Say we’ll have X thing we want to get rid of. Maybe, a DVD, or a pair of roller blades, or a file cabinet. Whatever it is, someone tells me “You know Craigslist, can you put it on Craigslist?”
I say, sure. I’ll say “I think I can put it for X amount of money.” They say, “Sure!” So I put it on, and someone buys it. They give me X amount of money. I report back to the other person, and they say,
“Couldn’t you have gotten more?”
This is the point I really want to throw the money at their faces at the ingratitude. If you wanted more, you should have either told me, or better yet, do it yourself!
I call it avarice, plain and simple. I’d name names but everybody that’s asked me to put things on Craigslist ends up doing this.
Is this item typically something that you own together with Annoying Person? Or is it an item owned solely by AP, and you’re posting it on Craigslist for them as a favor?
If the latter, fuck them. If the former, they had an opportunity for input in the process at the beginning; if they’re not doing the posting or conducting the final haggling/transaction, then they should STFU or handle the next posting themselves.
If you’re pressed for time or syllables, then when they ask their idiot-question, you can simply answer “no.”
I’m about to eBay a bunch of LPs and CD singles for my husband. I’m pretty sure he’s going to do that to me… judging by all of the micromanaging he’s doing about how I should list them.
I think ingratitude covers it. You did them a favour, selling their thing for the price that they agreed to - as you say, if they wanted more, they should have said so.
Are these people not understanding how Craigslist works? It’s not a bargaining site - people aren’t going to email you and say, “Those roller blades are awesome! I know you’re asking $20, but they’re so awesome, I’m going to give you $30!” More likely they’ll offer you $10.
ETA: Maybe the answer to the question of, “Couldn’t you have gotten more?” is, “Well, I couldn’t, since that’s the price you agreed to, but you can, next time you sell your own damned stuff on Craigslist.”
Just FTR, I don’t do this at random. I do this either for my own stuff, as in stuff my SO and I have agreed to sell, or for work. And yes, my SO does do this to me. And it still grates, though he gets something of a pass.
I was once talking with my mom about buying something that was listed as $400* OBO. I told her we’d offer $350 or so, and she said something to the effect of, “I thought you were supposed to offer more with OBO.” Blink. Blink. I suppose the best offer COULD be more than the seller was asking for, but CL isn’t eBay, and it generally means “I’ll take what I can get.”
And that’s when it hit me. All my Mom understands is eBay. She must have though that every item listed on CL is subject to a bidding war. Maybe all your friends are the same?
*I don’t remember the actual price, so I picked one. I don’t know why I feel compelled to clarify this.
You can always get more, but it’s a trade off with your time. Price it cheap and it will be gone in a few minutes. Price it high and you may have to wait weeks before it’s finally sold.
When people say that I could have gotten more, I respond saying it wasn’t worth the extra time to get a higher price.
FWIW I sometimes treat CL as a Dutch auction site. I’ll list an item for a price that’s almost certainly too high. If nobody takes it within a week, I delete the ad and post a new one with a slightly lower price. Repeat process until someone finally takes the bait. If you’re patient enough to do this, then you’ll probably fetch something close to the highest price you could. This process is typically not worth the trouble for items selling for less than a couple hundred bucks.
I see you’ve met my parents. They think everything is worth at least what they paid for it (before they used it) and the value increases exponentially as the item ages. For awhile they wanted me to unload their valuable treasured 78’s inherited from my grandfather. He bought the same ones millions of other people did, they’re all mainstream and none are special enough to be sold separately. But there are hundreds! And they’re OLD! The boxes they’re in weigh SO MUCH! Hence they are quite valuable and I *could *get someone to pay lots of money if I simply tried harder to sell them the right way. They’re worth thousands, certainly.
(ETA: having been burned by this behaviour in the past) I avoid this by refusing to sell things on behalf of others (unless I actually buy the item off them, then resell it), and refusing to buy things for others unless they are sitting right next to me when I commit, and hand over the money straight away.
I wanted to buy a second hand wardrobe many years ago. A friend had one, in fairly good condition, in her garage and wasn’t using it. I asked her about buying it and how much she wanted for it. She declined to name a price and wanted to know how much I would pay for it. Since I think it’s on the seller to name a price, I declined and bought another elsewhere.
Hers is still sitting in her garage, no longer usable. Her loss.
Seller’s remorse is probably a big part of it. That’s mostly talking about home sales, but it can happen with smaller things as well.
I sold several bikes on Craigslist, all in one ad. I checked out what other bikes were going for, decided what to sell them for, including discussing it with my wife a bit. After the first one sold, I thought “Oh, I probably could have got more for that one.”
Or they just think that if it’s that easy the price should have been higher? In a slightly related vein, my wife is Shanghaiese and bargaining is the national sport. During the 12 years we lived there, there was not a single time I bought something that “she could have bargained better on.” And I’ll admit it’s true 90% of the time as if you don’t speak Shanghaiese then you’re at a natural disadvantage. But, it was irritating as fuck.
Never “not a bad price”, “you did ok” etc. Always “I could have gotten it cheaper” with an undercurrent of “you’re a loser” thrown in.
So, I just started making shit up. How much did you pay? $10 when the real price was $50, a $1 for something that costs $5, whatever. I turned it into a game to name the lowest price that might have been in the possible realm. I mean, I didn’t say I bought a brand new car for $99 or anything completely bat shit absurd…but almost.
Never got “wow, that’s a great price, why don’t you go buy three more?” But always, “I coulda got it cheaper.”
Some things in your luv muffin you just have to accept. And my way of dealing with it was to just name absurd prices to see what variation she would toss out.
Haha, Chinaguy, I married a Persian and I did that, too. Just flat-out lied. Worse, even when I got a good deal (because Persian is easy to speak fluently compared to Chinese), and this was confirmed by friends, he would still complain. I just stopped shopping. Period. I lied and told him I had my SIL buy it for me. He wouldn’t trash her (that’s one good thing about him) so I could enjoy shopping.
Out of this, she got to blame higher prices on me, when she felt she would get criticized. It worked out.
