Seeking some help with Craigslist

I have used Craigslist a few times during the past ten years. I have bought and sold approx a dozen items during that time.

Just recently, I decided to sell a 4 year-old TV that I no longer use. It is a very high quality Sony LCD TV. I’m deliberately not specifying the size or the name of the model here in this post. I figure this TV is currently worth around $130. I placed the ad to sell it for $130 but only got one reply and it was from a man who scolded me for asking $130. He told me it was only worth $100 and I should let him know if I was willing to sell the TV for that price.

Well, I gave up on it for a while but then re-posted it later for only $90.

In general, I find that when I place an ad to sell something, most people who respond will either ask if I am willing to be “flexible” about the price or if I’m willing to sell it for some specific price which is lower than my asking price. To be specific, let’s assume my asking price is extremely low. In that case:

About 10% of the responders will say they want to buy it immediately and that they are willing to pick it up right away and will pay the asking price in cash. I have found these people to be very clever or very experienced because they recognize this as a great deal and they know that if they don’t offer to buy it immediately, it will almost certainly be sold to someone else before they can buy it.

About 50% of the responders will ask if I’m “flexible” about the price or if any further reduction in price is possible. Asking if I’m “flexible” is the same as asking if I’m willing to sell it for less than the asking price. But since they don’t specify any price at all, we both then need to start from the beginning again which is a real waste of time. Asking if any further price reduction is possible is essentially the same as asking if I’m flexible. It’s a complete waste of time. I have found these people are “not very bright” because the odds are very high that the item will be sold to someone else long before they ever get the chance to buy it. These two responses ensure they go to the bottom of the list of buyers and means that someone else will almost surely buy the item before they get a chance to buy it. I call these people “low-ballers” because they offer a very low price and the odds their offer will be accepted is virtually zero.

About 20% of the responders will ask if I am willing to sell it for a specific price and usually that price is close to my asking price. I consider these people to be more clever than those in the previous two categories because I will send them a reply and if their offer is sufficiently close to my asking price, I will often sell it to one of them.

Finally, there is the remaining 20%. These are people that I consider to be quite stupid or to have some kind of mental defect. They will offer to buy the item for a price that is so terribly low that I would never take them seriously and would never bother to reply to them. Alternatively, their reply may be “crazy” in some other way. But I never reply to these people. I take their email address and add it to a file I call the “crazies” file. If they should ever contact me again in the future, I never bother to reply to them and will never offer to do any business with them. Never again. I call these people the “crazies”.

So, what kind of advice am I asking for?

Well, I would like to show you one reply that I received and then I’d like to ask for your help. How to respond to this reply and how would you interpret it? Can you draw any conclusions to it besides the obvious?
Here is the first reply I received to my ad asking $90:

Hi,

Any further discount is possible? My son wanted to buy to play video games. Please let me know.

Now, here is my first reply to her:

The price of $90 is extremely low. How much did you want to pay?

Now, here is her second reply to me:

I am with a limited budget and can offer around 50. Please let me know.

Would any of you care to tell me what you think of this potential buyer? And how would you handle her from this point?

“TV. Sony LCD, 42 inch. 2 yrs old, smoke free house. Remote and papers. Like new. $130 firm.”

Ignore all replies from people too stupid too know what “firm” means.

When I’m selling stuff on craigslist and get low offers, I respond that I’d like to wait a bit to see if any higher offers come in. I tell them that I’ll contact them if I still have it in a week or so.

Sometimes I send in low offers like that because sometimes they’re accepted. Maybe I have a budget of $50 for a TV and I see one for $100 that’s a few days old. I’ll send the person a note offering $50 because maybe they just want to get rid of it. If not, oh well. I’ll just keep looking.

So I would recommend not to be offended. That lady sounded reasonably polite. If her offer is too low, just let her know that you’re hoping to sell it for more. If you are not willing to accept other offers, indicate that in your ad. Say the price is firm and that you’re not entertaining offers at this time.

If you had a guy offering to buy it for $100, why did you re-post it for $90?

love
yams!!

Amateur Barbarian and filmore,

Thank you very much for your replies. You both demonstrate good sense to me.

I wish to say to Amateur Barbarian that filmore makes a very good point. It can be a mistake to just ignore lower offers for several reasons.

