Thanking Craigslist
 

Many people like to bash it. Don't really know why. Earlier this year I got a nice, barely-used Cannondale Caffeine from a seller. And just the other day I sold a used bike on it. In fact I had a response in 20 minutes and sold it in two days. It both cases we were about 2 hours apart and met in the middle. Win, win. No "auction" to watch. No Pay Pal to deal with. No shipping. No worrying about payment/shipment. Plus I like the personal interaction much better. It revives your faith in people. I like CL much better than E-Bay.

craigslist is fine IMO if you're selling bikes or accessories valued at less than $1000. I've attempted to sell a few bikes and cars in the $2000+ range and was contacted by dozens of scammers. It's hard to filter the real folks out of the scammers so I just don't bother. Last bike I sold I ended up stringing a scammer along for a few days with a ridiculous story of dead midgets, transvestites, and roaming gangs. It in this forum somewhere, but search isn't currently working :(

Please find this story i want to read it! lol

Yes, I agree that the key to Craigslist is selling stuff that are really not expensive. I'll sell my used saddle, stem, handlebar etc there, but I'll list my CAAD 10 frame on eBay. Reluctantly, I have come to develop some antipathy towards eBay, for the simple reason of the ridiculous amount to list effectively, and also because they own PayPal, a company I have come to loathe, because of their holding up your money to benefit from floats.

i agree. craigslist is great. you just need to use some common sense when posting and responding. how you cooordinate meetups to actually sell stuff depends on your level of comfort too. but for the most part, ive always had pretty good luck. i never get scammers either. if the email response is in broken english from a fishy sounding email handle, i usually just delete it. i like text messages from local phone numbers. also, taking good pictures will help sell your item. i mean really, its just a big garage sale so you have to expect some cheapskates and weirdos anyway.

I too resorted to CL when selling a bike this week - had it sold in a day, and more-or-less at my asking price. Had a couple bites from scammers, but they're easily deflected.

gadabout007's scammer shenanigans are at http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ers?highlight= - hilarious to read =)

You Asked For It crap... beat me to it.

I find Ebay much better, catered to a much bigger demographic. from selling front derailleur clamp adapter to a GXP bb, someone on ebay will sure to buy it. I list, pack it ship it.

CL is good for some stuff, fleabay for some other, depends on the target market and what the item is. I've had good luck using both although fleabay (and paypal) is such a ripoff now it is pathetic.

Really? I've sold two bikes at a grand each and two or three cars around $5k. Easy as pie.

+1. The fees really add up, but the extra exposure of ebay is key for certain items. C-list has been very good to me as both a buyer and seller...with just a few crummy transactions mixed in.

Oh that's a riot! :lol:

And sadly, having a PayPal account is the only way to purchase an elite membership here on Bike Forums.

I sold my Motorcycle on CL, easy as cake. Sold it for $6k in less than a week.

I just sold my Surly on CL. I was asking several hundred $$ more than my bottom line, to leave plenty of room for the inevitable haggling. Surprisingly, the 3rd bite bought it at full price and pretty much no questions asked. He probably overpaid by a couple hundred, so thanks Craigslist !

Perhaps it's a geographical thing. The bike section of cl Toronto gets upwards of 250 posts per day, more on the weekends. Post a high value bike here and I guarantee you'll get at least a dozen reaponses from scammers. Not long ago I sold off a bunch of small ticket items stems, handlebars, pedals, etc. and didn't receive a single non legit response.

I love craigslist! You can buy high-end items for reasonable prices, use them for a while, and then turn right around and sell them for approximately the same price you bought it for.

Within the past few weeks I've sold my old bike on it, as well as my kitchen table and a couple of other items so that I could have enough money to buy my new bike. I never realized that haggling over prices was such a fun sport!

I would have purchased my new bike on craigslist, but I'm a big guy and bikes my size are slim pickings in my area. I see great-looking deals all the time though.

We have Gumtree over here which has a better rep than CL. Same idea though. I got a 1 month month old 2012 Specilaized from a forced seller for £200. Absolute bargain. He sold it within 2 hours of putting the ad up.

Excellent!

I've had a total opposite experience on CL in Los Angeles. Ok, not with selling bike stuff, but selling perfectly good household items up to $500.

Put up multiple items, with good pictures, and VERY fair pricing, and got a lot of interest, immediately, most of which seemed local and legit. Unfortunately, when I set up appointments to meet people to do the transaction, people simple wouldn't show, or if they did they came so late that it wasn't even worth it for me to sell the item. By the time I unloaded one item, I'd waited for a total of 4 hours for 3 separate people, and the final buyer was an hour late.

My other items had people come over, take a look, decide they didn't want it, and leave. That's perfectly fine, but it's a risk you take as a seller, and when that happens with 3 people, you just wasted a good 2-3 hours as well since these folks also tend to come within a 30 minute window, which means you're home for a 60 min window.

After selling 4 items on CL this way, which took nearly 3-4 hours total for each item given the large number of no shows and the several buyers who decided against buying, I decided it was simply no longer worth it. I was more than happy to place the item on Ebay, pay the commission, but have a buyer who was totally committed and for whom I wouldn't need to waste so much time with.

Might be different with bikes if the buyers are more excited about the purchase and are thus more punctual, but it was a huge timewaster for me with non-bike items. And of course, aggressive pricing helps - my household items were harder for sellers to see they were getting a good deal since it's harder to price those than recent-gen bikes for which there's often a pretty clearly known ebay or online price, so people are much more inclined to close deals for well priced items.

From what I've seen, the quality of the bike-related item will yield a certain crowd as well. Sell a bike from 500 up you get enthusiasts... and they're generally older, more serious, and play less games when it comes down to it.

Having great pictures helps, but you can always get caught with a bad apple. I always check it daily just to see what pops up; I got my 05 Allez from there and couldn't be happier. Of course, that purchase warranted spending hundreds more on gear/upgrades, but that's what happens when you get into an amazing sport like cycling.

I haven't bought much bike stuff from CL...but in the last three weeks I've purchased a 27" GE Double Oven ($275), a 30" GE Profile Glass Cooktop ($280) and 80 moving boxes ($80). You just need to be able to be flexible with pickup and expect to pay cash. Last bike thing I bought was the MTB in my sig.

80 moving boxes for $80!? That's seems steep - lots of folks are giving 'em away for free in the free sections.

You bastard that was me!

lmao hahahahahah

Doubtful; but if it was, I do have something for you as soon as I'm done vacationing.