Offer Up *sigh*

Against my better judgement I put an old Lawn Boy mower up for sale on Offer Up.  

Within minutes of placing the ad I get my first ping.

"Hi, is this still available?" 

I reply, yes it is.

"I can call you what's you're #"  

I reply, where are you located?

silence.   

Remember, it's not just a marketplace.  It's an opportunity for scammers.

Offer up is a steaming pile of E36 M3. I see stuff listed that looks like a great deal. 3 year old ad. 3 berking years. I have yet to be able to figure out how to tweak it to make it work. 

I miss Let-Go.

In reply to Appleseed :

Crazily enough if niche enough, some of that stuff doesn't sell. There was a guy in California with some fwd turbo BP bits listed from 2 years prior to my reaching out who had reached the point of just wanting the space on the basement shelving back which resulted in me getting a Rubbermaid tote full of goodies for the cost of the tote and shipping. 

Buddy of mine has had his truck on there for long enough that he's rebuilt the engine and painted the truck.  Still for sale, he just upped the price every time.

Old two stroke lawn boys are becoming collectible.

My buddy bought a house and found an old, non running lawn boy in the garage, put it up for sale for at least triple what I thought it should be worth and it was gone in under an hour

Mr. Peabody said:

Old two stroke lawn boys are becoming collectible.

My buddy bought a house and found an old, non running lawn boy in the garage, put it up for sale for at least triple what I thought it should be worth and it was gone in under an hour

I was hoping for a sale from this because it is an old Lawn Boy.

I did receive a second ping on the mower.

"runs good"

I am not sure how to reply to that.

Mr. Peabody said:

Old two stroke lawn boys are becoming collectible.

The magnesium bodies are really nice to mow hilly terrain with.

In reply to noddaz :

Reply back: 
"No tire kickers, I know what I got".

hunter47 said:

In reply to noddaz :

Reply back: 
"No tire kickers, I know what I got".

I should, but I just don't have in in me right now to do that.

Maybe I will do better on CL.  

In reply to hunter47 :

Nonsense, tire kickers on mower sales are literally mowing your lawn. The pro move is to purchase 2 used mowers, list them for sale higher and have the tire kickers now your lawn. If the mowers are sold before the yard is completely cut, use the profits from the increased sale price to pay someone else to do it and repeat as needed. 

Do it right and you should ever actually have to mow your own yard unless you choose to. 

OfferUp also has tons of bots.  You'll get messages from a bot to make you THINK people are really interested.  It's all based on algorithms of your item description vs. the AI and the number of times you have received messages.

And yes, there is always at least one bot that zooms in seemingly before it's even published to make you think "wow, what a great app."

Of the 10 or so things I put on there (back when it was LetGo), I don't think I sold a single thing, but boy did I get hit with a crapload of spam that directly corresponded to whatever I searched for.

Here is the thing you have to be aware of.  Apps like OfferUp are absolutely, in no way, shape, or form, a classified ad platform.  They ARE NOT A CLASSIFIED AD PLATFORM.  They are data mining money farms.  This is how many of these apps are developed.  Many of those games you play on your phone?  The game is just the hook.  The money is in the ads.  The developer didn't say, "I want to make a crushing candy game and have it make money."  They said "I'm going to release a game to make money, and I don't care.... let's give them little squares to move around."

The devs for OfferUp needed a way to make you do the work for them.  You log in and scroll through stuff (most of which is fake, half of which is ads).  All they need to offer you is the ILLUSION that you're buying and selling things with your neighbors.  It's not a classified ad app.  It's a pacifier so you don't realize that you're just playing their game.  Remember all the TV commercials for LetGo?  Huge-dollar TV ads with stunts played in primetime.... for a free classified ad app that collected no commission.  They developed an app, give it to you free, don't charge you to use it.... yet they had a superbowl ad.

Understood.

*sigh*

 Facebook Marketplace has become my go to for buying and selling stuff. I've had mainly positive experiences using their platform. 

 I currently have a set of Suzuki Samurai axles listed. I got a response asking me for my best price. I replied that I thought my listed price of $250 was fair but my best price would be enough to retire to a private Caribbean island. He hasn't responded.

In reply to Wayslow :

Yeah... Craigslist seems to have been sliced in 1/4.  Facebook is still a data farming platform, but at least their classifieds actually sometimes work.

I might be the rare person who doesn't mind data farming. If it results in me having an OE cast manifold for a fwd BP application that's 280 miles away from me being shown and recommended, then that's a win in my book as I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. 

Vetting of buyers and sellers and recognizing bots before clicking on a listing is important. But it's pretty easy to tell the Wish and Alibaba plants. 

Wayslow said:

 Facebook Marketplace has become my go to for buying and selling stuff. I've had mainly positive experiences using their platform. 

 I currently have a set of Suzuki Samurai axles listed. I got a response asking me for my best price. I replied that I thought my listed price of $250 was fair but my best price would be enough to retire to a private Caribbean island. He hasn't responded.

Well played.  I've become a cranky, old-school, negotiation-etiquette jerk when it comes to this kind of stuff.  In your shoes, I'd rather GIVE that stuff to someone who can put it to use and participate in a reasonable conversation than  put up with "interested" or "bottum doller" (sic) or the mouth-breathing-like.  Get off my lawn!

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

I might be the rare person who doesn't mind data farming.

Really no way to avoid it.  My concern is with leaks, of course.  I've had my identity stolen before and it sucked.

For the most part, it's not like they are voyeurs peering into your private lives, they are collecting anonymous data that user 572484 is a democrat who buys their household cleaners on Amazon, has diabetes, and drives a Kia.  It's not like they're revealing to the world that Sylvester at 221 Ivy Street just googled buttsex.

understood.

*hella sigh*

I hate to further derail the thread but how in the many four letter words do people actually find anything on Facebook Marketplace?  Is there some guide for a person who didn't know he was old until now on how to use this stupid thing?  

Craigslist has its issues but I could still find stuff and search engines worked with it sort of and life was okay.  

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

Luck.

I know a few folks that would be interested in a lawn boy, as long as it's the true 2stoke... and not the brigs with a green cover lawn boy. 
But we are all too far south of ya. If a relay could get it to Richmond, at a minimum, I'd be interested in the price. 
On topic, Craig's does have its problems, but every alternative I've found is actually worse. And that's sad.