10 Tips for selling on Craigslist:

Spring cleaning is in the air, and in my home, the next few weeks will be devoted to organizing, decluttering and making plans for a garage sale or selling things on Craigslist.

Once we get going on decluttering our home, we ultimately have to decide what is trash, what can be donated and what will be sold. If you live in an apartment like I do, garage sales are not always an option. Craigslist may be a great alternative for you to make a few extra bucks. The following are 10 tips to maximize your chances of selling on Craigslist.

1. Post useful items, or things that other people may want. Once you get through decluttering your home and have filled your box of items you want to sell you need to start listing your items! They always say that one mans trash is another mans treasure, especially on Craigslist.

If you have a collection of NASCAR stuff that you no longer want or love, it may just be what another NASCAR fan has been looking for! On the other hand, you may not want to bother posting that bag of old clothes you turned into dish rags.

2. Advertise a garage sale! If having a garage sale is an option, advertise it on Craigslist. Take a few pictures of things that will be at your garage sale and include them in the listing. You may want to include a brief listing of other items you will be selling. One key point about doing this is to put your address in the listing! I have seen numerous listings that fail to provide an address and be sure to also specify what time and dates you will be hosting the sale. Don’t forget to be courteous to others and delete the posting after the sale is over.

3. Price your items fairly. If you are going to try and sell something that is very old and worn, it needs to be priced accordingly. You should never expect someone to pay what you originally paid for the item (unless you acquired it for free or next to nothing). Before I list my items, I browse Craigslist to see what other people have listed similar items for, and possibly will price my item for $5 less than others to improve the odds my item will sell.

Let’s say 5 years ago you bought a couch from a furniture store for $500, but over the years the family dog chewed on it and one of the kids spilled Kool-aid on it… the couch is no longer worth what you paid. With that type of damage, it probably won’t sell for much but it is possible someone will buy it.


4. List any known defects. Going back to the couch example above, make sure you actually write in the listing the defects. This is also where you need to specify whether you have a pet free or smoke free home. There are lots of people who have severe allergies to pet dander and smoke.

The best thing you can do is be upfront with your potential buyers so they can make an informed decision before contacting you.


5. Take good, clear photos. If you don’t have a digital camera, this may be where you should ask to borrow a friends’ or family members for a couple hours. This is the most deciding factor whether your item will sell quickly or not. Taking low quality or blurry pictures can make your potential buyers thinks you are trying to hide a flaw.

Craigslist is not quite like Ebay, every listing looks almost exactly alike. Many people may skip right over your listing if there is no picture included. Having multiple pictures and different angles of your items will greatly improve your chances of getting noticed.

6. Clearly state your sell by date. Let’s say you are trying to sell the couch mentioned above because you bought a new couch (hopefully you bought it on sale and paid cash :o) ), and it will be delivered in 1 week and do not have any place to put the old one… you get my point. Make sure in the listing you write “Must sell by May 1st” or you could put “Get it tonight and it’s $10 less”. One other possibility for you would be to give it away for free if you want it gone that night.

7. Cash only. If you accept a personal check, you take the risk of it not clearing the bank. Cash is the best way to make the deal. If you are selling something that is more than a few hundred dollars (such as a car), the buyer could also pay with a money order. It is generally understood that all sales are final, but if you are selling something that is more expensive, you may have them sign a bill of sale acknowledging that the sale is final and is being sold as is (this is where #4 is very important).

8. Prepare to answer your email. After posting an ad on Craigslist, be prepared to check your email often. A few months ago, I cracked the screen on my cell phone and needed a new one almost immediately. After calling my service provider and finding out that I was going to end up without a phone for almost a week and would have to pay $200 deductable for the insurance or outright buy a new one, I decided to find one on Craigslist. There were literally hundreds of phones for sale, but I knew pretty much what I was looking for. I narrowed it down to 3 phones and responded to each ad.

Since I needed this phone so soon, I included in my response that I had replied to other listings and would purchase from the first person to respond to me. I was hoping that someone would have replied to me that night, but by the next day I had a response. By the end of the work day, I had already established the time and location that we were going to meet and traded phone numbers in case I got lost, or was running late. By the grace of God, the person with the least expensive phone (who also was selling the exact phone I broke) was the first to respond.
The second person I responded to answered my email 3 days after I had purchased the phone, the third person didn’t respond at all. These 2 people could have sold their item if they had just responded quicker!

9. Look in the wanted ads. Chances are someone has a wanted ad for the item you are selling. You can directly solicit your item(s) to that person. Be aware though, many people who post in the wanted section want the item for free or very cheap.

10. Plan to meet the buyer in a public place. If it is possible to put the item in your car and meet them somewhere within 5 miles from your home, you should. If you are selling something like a couch, then plan to have your spouse or neighbor at your home with you. If you live in a brand new neighborhood, it is probable that the internet map searches do not have your address listed yet. Give the buyer good directions to your home if that is where you are meeting. You don’t want to lose a sale because the buyer spent 30 minutes driving around wasting gas and then give up.

Meeting in a public place is most likely the safest place to sell your item. Make sure if you plan to meet someone that the place is convenient to you, after all they want to buy your item.
Strive to have someone come with you, even in public. You have to keep in mind that you are meeting a stranger from the internet, and you never know what their intentions may be.

Hopefully the tips listed above help those of you who may have not used Craigslist yet, and have given some new things to think about for those of you who have used it before.

Do any of you have any other advice for selling on Craigslist? Leave your comments below.