Ask Your Question today
The Facebook marketplace is the worst way to sell items in exchange for a bit of cash. you get messages sent to you asking if item is available and when you reply, they don't get back to you.
they will also ask to buy an item for less than what the original prices is even though it was firm. so annoying.
Try letgo. Its what I used. I flipped two skateboards, a motorbike and a bike I fixed.
Facebook basically is the new Craigslist. The best you're going to get on Facebook is some Urban gentleman saying that cliche phrase, I'll give you such-and-such amount of money for it right now. You open their profile and it looks like some pot smoking gorilla wearing a Bob Marley wig.
It's great for small towns. Awful for anything else. I remember having decent success reselling old video games through Marketplace in my home town. I haven't thought about using it since I've moved.
Yeah ive asked on multiple things then not followed up, but to my defense its often because the seller comes off arrogant as hell.
They dont even bother opening the message until days later and by then i've either found what i'm looking for elsewhere or lost interest to buy from that person. In general though I dislike shopping second hand online unless its something that will get delivered to me (and marketplace is usually for buying from people who live in your area) because you have to pick it up yourself from some random strangers house and usually you need access to a car to even get there.
I've never tried buying or selling there, but my town's buy and sell page is full of tire kickers, armchair experts, and other very rude people who love to give their unsolicited advice and complain about pretty much any item someone posts. There are repeat offenders that I heavily suspect must not have lives outside of it. They're never interested in the item at all, just want to leave rude comments and laugh reactions. It's as if it's a hobby to many of them.
I've also heard about a lot of scams that go on with Facebook Marketplace, especially if it's an item that will be shipped rather than picked up locally. I know those can take place anywhere, but they seem to be rampant on sites that aren't really completely designed for the purpose of buying and selling and don't have a lot of strict rules regarding it. You just have to know what to look out for (many are pretty obvious with their wording, lack of knowledge about the item they're buying, odd requests, and scripted sounding writing) and always use PayPal Goods & Services as a buyer (NEVER Friends & Family). Not sure what helps sellers best, as I've never sold anything online (I'm a pack rat, lol, plus I typically find homes for some of my stuff I need to get rid of via family and friends).
I personally love eBay as a buyer because in my experience, they nip suspicious activity in the bud pretty quickly (as I've reported items in which the seller listed them at a ridiculously low starting bid, then put in the description that the item was actually being sold for thousands of dollars on another site and they wanted you to pay there instead; against eBay's TOS and likely trying to get around eBay's and PayPal's buyer protection) and have great customer service who are extremely helpful. That isn't to say that nothing can go wrong on there, of course, but they seem to be a pretty safe option and take things seriously.
Atleast you can see their profile tho and see they have done other business and have actual friends and you get their identity. Anytime I sell something at my house I worry about on craigslist some random weirdo showing up and seeing I have a wife and kid and I have no idea who he is. He could come back later if he likes what he sees.
I've always heard of people meeting up to buy/sell meeting in a public place for this reason (and preferably not alone). I've still never tried it and have always found Craigslist to seem a bit shady (plus, most of what I've found for sale on the one in my area tends to be low quality junk or in very poor condition anyway). I've seen a few ads that were very obviously not being honest (a few horses that looked very old/unhealthy that were being passed off as young and in great shape, a couple of low end saddles that only retailed for a couple hundred dollars and were originally marketed as economy models being passed off as top of the line and having retailed for thousands, etc.) I haven't been on there in years now, so no clue if it's changed much.