Craigslist can be an extremely useful tool if you know how to use it. If anyone doesn't know what it is I would strongly recommend checking it out. It's basically a forum board used to sell anything from game boys to race cars. In the past ten years i'd say I've sold fifty or more items on craigslist. In those fifty items I have ALWAYS turned a profit. My first experience with craigslist I was only thirteen, I used all the money i'd ever saved from birthdays to buy a dirt bike for $400. After I bought it, I quickly hit a growth spurt and was to big to ride. After three months of riding it and one hell of a wash I posted back on CL for $600 and it sold that day, only thirty minutes later. I was hooked from there on out.
It wasn't until about seven years about when I was a sophomore in high school that I realized I could manipulate the website to get things I wanted cheaper. My family was pretty broke so when Christmas came around all my friends were getting gaming laptops & Xbox 360s, I was left with socks & sweaters. I would search craigslist for a xbox 360, there would be about 20 of them for $300+ each. That's when I would start posting fake ads for sale. I would make about 20 different posts all with different pictures and different games with them. I would put them all up for $150. Then I would sit back and watch as all the ACTUAL Xbox 360s would come down in price. Some people would stick to what they had it for originally, but a few would take theirs down to 140$ to beat mine. Once I found someone who would drop the price i'd swoop in and offer 20$ less. Bam! with just a few hours of typing & a little patience; I got a xbox 360 for 120$. Saving myself almost $200.
I applied this same method to getting myself a car when I was a senior in high school. I always wanted a ford ranger but I wanted one with super low miles so I could drive it for a long time (five years later I still have it!). I began to flood craigslist with posts of the exact truck I wanted for extremely low prices. I made ten or twelve of them. I had the prices so low that I would receive hundreds of emails a day asking to buy the fake trucks. Next I would look for an actual truck on craigslist that I wanted. I found the truck I would eventually buy. It was posted at $6000, I offered the guy $4000 and he responded with LOL! I then proceeded to send him the links to my fake trucks and said they are selling for a lot cheaper. He still didn't care and told me no. WELL it appeared my ads may have effected selling his truck because a week later he emailed me and accepted my offer. I told him I found a better deal for $3000....and he instantly emailed me back saying he would also do $3000. Bam! I got the truck for half the original price.
I've been out of school for quite a few years and still use my love of supply & demand on craigslist all the time. I recently got myself a boat motor that cost 1000$ for only 200$. How? I bought the motor on a boat for $600. Took the motor off and resold just the boat for 400$. Now i'm only down $200. Next up I sold my old boat motor for $400. After all the transactions I've actually upgraded my motor & made $200.
Craigslist is a very useful tool and if used correctly you can really save some money in life. It's a great platform that doesn't take a cut of your sales, maximizing all profits!
To be honest today I've been looking to buy a used car. Thanks for the tips, ill use them :)
I give you my famous
hahah that's great. Thanks!
"I would eventually buy for $6000."
Needs a comma :)
good catch! Had to reword that a little bit.
The story is pretty cool but am I the only one who finds this morally reprehensible?