Facebook marketplace
Discussion
Escy said:
The "is this still available?" messages are usually sent in error. I've had a few people message me "yes" when I wasn't aware i'd asked them the question in the first place.
Facebook is free, easy to post and typically get quick sales. The best thing about it is how ebay are losing business to them so have started to offer promotions with £1 final value fees - their 10% fees are obscene in my opinion so it's nice the greedy b
ds are feeling the pinch.
^ThisFacebook is free, easy to post and typically get quick sales. The best thing about it is how ebay are losing business to them so have started to offer promotions with £1 final value fees - their 10% fees are obscene in my opinion so it's nice the greedy b
ds are feeling the pinch. The "button" seems to be conveniently exactly where you tend to swipe down on an iPhone. I've accidentally done it a few times myself!
I've had positive experiences so far. I gave away a kid's cycling helmet on it, bloke turned up within 30 mins (yes, gave away, I knew it had never had a bump but due to the nature of the item I felt happier with a "if you want it, it's free, and better than going to landfill" and hilariously a worn once adult Captain America outfit that I'd worn to a "C" themed fancy dress party. The chap sent his rather attractive better half around within an hour and I did immediately think I might have missed out on a bit of Cosplay fun with my own better half for the sake of a tenner!
FB Marketplace is full of timewasters both when selling and buying. I've recently tried to buy an exhaust I wanted, the photos the seller put on were dire though, taken in pitch black with a phone camera and flash, can't make out anything. So I messaged, "Any better photos please", to which I get a reply, "Better photos lol", "You've taken photos at night, can't make anything out, can't even see what condition the tailpipes are in" and that was that, no better photos were sent and it's still for sale 2 weeks on.
Sold a few things, equally full of timewasters, however putting something for free if collected brings out the absolute pond life of people. I advertised a table and 4 chairs, one leg on the table was wonky but worked fine, served us well for 6 years worth of kids abusing it. Collection only, free, one leg it wonky, table and chairs heavily worn, ideal for refurbishment.
"I'll have this, please deliver tonight at 8pm to this address" - Address located 20 mile away. Then when you point out it's collection only you get the sad story of, "I don't have a car" or "I need this for my dying children for one last meal as a family"
"I'll collect at 8pm, don't let anyone else have it please" then no-one shows.
"I'll give you 20 quid for it, but need it delivering to Manchester" I live in Derbyshire
When someone did finally come, then complained that the table was damaged, which it was and was described as such with photos on the advert. "I don't want it now, I want my fuel reimbursing", to which I ignored him, closed the garage door and went inside, he knocked on the door twice then left.
Eventually someone turned up who has a little business refurbishing old furniture. Loaded it into his lovely Focus ST and off he went.
Sold a few things, equally full of timewasters, however putting something for free if collected brings out the absolute pond life of people. I advertised a table and 4 chairs, one leg on the table was wonky but worked fine, served us well for 6 years worth of kids abusing it. Collection only, free, one leg it wonky, table and chairs heavily worn, ideal for refurbishment.
"I'll have this, please deliver tonight at 8pm to this address" - Address located 20 mile away. Then when you point out it's collection only you get the sad story of, "I don't have a car" or "I need this for my dying children for one last meal as a family"
"I'll collect at 8pm, don't let anyone else have it please" then no-one shows.
"I'll give you 20 quid for it, but need it delivering to Manchester" I live in Derbyshire
When someone did finally come, then complained that the table was damaged, which it was and was described as such with photos on the advert. "I don't want it now, I want my fuel reimbursing", to which I ignored him, closed the garage door and went inside, he knocked on the door twice then left.
Eventually someone turned up who has a little business refurbishing old furniture. Loaded it into his lovely Focus ST and off he went.
littlebasher said:
Oh, best people to sell to is anyone from Eastern Europe. Always turn up when agreed, no haggling and totally pain free. Perhaps i should start to advertise in Polish or something !
