ebay v. craigslist

After my Thankful Thursday list post from yesterday, I had several comments asking about Ebay and how it differed from Craigslist... Which was better? Which I preferred? What's the difference? ...etc, etc.

So.... I thought it might be helpful to do a quick little review of the two very popular selling sites. This "review" is strictly based on my experiences as a new(ish) seller... I am not a fanatical seller (not yet anyways) and have only sold a handful of items on either Ebay or Craigslist. And, truth be told, my husband really did all of the hard work in listing most of our items.

Okay, so that all being said, let's start the official review, shall we?

Craigslist...

Craigslist is an online community allowing people to both purchase and sell items according to their location. The major advantage of Craigslist over Ebay would be that it's much easier to sell/buy large items (like furniture or cars even) because the person you are selling to/buying from is ideally located in the same city, so you can easily make arrangements for pick up/delivery... ie, no shipping costs. Of course, anytime you are meeting complete strangers from the internet to exchange items, safety always becomes a concern. Always take precautions when arranging meeting locations.

We have tried selling a truck (yes... that sweet 1987 Chevy pickup, for those of you that know it well... sad, I know) and a sofa on Craigslist. So far, both with no luck. We had a few serious prospects come out to examine the truck... but regarding the sofa... not so much. Well, I take that back... we have had A TON of "hearing impaired" and "speech impaired" people interested in collecting our personal information so they could "purchase" the sofa... aka, we have encountered A TON of scammers on Craigslist. But that's to be expected more when you're dealing directly with all of the crazy people out there in the real world.

Ebay...

We have had a much better experience selling on Ebay. Ebay uses more of an auction-style of buying/selling... and overall seems to be much more protected. Ebay manages the bidding directly, and all payments are made through Paypal. We recently sold a bow, a jacket, and a guitar... all of which sold at higher amounts than we expected.

On Ebay you have the ability to set a "reserve" price if you know you don't want to accept anything lower than a certain amount. This ensures that if you do sell your items, you can at least collect a minimum amount or choose to not sell at all. If you're lucky your item might start a bidding war and the price is likely to go above what you were hoping for. You have to be organized and prepared to head to the post office as soon as your bid closes... that could be more effort than you're wanting to give. Depends on how motivated you are, I guess.

So... there you have it... my 2 cents on Ebay and Craigslist. Now who's ready to go sell some stuff!?!?