a realisation

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Started 1 year ago by bandicoot
Latest reply from chacha1
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bandicoot
Member

in the past, when i have bought things, i have said to myself : o well, if i don't like it/use it, i can always sell it".

for the most part, if i don't end up liking or using things, i usually give them away, or donate them.
i've never really had to sell anything apart from a couple of cars and motorbikes in my twenty odd years of adult life.

and now i find myself selling a trio of items of reasonable value and usefulness, that are in terrific condition and have been very well looked-after and maintained.
and i am selling them at 25% to 66% of their brand-new cost.

and i am absolutely sick...already....of the tyre-kickers, the bargain-hunters, the endless emails back and forth, the photo requests, MORE photo requests, the questions, the scam artists.

next time i want to buy something and my useful old mantra runs through my head, i am replacing it with the memory of all this hassle and angst.
it will slow things down considerably.

Posted 1 year ago #
Netleigh
Member

When I have sold things, and this was ages ago getting rid of baby things 'only one user', I put in the newspaper ad that the price was good and I was not interested in bargaining. This seemed to work! I even had one man phone up and say he wanted the cot and high chair for his daughter and imminent grandchild sight unseen becaus I sounded honest in the ad.
Since then I've donated things to charity shops because I don't need the money as much but definitely agree that the hassle factor of trying to sell is a disincentive to make some money back.

Posted 1 year ago #
charmed2482
Member

I hate selling things with a passion. the money is nice but its way to much work in my opinion. I did sell off a bunch of dvd's twice but my boyfriend(at the time) did all the actual work of listing them on amazon and mailing them when they were sold. I made around 80$ the first time and like 60$ the 2nd time, but I would have never done it if he hadn't been willing to do all the actual work. I will almost always give an item to a friend, stranger(freecycle) or the goodwill before I sell it. or I'll just chuck it or leave somewhere where i know people will see it and someone will come along and take it, I did that with several things during moves which worked great. I got rid of a couch by putting it on the curb when the neighborhood i was living in was having a massive group yard sale thing with a sign on it that said "free" and it was gone in less than 20 minutes!

Posted 1 year ago #
Astreja
Member

I'm not much on selling things, at least not privately. I do occasionally sell to a dealer, though. Over the years I've sold off about half of my CD collection, a few boxes of books and a couple of musical instruments.

Not interested in selling on Ebay or putting an ad in the paper; I'd sooner just give something away. I might be persuaded to have a garage sale or a booth at a market, though.

Posted 1 year ago #
ninakk
Member

I used to think that I could sell my books if the need would arise. HA, what a joke. Nobody wants to pay anything for them regardless of the fact that they are usually in mint condition. It makes me feel better if I just let go of them and their financial value (or rather the loss) and donate them to make someone else happy. It's too much work with other types of "getting rid of" too and so I want the hassle-free option of just collecting everything into a couple of bags and delivering them at the recycling centre, which is owned by some charity-kind of organizations. Let them have the few euros that they can squeeze out of each item (if that). At some point it takes so much time that my "hourly fee" goes straight down the toilet and eBay would be one of those. No thanks.

Posted 1 year ago #
lgmost
Member

I have the same feeling as you. I have tried to sell the goods online. The price of selling them online is much higher than selling to second hand shops, for example in second hand shops, they just give you some cents for a book or dvd, they always request for large quantity. However, I may sell 30%-40% of its original price online. But I hate replying email, waiting for confirmation, packaging, sometimes arranging meeting the buyer in somewhere and the most important is that I have to "keep" the "stuff" some time, usually several weeks or up to several months.

As someone said before, the aim you buy the goods is not because you want to sell them. We are not rich but my mum also suggest me to sell the goods to second hand shops instead, if they do not want it, then recycle or donate immediately.

Posted 1 year ago #
susanintexas
Member

We even gave our last two cars away -- they were both, at the time, 14+ years old and not worth much as trade-ins -- and we had friends who were desperate for transportation so it made sense. I think there are some people who love the give-and-take of sales transactions and those who hate it. I fall into the second camp.

