Trevin the monk
In preparation for my move to Queen Anne in the next few weeks, I’ve been selling stuff like crazy on Craig’s list. I tried using Windows Live Expo like a good Microsoft cog, but Craig’s List just has such a bigger audience and is way more effective. I’ve sold over 35 items in the last 2 weeks alone!
Things that I thought didn’t have much value (or would be OK giving to goodwill) fetches decent coin on craig’s list. For example:
- 20GB hard drive that is 5 years old. Sold for $11 to a guy who drove from West Seattle through rush hour traffic. Bought me lunch for 2 days!
- A picture and frame that I bought from Ikea for $12 in the “as is” section and sold for $15
There are disadvantages to using Craig’s list though:
- Constantly being contacted for western union scams on electronic equipement
- People telling you they want to buy your item, then never show up.
- You agree on a price, the buyer shows up and pretends that he can’t remember the sale price and tries to re-negotiate
- Craig’s List UI sucks in a major way. Have they not heard of client side caching or UI elements? As much as I hate hearing the words “Web 2.0″, I wish someone at Craig’s list heard of Web 0.1.
Please Expo, I pray that you get a user base that is much larger so I can stop dealing with Craig’s list. All I want to do is sell my goods, and will use whatever service that helps me do that as fast and efficiently as possible.