In the past, I have sold something to someone who initially made a very low offer. But because I treated them with courtesy and respect, eventually they bought my item for a fair price. This does not happen very often. But I must agree with filmore in that it pays listen to all offers and to at least give a courteous reply to everyone.

I’m not sure how I will handle this lady. I don’t like her and I don’t feel very respectful towards her for reasons that I will explain soon. But it would be a mistake to reply to her in a harsh manner or not to reply to her at all.

After all, I could easily be mistaken and I might well end up selling it to her or selling something else to her. In the past I have made friends of people who have contacted me from Craigslist. So, it is worth keeping any negative feelings and opinions to myself - at least until they act badly towards me first.

But Amateur Barbarian makes an important point too. That is that if I need to sell something for a definite amount, I will specify the price as $130 firm and then I will feel fine about not replying to “low ballers”.

I will wait and see if anyone else has any further opinions. Then I will explain why I don’t respect this lady and don’t respect her approach.

I have a fair bit of experience with Craigslist. But I am not happy with the way that things work out for me. So, I would like to learn how to deal with people in a better way and make more successful deals.

Seriously, if your price is firm, say so in your ad and ignore people who can’t read or refuse to follow instructions. If you’re willing to negotiate (which you seem to be), ask for what you want and ignore stupid offers like 50% of your asking price. I’d ignore this woman, but if you insist on replying, just say “Sorry, ma’am, $90 is already well below its market value. Thanks,” then move on. If she continues to reply, keep ignoring her unless she comes up with an offer that isn’t ridiculous.

I have sold two cars using Craigslist.

I just ignore most low ballers as they rarely meet what I consider to be the minimum amount that I will accept for something or they have no interest in general but are attempting to see if they can get a huge discount or if I’m desperate. That’s why I always state that I won’t bargain on the price I set or use the word “firm.”

If you waste too much time on low ballers you’ll just get frustrated and angry.

That is a good question.

First of all, he never offered anything firm. He said that it was only worth $100 if it was in perfect condition and he asked me to contact him if I changed my mind and was wiling to sell it for that price. But that doesn’t mean he would be willing to buy it for that price.

I apologize for not explaining that he said it was worth $100 but only if it was in perfect condition.

I am more concerned with other matters than the price.

First, I want to be careful that I don’t get cheated or robbed - a very small danger there.

Second, I don’t want people to come to my home and examine the TV and then start haggling with me about the price. That can turn out to be a large waste of time. Sometimes that is more important than the price.

I want to feel confident that if someone comes to my home and finds the TV in perfect condition that they will pay me the amount we agreed and they will not try to pay a lower price after I have spent a fair bit of time with them.

After all, once you spend a fair bit of time with someone (either when you are buying or selling) it is much easier to try and get a better price at that time.

What I mean to say is that once someone has invested a half hour or an hour of their time with you, it is much easier to get them to agree to a price reduction if you are buying or a price increase if you are selling.

But, if they don’t do it in a very diplomatic manner, things can become very ugly.

I strongly dislike it when things become very ugly - especially if that happens in my home.

Know what I mean?

That is an excellent point.

So many people seem to not really care about buying the item. They seem to just play some sick game where they want to get you to agree to a lower price and if you do, then they want you to agree to an even lower price. Some people will keep this up as long as possible but will never buy the item. It’s enough to make you want to do violence to them - something you must avoid. Heh. Heh.

A very reasonable approach.

Hmmm … you know … you don’t sound so mean to me.

:slight_smile:

In my case, I just want to get rid of the TV with as little fuss as possible. I even offered it to a neighbor of mine for free. So Filmore is correct. You never know what is happening behind the scenes.

But if I’m going to sell it for any money, I do not want to let anyone take advantage of me and I don’t want to let anyone insult me. It’s not just a question of “how much” I can get for it.

That may sound foolish to many of you. But I really did not appreciate that man scolding me for pricing the TV at $130. I looked at the LCD TVs for sale and saw many inferior models and people were asking around $200 for them. I believe mine is really only worth about $130 because it is 4 years old and it does not have a DVI input. (they didn’t have any DVI inputs until a year or two later). The DVI input is no big deal. It’s just a more improved version of the VGA input.

