The weekend I tried to sell 3 plasma TVs: FOBO vs. Craigslist vs. Amazon | Hacker News Reader

The weekend I tried to sell 3 plasma TVs: FOBO vs. Craigslist vs. Amazon

benguild.com

28 pointsbenguild11 comments

FOBO sounds like an interesting option. Too bad it's irrelevant for 99.7% of the US. This might as well be Craigslist vs. Amazon vs. a cool local swap meet that's only in my city.

The only things I've sold on Amazon are textbooks (no real local market unless you're lucky). I've bought and sold cars, furniture, electronics, and a lot of other stuff on Craigslist. Everyone I've interacted with in person has been normal and friendly. Fielding multiple no-reply emails is the most frustrating part.

As a subculture, CL is just weird. Negotiate a sale price, time, location, less than 1/3 odds the other guy will show up. Then about half the time after agreement is reached, if they show up it turns into some kind of weird haggling song and dance.

I've bought and sold many things on CL.

As a general rule when selling, if someone's email has terrible grammar and sentence structure I'm going to just delete it. If someone is polite and asks about the item and then leaves their phone number I'll most likely respond. As for the price, people will always haggle so I will automatically set the price to $20 over what I want get from it, then they feel like they get a "deal".

Similarly with buying, if they can't describe the item coherently I just ignore the ad.

ymmv, i've gotten 2 full time jobs, a couch, 3 floppy drives and several monitors off craigslist with no hang-ups.

Selling is vastly different from buying. At this point, if I use Craigslist, I absolutely refuse to "hold" items for anyone (after a series of three or four phone calls, the latter two of which involved the caller swearing that he's in the car with his brother a mile away, and then not showing up.)

you're right, i'm looking at it from the wrong perspective.

But, like, how many things have you sold, tried to sell, or perhaps gave away?

Getting things off CL is a much more passive experience than playing the role as provider of the goods.

This is a good review but I think claims to be much more authoritative than it really is. This is based on a single data point and extrapolates to a wild conclusion. I'm all for quantification but the massive comparison table and assertion that prices are higher on various platforms is absurd after only one test.

It's simple really - your posting should contain as many details as possible about your item so you don't have reply to some obvious questions later. Then you should wait for the adequate offer. The unwillingness to meet people and talk to them on the phone is a huge disadvantage - doesn't matter if you're selling or buying.

This is an unfair post since the author didn't research all the options available. eBay's "Sell it for me" aka eBay Valet service will handle the item pick up for you.

I have sold a TV via eBay's Valet service and loved the experience!

http://sellforme.ebay.com/

That's interesting.... I haven't seen it before so it's more the fault of eBay's marketing for it (or lack there of)

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