourself and complete all transactions in person.
• If you are meeting the buyer in person, choose a safe place like a local police or fire station to make the transaction. Listen to your inner voice. If the buyer starts asking personal questions, end communication.
• It’s safest for the buyer to pay by credit card but it’s safest for you to accept cash. Borrow a counterfeit detection pen to check that you’re not being handed bogus bills. Make your decision accordingly.
Reposting
If you don’t sell immediately, keep reposting your ad frequently so it stays at the top of the listings. You can “click to repost” every 30 days but that won’t help you get it moving as quickly as you’d like. Just copy and repost every 3-4 days so that it’s one of the first ads that people see when they look at the page.
Images
Post good images. If you’re selling a pricy item (a car or a house), consider having it professionally photographed. But the better the picture, the better your chances are of having it sold quickly. Whatever you choose, the photo should be clear and crisp so that it will draw the eye of buyers who are browsing the page.
Research
You want your post to stand out so it’s a good idea to spend some time and review Craigslist ads so that you make the most attractive offer for the item that you’re selling. If you’re selling a gaming console, look at other gaming console ads and see what other similar consoles are going for.
Are there consoles that don’t seem to have moved even though they were posted a while ago? What are your impressions of those ads? Are the ads lacking information? Good photos?
Similarly, you need to look at what other similar items are going for. If you post an item and your asking price is out of the ballpark, chances are that your item is going to be last sold.
On the other hand, if you post too low, you lose your bargaining power because buyers always try to bargain you down and if you’re not willing to budge on the price, that’s a turnoff. A good rule of thumb is to take the absolute lowest price that you’d be willing to accept and add 25% — then, you have 25% with which to bargain.
Informative
Be as specific as you can as you describe the item that you’re trying to sell. You want to entice the buyer so that s/he thinks that YOUR item is the one, more than any similar item, that s/he wants. Give information about size, color, condition, maker, history, type of material, etc.
Of equal importance is your location – don’t forget that the buyer will need to come and collect the item so you want to make it clear from the outset whether you’re accessible so that you don’t waste your time and the buyer doesn’t waste his/her time.
Response Time
Research shows that Craigslist sellers who reply quickly to messages indicating interest in the posted item sell their items more quickly than sellers who take their time to respond. Many buyers contact multiple sellers who are selling items that they want. The sellers who respond the quickest are those who sell the fastest.