Absolutely this, it works the other way around too. We bought a shed of a car off FB, my missus had arranged it, geezer called Piotr, I thought to myself 'This is going to be dodgy as fk'Turned up to view the car, nicest guy you could ever meet, he'd done loads of work on the car himself, and had taken great pride in presenting it for sale, cleaned it properly etc, gave him the £500 he wanted for it, drove off 15 mins later, worth every penny, he was made up. It hasn't missed a beat in 12 months, we've just put petrol in it, not spent a single penny on anything else.
Algarve said:
One arse wasted 40 minutes of my time asking question after question to then offer me 6500 euros. 3000 euros less than I had already been offered. I was getting so pissed off with them by that point that I just said sure okay, can you meet me after work tonight at 10pm in a location that was an hours drive from him. Then put my phone on silent and went to bed.
Brilliant! Did you have any comeback from him?
littlebasher said:
I've found that offering anything for free, creates more hassle than anything else. Always, without fail i will be bombarded with messages asking me to deliver to the worst estates in Sheffield.
At the weekend i sold a perfectly good petrol mower on Facebook. Had it up for £50 for a few weeks, and reluctantly took £30 just to get rid of it
2 hours after they collected, they're messaging me again to say its rattling and now won't start. Oh, and they've been drinking so could i come and get it and refund their money. On the assumption it had genuinely blown up and i sold them a dud, i agreed as it was only a couple of miles away.
You can imagine the rest.
Luckily for them, the machine had managed to cut most of their 2 foot tall grass before presumably hitting a hidden manhole / kids bike buried in the lawn. Whatever they hit was sufficient to crack the heavy metal blade boss and shear the woodruff key on the flywheel, the forces involved must have been huge. Of course, i had to clear a bins worth of grass from inside the machine before i could even begin to look at it.
Fortunately i was able to fix the machine with some other parts i had lying around, but TBH i can't be bothered to try selling it again knowing that the next punter will probably try the same thing.
Oh, best people to sell to is anyone from Eastern Europe. Always turn up when agreed, no haggling and totally pain free. Perhaps i should start to advertise in Polish or something !
Jesus - that sounds like the ultimate nightmare and why selling stuff is so fraught with potential aggro.At the weekend i sold a perfectly good petrol mower on Facebook. Had it up for £50 for a few weeks, and reluctantly took £30 just to get rid of it
2 hours after they collected, they're messaging me again to say its rattling and now won't start. Oh, and they've been drinking so could i come and get it and refund their money. On the assumption it had genuinely blown up and i sold them a dud, i agreed as it was only a couple of miles away.
You can imagine the rest.
Luckily for them, the machine had managed to cut most of their 2 foot tall grass before presumably hitting a hidden manhole / kids bike buried in the lawn. Whatever they hit was sufficient to crack the heavy metal blade boss and shear the woodruff key on the flywheel, the forces involved must have been huge. Of course, i had to clear a bins worth of grass from inside the machine before i could even begin to look at it.
Fortunately i was able to fix the machine with some other parts i had lying around, but TBH i can't be bothered to try selling it again knowing that the next punter will probably try the same thing.
Oh, best people to sell to is anyone from Eastern Europe. Always turn up when agreed, no haggling and totally pain free. Perhaps i should start to advertise in Polish or something !
Sooo many council type idiots standing by waiting to ruin your day.
FB Marketplace has been pretty good for me, on the whole.
I sold a LOAD of Lego Technic kits online, took decent pics, advertised comparative 2nd hand prices from other Lego sites, etc.
Of course, you always get some knobs offering <1/2 your advertised price, but you politely say, "no thanks", and move on.
I sold a LOAD of Lego Technic kits online, took decent pics, advertised comparative 2nd hand prices from other Lego sites, etc.
Of course, you always get some knobs offering <1/2 your advertised price, but you politely say, "no thanks", and move on.
