Is it safe to say that most of us have more stuff than we know what to do with? Life in the 21st Century often seems like a race to get as much stuff as we can. It’s never clear what the payoff is, or even if there is a payoff—we just keep doing it as if it’s a default setting.
What do you do when you have too much, even by your own standards? That’s what Craigslist if for. It’s like a perpetual garage sale where you can sell anything you want when ever you want.
And here’s why you should:
How To Sell On Craigslist And 6 Reasons Why You Should
Most Of Us Have More Stuff Than We Know What To Do With
It’s a fact of life that most people in the western world have far more possessions than we can possibly ever use. It’s a fact that we don’t become truly aware of this until we have to move, or make room for a new family member.
At some point, too much stuff becomes clutter and that has effects on our lives that we aren’t always aware of. For one thing, it can cause unneeded stress. A cluttered home is more difficult to clean, organize and remodel. That could cause us to avoid doing any of those things for extended periods of time, causing yet more stress. The less stuff we have, the easier it is to function; life seems less cluttered because it truly is.
Another issue is space. When you have a lot of stuff, you need a larger home to store it all. And since our collections tend to increase in size as the years pass, that means an ever increasing need for a still larger home. It’s not for us—after all, once we hit our late teens we stop growing—but our pile of stuff just seems to expand without end.
It goes without saying that a larger home creates a litany of higher expenses—higher house payment, more insurance, more costly repairs and maintenance, higher utilities. And it’s all so we have more space for our possessions.
Most Of Us Could Use Extra Money
Who couldn’t use some extra cash? The reality is that we all have that extra cash sitting around the house, filling up closets, garage space, the basement or in random places around the house. It’s just waiting to be converted to cash, and on Craigslist that will cost you nothing to do.
Craigslist Is Easy
Selling your stuff on Craigslist is easier than doing it just about any other way. With eBay you have to go through a bunch of steps to sell the item, and then you have to ship it once you do. With the classified section of the newspaper, you have to call the advertising department and arrange it through them. And if you want to make a revision you’re back on the phone.
Then there are garage sales…well, you know those are anything but easy (gathering, cleaning, pricing, advertising, etc.) and you can only do them once or twice a year.
With Craigslist, all you need to do is create an account, click the “new posting” tab, then fill in the screens. You can add photos, but you can easily do that with your cell phone. Once the ad is final, all you need to do is wait for calls, texts or emails to come in.
Craigslist Is Local
As a rule, selling on Craigslist is done locally—you meet your buyers at a local coffee shop—and that has at least three advantages. First, it eliminates the need to ship items, the way you have to do with eBay, Amazon.com and some other sites. Second, transactions are easy. There’s no waiting to get paid and little chance of a chargeback.
Third, your transactions are usually paid in cash. That eliminates credit cards (and their fees) or waiting for checks to clear the bank.
Craigslist Is Free
Craigslist is free to list and sell merchandise. Not only do you pay no listing fees, but there are no transaction fees either. What ever you sell an item for is 100% yours, especially since you didn’t pay to purchase the items you sold.
This makes selling your stuff too good a deal to pass up!
Craigslist Is What Your Local Newspaper USED To Be
If you’re over 35 you remember that when ever you wanted to sell something you instinctively looked to advertise it in the classified section of your local newspaper. It didn’t matter what you were selling, it was the natural place to do it. That could have included a car, a room full of furniture, a home appliance or even your home.
Today, however, not many people read the newspaper, they’re all getting their printed news on the internet. Craigslist has stepped into the void and is filling the role of classified advertiser that’s been lost with the decline in newspaper circulation and readership.
But there are advantages to that. Craigslist operates internationally (they’re in 60 countries) but they act locally in every area they service. You can put in ad on the site that will cover the whole metropolitan area, but they also subdivide that into smaller sub regions. It’s your choice where your ad appears. That gives you targeted advertising markets.
People know about Craigslist and they’re flocking to it. It’s quickly becoming THE place to sell what ever it is you want to sell.
Have you ever sold anything on Craigslist? What do you think about it?
