Friday, May 18, 2012

Having Your Own Sale Part 5: Craigslist

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how important Craigslist advertising is. I have no way of determining which buyers come from Craigslist and which ones just happen to be driving by other than asking everyone, but I feel that advertising with Craigslist can't hurt. It's free, after all.

There are a few points you want to cover in your ad:

1) Time and place. This is simple. Just say 7:00 (or whatever time you intend to be set up, I suggest 7) Saturday and the date. For location just put your address. If you're unwilling to put your address on the internet like I, you can just put your street name if your street is short. Google Maps can find your street, they don't need an address.

2) What you're selling. The goal is list broad categories that interest people, such as video games, camping equipment, electronics, etc. You don't want to get too specific by listing individual items / item names (such as stating that your electronics pile consists of a VCR and a CD player) because you run the risk of driving away people who are only looking for specific items. The goal is to make it sound like you have more items than you really do so more people come.<

3) Anything else that makes your sale attractive. I always stress that it's a multifamily sale to make it sound like we have more stuff -- I even call the sale a "Multifamily Sale" in the title.

I usually first post the ad the Wednesday before the sale and repost it on Thursday and Friday so it stays near the top of the ads.

You will probably have someone emailing you from the post asking if they can come look at your items a day or two before your sale. I never even bother responding to these people; they're definitely power resellers and I know they won't buy something unless it's totally ripping me off. I suggest you ignore them as well.

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