Several years ago I bought a piece of equipment for about $13,000. I used the shit out of it and kept it in good condition but I dont see myself getting back into it. I’m expecting to get about $6000 for it but since it was delivered on a pallet, shipping it is out of the question.
Feels like a bad idea to accept a check/QuickPay/venmo/anything that can be canceled afterward so am I stuck with cash?
And are there better sites for this than Craigslist? I don’t have Facebook.
Niche products usually have communities with buy/sell forums. Find one of those if you can.
Kijiji is a reasonable alternative to FB around here. Craigslist is not. Karrot may be an option, but it depends on where you are.
Contact a local makers group - they often have ties to all sorts of other groups.
You can trash eBay all you want, but 85% of a sale is more than 100% of an unsold item.
My problem with eBay is the return policy (as a seller). Depending on what you’re trying to sell you can get seriously screwed. Sell a $1,000+ laptop you sold being 100% honest, they have it for 28 days and their kid dumps a glass of milk on the keyboard and now it’s returned as “not as described”. So you’re out $1,000 and a broken laptop and maybe a negative review for doing nothing.
They need to make the return window like 5 days or something. If you don’t know it is 'as described" 5 days after receiving it then it’s yours. I get maybe 14 days for collector items, to get them verified or something. But yeah, electronics and such, no way.
I think the first part of this is great advice. Find a related online community and post the listing on their boards.
Not only are you speaking directly to people who might be interested, but you can also have more of a back and forth before the sale to ensure that there are no misunderstandings.
First don’t have typos in your sales ad. (Fix the typo in your post title.)
EBay may be the best option. Large sales are common there afaik.
I’d be more likely to follow the advice of that snark if you didn’t follow it up by suggesting I use the worst sales platform on the planet. Ebay fees are like 15-20% of the sale cost.
If what you are selling qualifies as:
Select Business & Industrial categories:
Heavy Equipment Parts & Attachments > Heavy Equipment Printing & Graphic Arts > Commercial Printing Presses Restaurant & Food Service > Food Trucks, Trailers & Carts
The fee is only 3%.
Alas, it is not. I wouldn’t do business with a company that charges ANY 15%+ fees on sales regardless.
Its usually less than 1000 to ship a pallet under 3000lbs from California to New York. Price it into what you are asking or offer to split the shipping.
It sounds like an escrow service might be right for you. Escrow is a neutral third-party who manages funds and assets on behalf of two parties performing a transaction, to make sure both parties adhere to the agreed-upon terms. They’re most commonly used in real estate transactions, but they can be used for just about anything.
Any idea what kind of fees those services have? I’ll admit I never paid attention since it gets wrapped up in the closing costs
It could be a percentage of how much the item is worth, like realtors do.
We used them for public IP address block transfers.
Did you buy the equipment new or used?
Yeah, facebook marketplace is the new craigslist. You can make a post on Craigslist if you want, but I wouldn’t bother.
I was scared I’d hear that. I used to do a ton of craigslisting in college but everyone I know who has sold stuff locally lately has used Facebook…
Craigslist is the best way to get robbed, killed and more.
Man, there’s a helluva difference between ‘Craigslist has fallen out of public use’ and ‘Craigslist is full of murderers and robbers’ goddamn. Don’t spread lies like that. Craigslist has exactly the same type of people (humans) that Facebook does, just fewer of them.
Thank you for chiming in cuz my experience on fb marketplace is via using my mothers fb account as i deleted mine around 15 years ago. Tried selling some extra pc hardware collecting dust and all i fuckin got were messages from fucking pervs and the last one was so fuckin creepy even after i told them im a dude that i fuckin snapped and apparently used words that fb calls slurs like fat fucking disgusting piece of shit whose closest route to knowing what a pussy feels like is by sexually harassing women on the internet and even still they didnt stop so i went on to explain how fucking dumb they must be to use their actual photo that even billionaires couldnt afford a hooker if they looked as disgusting of a slob as this guy did. That was the comment they deleted and cited when they banned my moms fb account from using market place.
Welcome to facebook where they ban the people getting sexually harrassed and give out free perv glasses to only the perviest of the fb pervs. Craigslist at least tey have no clue wha5 you look like or what is between your legs and if you are selling you dictate where you meet. Which i guess you can do on fb too but they still know everything about your life now all for the cost of one cannon printer cartidge you sold them.
