Kijiji

[alwaysdaddysgirl]

What does everyone think about Kijiji?

Yesterday I sold my old camera for $225 And I have sold people's cars for them and some other large ticket items that I may not have sold.

I was also looking for a stand up freezer willing to pay $125 and someone told me to just come and pick theirs up. It is a little old but works fine and we got a bunch of other free stuff from them as well.

Selling.

First you take the time to take the pictures, edit and list your items. Then you get ridiculous offers. Or you get people who seem really interested so you send them more pictures and then they make make you a ridiculous offer.

How many of you have waiting for hours for someone to pick something up without them calling or even apologizing. People asking for the item for free and wanting it delivered.

On Thursday someone was supposed to pick up my dog kennel. I set it up in the garage as my dog is terrified of the thing and waited. When he didn't come I had to go back outside and take it apart.

Where do you draw the line between my hours have been cut in half and we need the money and just donate it? (obviously not with a car but with $50 items)

[miztia]

Ive had nothing but good experiences with Kijiji, both buying and selling. The most recent, we emailed back and forth 3 or 4 times to come up with a deal and when we met up, he was exactly on time.
Sold a vehicle once, and same thing. Usually if the emails are jibberish or annoying, I will reply, but only once and tell them to take it or leave it.
If their ad has alot of hits, I really dont have much expectations to get a reply.

[Samsea]

I like kjijiji. Not only stuff, you can also get service info. Even many lawyers are advertising on kijiji.

I sold many stuff before. To get a quick sell, you have to offer a really good deal. For buying, there is app available, so once the items that match your search are put up, you can get notice right away from your cell phone. I havenot tried yet though, but it sounds just what you need when you look for something particular.

[[email protected]]

I have sold so much on Kijijji. Kids clothes, toys, bed, tools you name it I have had it listed. I list things packaged in bags (that way it is ready) and anyone that is home can deal with the sale. (I tell them the listing pricing and lowest I would go, if there are surprises)

Then place the items in a corner of the basement and forget about it.

I try to be fair - return responsed in order received.

If I am not sure of the person I ask to me at a public place (and bring someone with me). Many people from the city can easily find Sherwood Park Costco. When people are coming to my home I try not to give out my address until a couple of hours ahead of the arranged time. (it ensures they are intending to come)

The problems I have come across is:

People asked to have it delivered (have no car...) - Sorry no, unless I will be in that area of town within a couple of days - no bargaining on price then

People asked to have you hold it (one lady begged for end of month, then didn't return my emails) - Only hold for 24 hours or longer if it is to your convience.

No shows - I always arrange times when I know we will be home for awhile.

I do ask people to text, email, call if they change their mind. And if I have to go out an hour after they said they would be there I do.

[alwaysdaddysgirl]

Congrats for you guys who have only had good experiences. For the majority mine have been good. Just some people can be so rude. How hard is it to call so I don't have to set something up, wait and then take it down.

[Orual]

I have had both good and bad expiriences and alot of no shows.

I'll even hold out and sell $5 items, even after several no shows, but I will only do pickups when I am already home. In the end it's been worth it. I donate items that haven't sold in 4-6 months, or else if it's a pain to haul away, I post it as free. I think that's the best feature of Kijiji, someone else hauls away my junk for me.

I have sold so much stuff this year though I am starting to be able to discern how serious an e-mail is, and how likely the sale is. There is some hassle, but worth it to make a little cash I think.

[ArmyWifeEdmonton]

Same here, mostly good with a few bad ones, no show, ridiculous offers. I always do kijiji first now. I used to sell a lot on eBay but it's not worth the hassle now. I have never bought though.

[RedEng]

I've only sold things on Kijiji and I do get some no shows, which is annoying.

My funniest experience is that I had a hide-a-bed sofa, 15 years old that was in O.K. condition and not ready for the dump. So I posted it for FREE for 4 weeks, some interest but no one came to see it. At my sisters suggestion I put a price tag of $40 on it, the sofa was gone within 24 hrs.

[krempy]

I've bought and sold....as mentioned here there is both good and bad (no shows are the worst, or low ball offers), but for the most part it's been a good experiences.

here's my latest kijiji deal:

This weekend I bought a treadmill from an older couple who are downsizing to a condo. New price was approx $1000, I paid $150. Overall it was a good transaction. I emailed the seller on Friday night quite late--she said I was the first response (I just happened to be up and couldn't sleep so I was browsing on my iphone kijiji app) so I told her we would be available to come see it in the morning.
Well, apparently she hasn't sold anything on kijiji before so very inexperienced with it--she told the same thing to multiple people who called or emailed after me.
So on Sat. morning we called to get some more information and her address and said we'd be there in about an hour to take a look at it. She mentioned I was the first responder but I don't think she really knew that maybe she should set appointments or tell the other interested parties to wait until we had seen it, I don't know...she was very unorganized.
So we went and looked at it and while we were there another couple showed up to look at it too. They had driven from the city to see it and they were pretty ticked that we were there first....needless to say we weren't happy to see them either. (I thought maybe I'd offer the seller $120 and maybe get it for a little less, but with the second interested buyer there that definitely wasn't happening.)
So I bought it and paid the full asking price (which is still a good deal I think) but the experience taught me to ask more questions on the phone beforehand--I should have asked her if we were the first party to look at it and if we could set an exact time to see it etc. I think then maybe she would have told the other people that and it could have been a better situation for everyone.
but I got a treadmill now--I should get off this computer and go workout!

[alwaysdaddysgirl]

I always look in the wanted section as well. sometimes people want things you never knew you wanted to get rid of.

[LG1385]

We've only ever sold 2 things - a brand new camera and a pretty new car. Both went well. We did have other postings that never went but seems to work fairly well (so far).

[Pennywise]

We've sold both large and small items on Kijiji, albeit when we lived in a condo downtown. It was easy to just meet people in the lobby. Now that we're in a house, my DH doesn't want people coming by.

In our postings, we used to always put a line that said something like, "Please reply with your phone number." We found this helped weed out serious inquiries from time wasters, though we did get the odd no-show from time to time.

Would there be an appetite for a Garage Sale Wiki thread on here or individual Garage Sale Items threads, where folks could post stuff they might otherwise post on Kijiji? You'd be marketing to a smaller audience, but I'd like to think that you'd probably only get serious inquiries from the SmartCanuckers on here. Mind you, I'm not sure if this is even allowed on SC?

[MrsSunshine]

we've done both as well. sold and bought. mostly small items. i find by using the right words in your ad. you quickly weed out 'those ppl'.
i've only really had one bad experience. i was trying to sell something for someone else. it wasn't working out. i finally told the person sorry. its not working.
i've had ppl once ive responded to their ad change the price on me. like really? just cause im now interested your like heh. lets raise the price. whatever. we did well anyways on that one with someone else.
we also have a 'free' area on ours. mostly cats, junk, occasional good stuff.
i never give my address until a time/date are set. so far we've been pretty satisfied.

[Orual]

I find those that leave phone numbers are more serious too. Maybe a little unfair, but if I get a bunch of replies quickly I respond to those with phone numbers first. Usually don't have to go beyond that. Just save's a lot of hassle.

[olliebot]

I have had better luck buying rather than selling. I got a $400 Zooper stroller for $20 and a ton of cloth diapers for really cheap. As for selling, I haven't sold anything big and maybe that's the problem but I tend to get a lot of time wasters and no-shows. Or low-ballers

I would love to have a Garage Sale type thread as it is a smaller group than Kijiji and probably less time wasters and no-shows