Making some “life changes” and selling off a bunch of shit. The ads are pretty straight-forward, English, reasonable well written. The items are high quality and priced accordingly.
Words and phrases like,* “I don’t text”, “price FIRM”, “If you see the ad, its still available* (in ads less than a day old)” sprinkled liberally throughout.
And yet, I get flooded with, “You still have it?”, “Will you take $xx?” and the good old, “What’s your phone number?” :rolleyes:
So, some Asshole emails me this gem, and I snapped:* “Will you take $X?”* (X being exactly half the FIRM selling price).
I reply, “Sure. Twice.”
They respond, “? Twice”
I respond,* “Your reading comprehension is only surpassed by your mathematical acumen.”
*
Fuck. :rolleyes: This is gonna be a long road to hoe…
I can’t account for “What’s your phone number?” (seriously, are you sure those people aren’t just yanking your chain?), but maybe the “You still have it?” people are just shy? I know that I sometimes ask “obvious” establishing questions- like saying “Um, excuse me, do you work here?” to people wearing a uniform- because I feel very awkward talking to strangers, and making sure of things that should already be self-evident is a kind of verbal security blanket for me. Like, sure, the answer is almost certainly yes, but I need to make completely sure before I can go ahead.
Alternatively, it’s possible that you could have sold the thing a few minutes ago, before you had a chance to go out and change the signs. A pretty small chance, sure, but a nonzero one.
I once had someone ask me to sms them details of what I was selling… When I said it was all in the ad, they told me they’d forgotten which ad was mine… (yes, seriously). They seriously expected me to waste my time typing it all out again on my phone.
I don’t understand why people don’t go “If you haven’t just sold this, I’m interested. When could I come to look?” or something. The “is this still available?” “yes” is usually the last you’ll ever hear from these people. I’ve decided I’m not going to answer these questions any more.
Ah, the joys of Craigslist (or any direct-to-buyer platform).
It’s always been horrifying to me that these people, who I’m honestly surprised are able to operate telephones, computers, and - in some cases - doorknobs, do such things as hold jobs in areas impacting other people’s well being, drive 5,000 pound death-missiles inches away from people every day, and vote.
But, there you have it. If you ever want to lose your faith in humanity, try to sell them something.
A firm price when you placed the ad doesn’t mean that if it sits for too long you might not bend. I’ve attempted that on eBay with an item that had been continually re-listed at the same price (higher than I was willing to pay) for a year and a half. He (like you) said no, but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. The general rule of sales is that inventory sitting around unsold is a bad thing.
but not by HALF. I get annoyed by people who “try it on”. I’d be likely to say “no, but I"ll take double”. I can’t stand people who ask me what my “best price” is. I’m not a retail outlet, I’ve put it up at the price I think is fair, I’m not having hypothetical discussions with somebody who isn’t right there, going to buy it if we agree a price. Even though I’m willing to negotiate, I just restate the listing price when somebody asks me to negotiate against myself.
I’ve never had to buy a car Fast’n’Cheap before (but I’d never totaled an old car before).
But suddenly, in the past 24 hrs I’ve gone from seeing ZERO Craigslist and eBay ads to seeing them ALL.
The customers may be M0RANs™, but so are many sellers. One ad that was labeled “2007 Ford Scape SUV” was full of creative spellings. Another ad was titled “Roof Rack New Exhaust Power Windows” (like THOSE are what people care about most), but never told anyone the make, model or year.
My favorite ad casually mentioned, in a dense paragraph of a car’s strengths, “Great gas mileage, 5-speed manual stick, V6 engine had great torque til it fell out, aftermarket AM/FM/Cassette/CD/Aux/subwoofer…thumpin’ sound! …”
If you think selling is bad, try stuff like freecycle. The level of oblivious entitlement I came across through that was truly spectacular.
My favourite was the email reading: Hey, I think my brother would like this, his number’s xxxxxxxxx give him a ring
Plus the girl that asked for the item, picked a collection time, didn’t show up, didn’t phone, ignored the message I’d sent that night saying ‘It needs to go, if you don’t collect today I’ll give it to the next person on the list’ then two weeks later messaged saying she were coming to pick it up tomorrow, and was furious when she got a reply saying it was gone. Because I’d said she could have it…
I did get some lovely people who did stuff like bring over homegrown fruit as thanks for the items as well, to be fair.
One of my kids is a dab hand at selling on FB BSS sites. She’s given up ‘holding’ shit for people who never turn up with cash. It’s first in, first served, first at the door with cash gets the goodies.
For freebies, they’re chucked out on the nature-strip.
Back when I had a well paying job in Tokyo and getting married, I decided to clean house since I’d be changing lifestyles and our new place wasn’t that big. I really didn’t need the money and decided to give away a bunch of things instead of going through the hassle of selling it. A lot of struggling students and English teachers could use a break.
After a few exchanges I pulled the damn ad. No, I’m not going to ship things to you. No, I’m not going to take a 90 min train on my dime so you can thing about buying it. No, I’m not going to hold it until you (may) come back from a trip though South East Asia.
