Selling things can be a real pain.
I’ve had a handful of gadgets and gizmos collecting dust in my garage for a while, and should have probably sold them well before now. I’ve hesitated because, as I mentioned in my last post, selling things locally requires going through Facebook, and asking my wife to essentially act as a bespoke shop keeper for me feels like a big ask. Of course, she has offered multiple times, and would love nothing more, so eventually I acquiesced and let her do me this giant favor.
Some people love selling things. Some people hate it. My wife lives for it. I wish I could go the rest of my life without ever having to sell anything again. Opposites attract!
The results so far have been fairly mixed. The things that I thought no one local would ever buy were gone the first day. The things I thought would be snatched up immediately are still hanging around, unsold. Most things are somewhere in the middle.
I’m fortunate that the two large, bulky items taking up so much space both sold in the first week. Everything else was a “nice to get rid of”, but not urgent.
One of the items I sold was an Xbox Controller, and that brought out the strangest assortment of people who have ever contacted us. I think many of them are teenagers who haven’t yet learned how to navigate these kinds of social transactions.
The item that frustrated me the most was an old pair of Sony Headphones (the XM3s I used for almost a decade). They were perfect in every way. New earcups. Long battery life. As good as you could hope for a used pair of headphones with that long a life. After selling them, the next day the person who bought them reached out to complain that there were parts broken. Turns out, they had taken it upon themselves to remove the earcups themselves, and they broke the clips while doing it. I saw the pictures, and it was not a gentle or delicate operation that they had done. But of course, they said I sold it to them like that. In the end I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle, and just gave them ten bucks back on Venmo so they could buy new earcups. I got screwed, but at least it’s over.
That’s the kind of thing that I hate about selling stuff. I know I could just donate everything, but I’m not made of money, and getting a small return back once an item has outlived its usefulness for me helps offset the cost I paid when I originally bought it.
I do subscribe to the common minimalist practice of how to let things go. First, I list it for what I think it’s worth. That starts a 30 day timer, where I have one month to sell it before it goes in the donate pile. Each week it doesn’t sell, I discount it. Eventually, if it sticks around long enough, it’s posted for almost nothing. And then, if there are no interested buyers, into the donate pile it goes.
But eventually everything that does not serve a purpose gets shown the door.
Having a feasible alternative to Facebook marketplace would make a lot of this easier. I do occasionally sell things on eBay, but despite its downsides, meeting someone in a grocery store parking lot down the street is a lot easier than packing it up and shipping it out. Lower carbon footprint, too.
Selling items you no longer need is a good, important thing to do. I just wish I never had to be the one to actually do it.