Perhaps I should say, how to sell on craigslist: the proper way to do it. Nevermind, if you are selling something on craigslist.org, you`ve probably noticed that in most categories you can sell almost anything for free ( some categories requires a fee ). Craigslist is probably one of the best websites that will help you to sell your car, bike, furniture and everything else but you need to understand how to do that, I mean the proper way to sell something.
You are probably thinking that it`s easy to sell something on craigslist. All you have to do is to post an ad and that`s it, there is nothing else, the buyers will start calling and emailing you. Some sellers are lucky while others are being discouraged by their poor results. I am here to show you the proper method of selling something using craigslist.org, how to maximize the potential of your ad.
Let`s get started, I will show you what you need to do and what you shouldn`t do.
1. Log in to your account
2. Post an Ad ( car, bike, or anything else ) ( I will reffer to a car )
3. You want to sell your car
You will see a page that will contain the following fields, let`s focus on what`s important :
Posting Title:
Price:
Specific Location:
Reply to:
Posting Description:
Add/Edit Images
A. Posting Title:
The title is the most important thing, this is how buyers will find your ad and based on your title, you will either receive more or less interested buyers so be careful here.
Example of a good title :
2005 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer 4WD Automatic 3RD Row Seat LOADED!!!
Or
2005 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer 4WD Automatic 3RD Row Seat MUST SEE!!!
Or
2005 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer 4WD Automatic 3RD Row Seat ###(!)###
Example of a bad title :
05 Ford Explorer Eddie
Or
2005 Ford Explorer
Or
Nice truck ford explorer for sale
CONCLUSION: You need a title that will tell your buyer the year, the make, model, version, other extras and if possible something that would draw attention to your ad at the end of your title.
B. Price:
The price should be a little lower than the average price, for example if a car that you want to sell, the same year, make, model is being sold for $ 15.000, if you want to sell it faster you should enter a lower price such as $ 14.700 or $ 14.600 but make sure to specify if the price is firm or you can go a little lower.
C. Specific Location:
This is also important, if you are going to write ``USA`` your ad won`t look like one of a serious person. Also if you will specify a part of your town, it`s not a smart thing to do for your sale as it will limit the circle of your buyers. For example, if I would live in San Francisco I would say Specific Location: San Francisco
D. Reply to:
Unless you have a serious reason I will highly recommend you to use this option : anonymize (your email will show as: sale-xxxxxxxx@craigslist.org) [?] as it will stop most of the scammers and spammers.
E. Posting Description:
This is very important, probably the second ( in order of appeareance ) most important thing after the title so this is how it should look, I am not going to offer a bad example. Just don`t lie about your ad, tell everything you know about it as your buyer doesn`t want to see something else, other than what was advertised.
Example:
I am selling my 2005 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer truck, if you`re interested give me a call at 215--34X--3189 ( you may want to indicate a time frame )
This is a 4WD truck, with automatic gear, 3RD ROW SEAT, car history, very well maintained, you have to see it.
I am going to make a short list with all the extras of this truck:
- ABS
- ESP
- Airbags
- 4X4
- Automatic
- Black Leather ( excellent condition )
- 3RD ROW SEAT
etc...
F. Add/Edit Images
Add 4 images to your ad and make sure that you are uploading clear pictures, not some pictures made with a bad camera such as 2MP ( Mega Pixels ) or less. Make sure that when you are looking at your pictures, you can actually see a car there.
That`s it, if you followed those tips, you can post an ad with your own car and you should see some improvements.
Don`t forget about your ad. If you`re posting an ad on bigger cities, it will be there for 3-5 days at a max. Repost your ad as soon as it will end. If you`re being flagged, you will also have to repost your ad.