Tuesday, January 13, 2015

It's a Craigslist Party...who could ask for more? (I hear Oingo Boingo singing it...)





If you saw the video that I (ERNIE aka NINA) posted about my stuff you know that any normal person would say I have very little. A minimalist would easily scoff and say that I have WAY too much. In preparation for the move to BANina in California I must do a few things: I need to separate the minimum need for living, the items getting packed up that won't see the light of day until they get unpacked into my tiny house and THE REST OF THE STUFF that gets sold or donated.

I've already given many appliances away to co-workers, foodstuffs away to local friends and the selling...well...that begins tomorrow.

The way I like to sell on Craigslist when I have multiple items? A CRAIGSLIST PARTY! (And I recommend this method very highly)

A CRAIGSLIST PARTY weeds slackers and minimizes the waste of your time.

For example, I have a Yamaha Zuma Scooter:

I love the scooter and wouldn't mind keeping it BUT, it's the MOVE that I'm thinking would be easier if I didn't have it. And using it? I might get killed on it in L.A., too rainy to use it in Oregon...if I were to use it it would be months away...much later in the game and just not sure where I'll be. SO, I will try to sell it but if I don't and I'm *forced* to keep it, I will :)

ok, ok, on to how I hold my Craigslist Party (CP)
I posted a couple of "big ticket" ($$) items so I don't want to deal with flakes and no-shows.

The post says that the items will be sold on a certain day only, usually first thing in the morning. I ask interested parties to text me and I will reply to them with more info.  Since THIS time around I was traveling and I am staying in a rented room in a house with housemates and the landlord that I don't want bothered, I hold onto the address until the day before. SO, I get the interested parties texts, put them in an item group and confirm that I got the texts.  Then the day before the CP I send out a text that reminds them that the items will be selling the next day. If they are interested and reply back, they get the address.   In the text I say that it's first come/first cash. The rest of them will get a text as soon as the item is sold.  In this go'round you might get replies that say "already bought one" or something like that so you can eliminate them from your phone.

The next day? be ready. Your items won't stick around for long and you will have to pay attention to who arrived first and for what.



I will only be here in the morning on that day so I am going to have all the buyers come around 8am.  In the past, I've arranged it to stagger (for instance, say that I'm selling the couch and beds at 2pm, the piano at 4pm, the washer/dryer at 5pm) so that I don't have a bottleneck of people for 10 different items - that is setting yourself up for chaos and a terrible party atmosphere.



I need to deal with the smaller stuff right now and leave the Craigslist party to work itself out tomorrow.



oh, and while this method DOES eliminate the slackers and flakes, it DOES NOT stop these sort of texts from coming your way:





My first response to this type of text is "Ugh...Dude..Stay in school" but hey, this person could end up with the cure for what ails the human race so I need to shut up with the snarky and get packing.

I'll let you know how it goes and update with a (hopefully) much lighter pile of stuff in a video.  Go forth and ... consume less!






1 comment:

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