The power of craigslist and free stuff
July 10th, 2007 by KenricI finally decide to get off my butt and get rid of some stuff laying around the outside of the house. So I put two ads on craiglist for a free Hot Tub and free fountain to whomever will come pick it up. I put these ads up at 10:00pm last night.
This is what my email inbox looked like during the next hour. My cell phone had 5 text messages and 18 voicemails during that time. I’m sure their are some email and voicemail duplicates, but I potentially received 49 replies within less than an hour.
In fact, at 10:30pm I deleted both of my ads because I had enough potential people to come get the stuff. People just seem to love free stuff. In contrast I also posted an ad selling my washer & dryer for $425. I haven’t received a single email or call on it.
I wonder if it would be in bad taste to make it a $5 drawing for this kind of stuff. With this type of demand, what could you charge for something that you don’t want? I’d feel bad for doing so anyway. Also, if the hot tub breaks tomorrow, they can’t complain if it was free, but even if you charged them $5 for it, they’d feel ripped off.
Posted in General | 3 Comments »
Stumble it!
You shouldn’t feel bad about charging something for your time. Not all those people would actually show up, you do need a way to make sure people don’t waste your time and there is something about putting a price on at least your time if not the item.
Want to sell some rims I got with my Jeep? lol
By prlinkbiz on Jul 10, 2007
That sounds so ironic. I have about 2 tons of Texas limestone rock that have been sitting in my backyard for years (it’s leftover from when they built our house). I put an ad on Craigslist two weeks ago for FREE limestone rock. Within an hour, I received about 5 calls and several emails. The first people to call came by and only picked up half the rock, and I decided to get off my butt and use the remaining to build a nice landscape. About 6 months ago, I put an ad on Craigslist to sell a broken washer/dryer for cheap. After about a week, I finally got ONE call. Luckily, the person ended up taking them off my hands.
People definately LOVE free stuff.
By Steve on Jul 11, 2007
Fountain is gone but the hot tub is still there. People say they want it and then flake out.
Had 1 person flake on the fountain, 2nd person came within an hour.
On person number 3 for the hot tub.
No calls on the washer dryer at all.
By Kenric on Jul 12, 2007