My issue with Craigslist for the last several years is everything I post is immediately flagged for some reason but the process to find out what the reason is and fix it is about as easy and time consuming as dealing with a Reddit ban
Sad but true.
You may be able to ship it, but not through the normal means.
My friend wanted to get a VERY large item across the country, and used a website to find a truck driver that was about to take a similar trip. I think it was about $50 to pick it up and drop it off on the way.
Also, I know apps like Venmo have buyer protection that will prevent the other person from cancelling the payment for no reason.
It can definitely be shipped (it arrived on a pallet) but packaging for transport is a headache I don’t want to deal with unless it’s my only option. The initial delivery cost $500 + $150 because they needed a truck with a lift
No one else itching to ask what it is? Not sure if its me being extra nosy of the slightly vague post.
I kept it vague because a paranoid bastard. I don’t want to any associations between this post and the listing!
Think manufacturing hardware. Or lab equipment. It’s a common machine in this field but it’d be rare to find in a home.
Ah, i’m the same TBH, sorry for being a pest. But i also have an over imagination. I was thinking maybe one of those steam boothes where you sit and the head pops out.
If I were the reader, I’d be wondering, too!
Huh, I didn’t know they still made these things -
I was picturing one of these…
That second pic is exactly what i thought.
*steal
Is there a shop near you that sells the same machine or services them? They might be willing to put it on consignment or buy it off you out right
I’m keeping it vague for privacy but it’s pretty niche, unfortunately. A makerspace or school would happily take it for free but I can’t justify the loss
Tbh, if it’s something that people know how to use and want it for it’s size, it might be worth a double post on Facebook/Craigslist as ‘you pick it up’. For example, anyone buying a powerhammer knows they need a bunch of equipment to move it, so they may already be factoring that into their cost analysis.
I don’t know if it exists near you, but I use an app called Karrot which is a local used item marketplace. There is always Ebay as well, just make sure you list that it must be picked up locally.
Haven’t heard of it but it looks like it does. There are SO many of these apps, I have no idea what people are even really using!
This one is really nice. It makes you do periodic location checks, so it really cuts back on scammers and pro vendors. It also has an actually useful AI feature that estimates sale prices for items.
Yes, stick with cash for transactions with strangers.
I’m just wondering how people sell cars and whatnot, it can’t always be cash, can it? How are people safely selling things for 5 figures?
Private party sales of cars in the USA use cash, yes. A fairly safe way to do this for a car is to do the sale in the lobby of the seller’s bank or credit union. In specific detail, the buyer arrives and inspects the car to their satisfaction, they fill in most of the vehicle title transfer form but withhold the signature, then they go to the teller where the buyer produces the cash, the teller counts the funds and deposits it to the seller’s account, and finally the buyer and seller sign the title transfer.
In this way, the buyer’s risk is minimized (they’re meeting in a quasi public place with cameras, so gunpoint robbery would be unlikely) and the seller’s risk is minimized (they don’t even have to handle or count the cash, so a bad buyer can’t even rob them after the sale).
Not sure if this would be applicable to OP’s situation, but it might be adaptable if the seller’s bank is nearby and each party makes their own way to the bank to complete the sale, after inspecting the object.
Note: if instead of cash, the buyer pays with an official or cashier’s check, then this whole procedure is still valid because the seller doesn’t have to deal with the risk of a bad check: their bank has procedures to verify on-the-spot the funds on an official or cashier’s check issued by another institution. For a personal check though, such checks have a TOCTTOU problem, so sellers should not accept such checks for the sale.
Cashiers check is perfectly safe
Cash is the only safe answer. Everything else can be reversed or manipulated. $6000 cash can fit in a letter envelope. I sold a car for $8000 and received cash.
If you can get the item back on a pallet, strapped down, it can likely be shipped for $400 or so by companies like Estes. They would need to be able to get a big truck with a liftgate near the item and roll a pallet jack on a smooth surfaxe like concrete. I would make the buyer arrange their own shipping though, let the liability be on them.
I don’t want to deal with the headache of shipping it so I was going to leave that as an option only if they specifically asked. It’s multiple pieces and I don’t have the original packaging
Cash was how I bought my 5 figure car. 10k fits pretty well in an envelope. 6 will fit just fine.
