CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Heywood Jablome]

I'm dumping a bunch of clutter, some valuable, in order to fund some landscape improvements. Probably the most valuable 'don't need this, never will' item is a factory re-manufactured 4WD GM transmission of recent vintage.

I put it up on CL and got a response within half an hour. Timing's a little suspicious, but his English composition and punctuation are good:

[perisoft]

Heh. Craigslist definitely has its own ethos. A lot of CL is very literate and quite funny; then there are smaller bits (maybe 20%, at least around here) that are completely AOL-level incoherent. And you haven't lived until you've looked at the NYC Craigslist. It's amazing.

I've gotten half my home theater from CL - the projector, the screen, the rug, some of the audio stuff, my RPTV, my plasma TV... I've never had someone try to scam me on either the buying or the selling side, though.

I'm currently trying to unload a couple of things without much luck... I have a feeling summer in a college town is a crappy time to try it.

I've seen some other people put funny additions in their ads, though - one of them was a guy selling a 50" plasma TV, with, "Make me a reasonable offer", and then at the bottom, "No! $200 is not a reasonable offer, so don't waste our time!" Heh.

I put up a big steel desk at one point:

"It's desk! It's desk! It's big; it's heavy - not wood!"

And then in the body, of course: "It's desk! It's desk! It's better than bad; it's good!"

I got a couple of emails thanking me for the laugh and the nostalgia, but nobody wanted the desk.

[paw]

My Craigslist motto - cash only; no delivery; no shipping; first come, first served . If something's not selling, I will bend these rules. Only once for the cash only. It was a car and I verified the checking account was active. I'd say 30 - 50% of the people flake out on picking up an item. Just how it is on Craigslist.

[ecrabb]

Yeah, I can't believe the people who go to the trouble of emailing, dickering the price, calling to set up an appointment, then blow it off and never show. Do they have mental problems and just need a "project" to work on? Do they need the human interaction? WTF?

Other than the occasional flake, I LOVE Craigslist. Except for a few specialty items which I know will bring way better money from the giant pool of buyers that is fleabay, I've been selling almost everything on Craigslist. It's fast, easy, and best of all FREE. We've gotten rid of a ton of kids' stuff - and for decent money. Weird stuff, too. I even sold the road case my G70 came in! I advertised with pics for $150/offer got a few hits, but now takers. Then I lowered to $100 offer, got a hit, he came over, wasn't sure about it, but I pushed him and sold it for $60. $60 back in my pocket and a big chunk of garage space opened up. Seems so cheap, but it covered about 1/3 of the shipping to get the G70 here.

Man, the newspapers have to be hating life with so much of their classified revenue now going to ebay, craigslist and autotrader or cars.com. I wonder if they've gotten the memo that their time is up, yet and lowered prices? Last time I called, the price was still so high, it made me wonder how they ever sold an ad.

SC

[Clarence]

Yeah... CL is definitely a different mindset than ebay. I use it only for large items... last week I sold a jukebox (I upgraded to a model with a CD player) and a pepsi machine.

The profit on those just funded the 70-200 f/4L IS lens that I've been craving.

But you definitely get a lot of e-mail from people who I think just want to chat. I used to accomodate all of the pleas of "please hold for me... I'll come get it next weekend." Now it's strictly goes to whoever knocks on my door first with the cash.

IMHO ebay is a lot better for buying big junk that's too big to ship... people list it for NR for local pick-up only. Just search for stuff in a 50 mile radius from your zip code. You can find local HDTVs and arcade games for $20. I've been in a de-clutter mode lately, there's not much left on my search list of stuff for our playroom. Maybe just a pinball machine.

[jask]

Another vote for CL, I gave up selling on ebay ages ago, and have had great luck with CL. My approach is like a yard sale- that means you come pick it up.. that means first guy in front of me with cash gets it...and if you want to dicker on the price I will only do that if you are looking at what you are trying to lowball me on!!
Having said all that... I had a transmission I listed a while back, the buyer lives about 2 hours north of here and was visiting his son-( about 4 hours south of here in Vancouver) he was looking in the Vancouver ads thinking he would have better luck in the big city,.He left his name,number,cell number, and was willing to sort out a deposit sight unseen.I held it 2 days and it all worked out no problems.
I do have a few esoteric items that will probably end up on Ebay just to "cast a wider net" but I am really dragging my heels on those ads.

[AnalogRocks]

Just bought a 26" Toshiba 16:9 CRT TV on CL tonight. Great price. I troll for CRt stuff all the time. I got my Runco 900 there for a steal of a price.

[AnalogRocks]

Just bought a 26" Toshiba 16:9 CRT TV on CL tonight. Great price. I troll for CRt stuff all the time. I got my Runco 900 there for a steal of a price.

[grogthegreat]

Have any of you ever heard of crazedlist.org? It allows you to search multiple areas of craigslist at once. It was how I found my maggies and amp.
I drive between MA and FL twice a year so for a week or two before each trip I will search the entire east coast. Before finding crazedlist it would take about an hour. Now it takes less than five minutes!
-Greg

[Heywood Jablome]

Crazedlist requires firefox (altho Safari and Opera may work.) I use it all the time.

[grogthegreat]

Opera works fine. That's what I use.

[Phil Smith]