Posted 1 year ago #
lazycow
Member

I don't sell stuff. I get my husband to eBay anything big (like bookshelves). He LOVES all the to-ing and fro-ing and the rush of the sale. I either put stuff on the nature strip with a sign and it is gone within a day, give it to friends (who ALWAYS say "but you could get good money for this") or donate it to op shops. VERY little stuff has come into the house this year though: 1/2 dozen books and some replacement clothes and shoes. I'm so much tougher on allowing new things in now. And you know what? There is STILL unused stuff lying around.

Posted 1 year ago #
Sky
Member

I recently sold 6 items on ebay and what a pain! The postage and ebay fees are so high. I made $130.00 which is nice but it was a lot of trouble.

I like craigslist because it's free but I'm not so happy to have strangers come to my house.

Posted 1 year ago #
SunshineR
Member

The hassle of reselling things has definitely helped me to cut back on purchases and to think more carefully, especially over the last nine months. But there's still more "stuff" to get rid of around here.

Posted 1 year ago #
djk
Member

the only thing I have ever sold was a car--and I was going to donate it to a chariy and a friend of mine offered to arrange the selling for me so I agreed.

Selling strikes me as an enormous effort- and time-waster. I have been poor, but not so poor that I wanted to spend hours of my very limited time to make even 100 dollars. The pay-off would have to be signficantly greater than my time and stress factors. If I am netting, say, 3 dollars an hour trying to sell something, and I could be putting those hours into working on making 30$ per hour, or serious, active job-hunting/whatever that would move me ahead, I would resent working for $3/hr.

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

i am so happy that i am not the only one gnashing my teeth over it.

lazycow, we all need partners like your husband!

Posted 1 year ago #
Parsifal
Member

I have the same attitude toward the hassle of selling things and it has turned out to be an excellent motivator to stop acquiring more clutter...

while it would be nice to get something back for my years of collecting clutter, most of it isn't worth a trip across town, postage, etc. We don't have intrinsically valuable things like extra vehicles around the place.

Posted 1 year ago #
Claycat
Member

I work occasionally in a store where I sell things, and I just love it. I am still trying to sell my MIL's books on Amazon, but I only sell one occasionally. I am hoping to really put my nose to the grindstone and sell as many things as I can on Amazon, Bonanza, Etsy, and Craigslist!

Then I'm going to concentrate on two things: doing paintings and redoing old lamps and shades that I buy. Then I will attempt to sell both. I have become very inspired by watching my bosses create works of art to sell. Granted, they work their tails off. It is not an easy life, but it is fun and rewarding when someone likes something you have created enough to buy it.

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

claycat, i hear ya.
we live entirely by the sales of what we produce with our own hands. and it is a lovely feeling, well worth the work.
oddly, that sort of selling has never fazed me.
but this other business is no fun.
i probably need to just lighten up over it.

Posted 1 year ago #
Parsifal
Member

Going through the hassle of giving away FREE stuff has also changed the way I buy things. I can't believe how picky people can get over things that do not cost a dime! The most common problems for me are the cherry-pickers, the ones who claim a lot then want you to just leave it outside so they can swing by and only pick up what they want after inspecting the goods.

Every time I buy something now I try to estimate whether I want to go through the trouble of eventually getting rid of it.

Posted 1 year ago #
Emilie
Member

Parsifal, I hear you! Giving stuff away isn't always hassle-free, and it's definitely changed my perspective, too. I've sold maybe 100 items on Ebay...I enjoyed it at first, but started to get tired of it after a while. What I really don't like is selling things on Craigslist, because people are haggling over things that are already rock-bottom prices. People are also really suspicious about getting scammed, which I don't blame them for, but there is no way to convince them that I'm a non-scammer since there are no seller reviews in the way of Ebay. I've sold things there a few times anyway, though.

Posted 1 year ago #
Parsifal
Member

I did have one exceptional donation through Craigslist - a lady in my town wanted an unopened box of CD jewel cases I was giving away, so we arranged to meet in a strip mall parking lot. She was already standing by her vehicle when I arrived, so I drove up, held the box out the window and was gone in 2 seconds! Sort of like a reverse drive-through...

Posted 1 year ago #
chacha1
Member

I toyed with the idea of selling some of the Stuff I wanted to purge, but it's just not worth the time for most of it. I put a few vintage things into my Etsy shop and have sold a couple; that was low-hassle because the listings are for several months, no auctions, etc. Tried Craigslist once, for a piece of vintage furniture, and got no response at all and will not try again. Life is too short.

Posted 1 year ago #

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