@sugar249 wrote:
Be careful with springys suggestion of facebook market place, it is like the wild west out there, every second person seems to be scammed, they normally say buyer beware, but with market place it should be buyer and seller beware.
Certainly possible, for sure. I think you have to take normal, sensible precautions, just as you need to on any sales platform.
I don't think the main problem on marketplace is being scammed. To me, it is people routinely beating you down in price. It isn't done over everything but it is done enough that I have often made an offer too when I am interested, as it seems to be the expectation. Depends on the price. I am positive some sellers put the price up so they can come down.
I think you are more likely to get a decent price on the dedicated 'product' groups on marketplace as you are selling to people who are already keen and actively looking.
I don't sell a lot but a close friend has a daughter who does and they had the unusual situation of picking up a couple of dining chairs from hard rubbish and getting a high price for them later with buyers upping the price to get the items. I think they ended up with $200. They have bought and sold a fortune on the platform with never a problem.
My advice for using marketplace would be to never let people into your home, have the item at your door, ready.
If you were to sell eg a phone, have a couple of people come outside.
And cash only, unless they want you to post, in which case you only post once the money is in your account.
I have used the platform to buy and sell with no problems so far, whereas with ebay, I have had the occasional problem in the past.
In fact, many sellers are quite trusting and will leave things on their porch and ask you to leave money in the letterbox. You'd think there would be a lot of theft but in every instance I know of, the buyer has always left the money. I have myself. These are usually lower priced items. My daughter recently sold a nappy bag this way for $5 and as she said, it wasn't a big deal. But the lady left the money.
I agree with casey that if you are selling ordinary items eg toys, clothes at $50 and under, and especially the $20 and under group, you are unlikely to be the target of scammers. But just always be sensible.
