Sold My First Crap on Craigslist
Posted by Cap in Even More Ramblings |
So a few nights ago I met up with a stranger at a local Coffee Bean, handed him an Acer Aspire One netbook and in exchange got $310 in cash for my trouble.
I sold my first item on Craigslist and I didn’t get scammed, robbed, or raped (being incredibly handsome, this was always a concern). Success!
The funny thing about Craigslist is that I’ve used it only once before. I was using it to find myself a room and some roommates — which oddly enough worked out very well. I got myself a big, clean room for 3 months, met some awesome German roommates, made some nice friends, and partied like it was 1999.
But I’ve read enough of Craigslist crazies (and wacky listings) to know that I got off lucky and was doubly lucky that my for sale listing on Craigslist netted a solid buyer straight off from the second email (2 AM email, 8 PM sell the very same day).
While giving my best salesman pitch of the Acer netbook to my patron and his girlfriend, the veteran Craigslist buyer shared with me some of the aforementioned wacky stories from his experiences of selling and buying on Craigslist, one of which involved someone offering him a newborn puppy in exchange for his iPhone. Lovely.
Now I’m not going to straight out and recommend Craigslist as the de facto place you should use to get rid of your crap, but Craigslist definitely has its advantages (free is always good).
This post will of course be awfully more useful if I list some safe buying/selling tips on Craisglist, but to be honest if you read their safety page and follow common sense, trading and using Craigslist should be a fairly enjoyable experience.
If you have any crazy or awesome experiences with Craigslist, do share.
16 Comments to “Sold My First Crap on Craigslist”
Leave a Comment
Tip’d – New Source for Financial News »
« Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty – Two Things You Can Do
October 18th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
I met three of my best all time friends and former roommates on craigslist. That’s probably my best craigslist story.
My cousin got a $2000 three month old stove for $800 because some guy decided to remodel his kitchen after buying the new stove, he had no other interested buyers, and my cousin drove 2 hours to pick up the item. Sweet deal.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:45 am
Small world! I just sold my forst “crap” on craiglist this week, too. Proof positive that one man’s crap is another man’s treasure, huh? Anyway, I plugged this blog entry with my own.
Love your blog…. :)
October 19th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I actually sold my house using Craigslist. We ended up saving close to $10,000 by not listing it with an agent. Awesome experience!
October 19th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I bought my car (used 2000 Civic w/ 38000 miles at the time) a few years ago from it. I had never used Craigslist before or since, and it worked out really well. All the other cars in that price range were at least 100,000 miles.
Not as willing to use it for a date. :)
October 20th, 2008 at 5:43 am
My husband uses craigslist to rent out his parent’s beach condo. It costs him nothing but a few minutes of his time with the people on the phone and his dad pays us 15% commission! My husband also lists stuff on there that his dad finds on the side of the road (he is a FedEx driver). You would never believe the junk these people buy. Free money!
October 20th, 2008 at 6:53 am
i sold something on craigslist to some one dude (out of a million other female responses), and he ended up being really nice and cute, and got a date out of that. sweet!
October 20th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Many times people want to get rid of stuff and they aren’t looking to get top dollar. They just want the items gone and if they can get some cash OK. I have used Craigslist to buy and sell tons of stuff.
Appliances are great items to buy from CL (Craigs list). Stores often cherge money to remove old items and CL buyers will gladly take them for a nice low price. I outfitted my entire kitchen for under $1000 with recent (less then 5 years old) appliances. I had expected to spend over $3000!!!
October 21st, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Bought a Steinway piano. Great experience, wonderful seller. I’m very happy with the whole experience.
To get rid of stuff, I usually use Freecycle if I’m in a hurry. It hassle-free to just leave whatever on my front porch for the recipient to come pick up while I’m at work. With layoffs looming at my company, I may switch to posting stuff for sale on CL.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Just launched iList.com. You can take the site tour:http://ilist.com/tour …you can see who is buying from you.
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
How come you bought and sold your Acer Aspire One? What happened to the Thinkpad S10?
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Emily: Funny that you sold your first item on Craigslist just recently too.
Matthew: Selling your house w/o a realtor (with or without Craigslist help) is pretty impressive. Not that I believe realtors are mandatory in such a transaction, but depending on where you live it makes things a lot easier.
Thanks for sharing guys. Stove, piano and unexpected date sounds sweet (I’m w/ savergirl on not using their personal ads though heh). Definitely agree that selling things on Craigslist is a lot less painful than say… eBay, especially if its high demand and you live in the right area.
Jonathan: I bought the Aspire One because I had to wait another moth for the Ideapad S10 (Black) to ship and needed something in the mean time, so I bought the Acer at a local retailer. I sold the Acer the same day my Lenovo arrived.
Took forever! But at $360 for a 10 inch netbook, I can’t really complain. Will probably post some short review even though this isnt a gadget blog.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
w/ savergirl on not using their personal ads though heh)
They do seem a bit skeezy at times.
November 27th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Ha, nice post. I agree, don’t do anything stupid and you’ll get rid of that old stuff and come out on top. I posted some camera gear to make room for some new stuff and sold my stuff within the first week. Took 6 replies to find a good buyer, had to filter out a few scam emails.
Posted quality pictures of what I was selling and it worked like a charm. And I also made sure to take only cash and to meet my buyer in public.
Posted a short write-up of what worked for me here:
http://blogs.adamparkerphotography.com/blog/Selling-old-camera-gear-on-craigslist.com/8/
Thanks again for your post, much appreciated.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
My fiancee got his car on Craigslist. We bought and sold most of our apartment furniture on it. My two previous jobs were found on Craigslist. My fiancee found his last two jobs on Craigslist.
And the best one…
We met on Craigslist!
SF bayarea is the best and most used section of Craigslist, but I’m not sure of how the other area craigslists are.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Craigslist is amazing when looking for somewhere to live I found 4 apartments over the years on craigslist.
July 16th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
I often just meet someone somewhere to buy something. I recently bought an item and had seller bring it to a Target parking lot while I dashed inside to get a prescription.
I left my mother in the car at the front of the parking lot. She was wearing a distintive red hat.
It’s usually easier to meet somewhere than it is to find a home. In this detestable cell-phone age, all you had to do is call your seller on your cell-phone when you get close.