But the tone of his reply struck me as insulting and so I would never sell him the TV. Not for any price. Let me see if I can show you what he said.

OK. Here it is.

Today price for a new sony 32 inch is about $300 (just go and check) you think your TV 6 plus years is worth $150 at most is is worth $100 that is if the TV is perfect and includes the remote if you agree let me know

I don’t know where he got the “6 plus years” from. The ad said 4 years old.

IMO, that was one strike.

Then he tells me to “just go and check”. AFAIC, that was two strikes.

Then he says “if you agree let me know”. But that doesn’t mean he will pay me $100. It could mean he will then ask if I’ll sell it for a lower price. So, screw him! I don’t like it when people mess with me. It’s not worth $10 or $20 to me to put up with insults.

I just don’t like to do business with people who have been rude to me or have tried to push me around (even figuratively speaking).

I would never do business with this guy under any circumstances.

P.S. The price for a new 32" Sony Bravia TV today is a lot more than $300. I am certain he is wrong about that. I paid over $700 for it new. But I realize that has nothing to do with the price today.

Here is a link to a Walmart page that shows a new Sony 32" TV for $350. But it is not the Bravia model. So, I’m not exactly sure what is going on. It is an LED TV. I don’t know how that compares with an LCD TV.

http://www.walmart.ca/en/electronics/tvs/30-39-tvs/N-1557?kid=kid_14660&gclid=CNK-qeTIzb0CFQ5gMgodJiMA2A

Here is a link to the Sony site and a 32" Sony LED TV for $350.

http://store.sony.ca/r-series/cat-31-catid-All-R5-Series-TVs;pgid=NEpCg7TAAsBSRplnCd54.UZ400004WnjU-Uu;sid=zz-s1FfG0iGw1ASE4QHc0M_MoHPppTiKik7ycAgq

I don’t know what the diff is between the R400 series for $300 and the Sony KDL32R420B model for $350.

Oh! the R400 is a clearance model.

3 years ago I sold my kids old backyard swingset/climbing structure. I put on a price of $200 which I thought was fair since while it would have fetched new at over $3,000, it now had some wood rot and bad areas.

Within minutes of my posting I was getting replies. Some like you were asking if I’d take half, some even worse giving sad stories asking for it for free… But most just asking to come and take a look.

Thing was within 4 hours I had over 30 responses and then I decided to take it down.

I had 3 people come by and take a look and no darn way was I going to reduce the price or wait while someone thought it over. The first person who could put down half ($100) took it. They came by that weekend to haul it away and the first thing I asked for was the remaining $100.

I hope you got the remaining $100?

Since you’re looking for advice and opinions, moved to IMHO, our advice and opinions forum (from MPSIMS).

Sum up/gloss on all that’s been said, my post included: if you just want to get rid of something for any quick amount of cash, responding to all CL buyers is a good practice. Getting the junk out of your garage, house, yard, whatever is worth a lower offer rather than keeping it around for a few bucks more.

BUT if you’re selling something with established value (a car, a TV in good condition, etc.) I’ve found it to be best practice to state your conditions clearly in the listing, and ignore everyone who ignores those conditions. No $10 less, no low-ballers, no one who argues it’s just junk you’re overpricing so you should let them have it for 20% of what you’re asking, etc. (and absolutely no one who thinks you should give it to them because they’re broke/have a family/Christian/run a pet charity/whatever).

1. Describe the item clearly.
2. State your terms clearly.
3. Respond only to people who respect those two elements.

It makes life SO much easier when dealing with the vast range of flakes and nuts CL attracts.

Craigslist is a free service and you get what you pay for, IMO. You have to go into it knowing what to expect. Your experience roughly matches my experience; I just ignore folks who clearly haven’t read the ad and/or make ludicrous offers to “trade” something I have no interest in.

It’s a 32" television, not a dining room set. If you’re worried about weirdos coming to your home, don’t have them come to your home - put it in your trunk and meet at the nearest well-lit gas station or Wal Mart.

Some people’s nature is to haggle no matter what. I’ve listed crap on free-cycle and had people haggle in multiple ways…

  • telling me their sob stories so I would pick them;
  • negotiate for help in loading the crap in their car;
  • complain that manuals or accessory items are missing;
  • ask for other stuff sitting in my garage that I didn’t list;
    etc. etc.