As one poster has already said, the more knackered your crap is, the more people want it on Marketplace.
I listed an old bed frame as I acquired a lovely walnut one to replace it.
The old one was a cheap, "leather" covered thing that my brother gave me for my spare room when I first moved in. It had 3 missing lats, a few knackered plastic clips, and a couple of nicks in the leather. I did describe it honestly, though. Cheekily, I put it on at £25. Realistically I'd have taken the first offer as I just couldn't be arsed to do a tip run.
Chap turned up when he said he would, thanked me profusely, shoved £25 in my hand and I helped him put it in his car. He left me a 5* seller rating.
I did also list an old washing machine that still worked, but was clearly at the end of it's life, as free to collect with the postcode. I put it outside and went to bed for night shift.
When I woke up, it was gone and there was a slagging match between two people in the comments on the advert, one who clearly got there before the other
I listed an old bed frame as I acquired a lovely walnut one to replace it.
The old one was a cheap, "leather" covered thing that my brother gave me for my spare room when I first moved in. It had 3 missing lats, a few knackered plastic clips, and a couple of nicks in the leather. I did describe it honestly, though. Cheekily, I put it on at £25. Realistically I'd have taken the first offer as I just couldn't be arsed to do a tip run.
Chap turned up when he said he would, thanked me profusely, shoved £25 in my hand and I helped him put it in his car. He left me a 5* seller rating.
I did also list an old washing machine that still worked, but was clearly at the end of it's life, as free to collect with the postcode. I put it outside and went to bed for night shift.
When I woke up, it was gone and there was a slagging match between two people in the comments on the advert, one who clearly got there before the other
Gary29 said:
Absolutely this, it works the other way around too. We bought a shed of a car off FB, my missus had arranged it, geezer called Piotr, I thought to myself 'This is going to be dodgy as fk'
Turned up to view the car, nicest guy you could ever meet, he'd done loads of work on the car himself, and had taken great pride in presenting it for sale, cleaned it properly etc, gave him the £500 he wanted for it, drove off 15 mins later, worth every penny, he was made up. It hasn't missed a beat in 12 months, we've just put petrol in it, not spent a single penny on anything else.
Polish people over here for the main are scared of Police involvement. Yes there are some bad types but alot are fearful of the Police turning up. k'Turned up to view the car, nicest guy you could ever meet, he'd done loads of work on the car himself, and had taken great pride in presenting it for sale, cleaned it properly etc, gave him the £500 he wanted for it, drove off 15 mins later, worth every penny, he was made up. It hasn't missed a beat in 12 months, we've just put petrol in it, not spent a single penny on anything else.
I've sold 2 cars on Facebook Marketplace and bought a car from it.
First car, which I didn't end up selling, was my Corolla and I put it up for £300. All I had were chancers offering £150 for just the engine. I took it down, told the wife I wasn't getting rid of it. Second car was far easier, stuck it up for £400 and a chap came over and bought it.
Think it depends what you're selling too, because there's a big market for sending Corolla's to the middle east for parts.
First car, which I didn't end up selling, was my Corolla and I put it up for £300. All I had were chancers offering £150 for just the engine. I took it down, told the wife I wasn't getting rid of it. Second car was far easier, stuck it up for £400 and a chap came over and bought it.
Think it depends what you're selling too, because there's a big market for sending Corolla's to the middle east for parts.
MOBB said:
And if you are listing something for £80, they send a message such as "£30 now".
We just bought a new house, well 6 months ago now. The previous owners left a lot of stuff. Nice quality, would originally have been super expensive but not to our taste. We have an oversized 4 car garage...and it was filled.Anyway, we did the American thing of having a garage sale (including one woman looking at brand new with tags clothes telling me 50 cents was too much). What was left went to the local charity store unless I couldn’t fit it in the truck. I then listed the rest on Facebook and Craigslist.
Of course I was inundated with the same sort of bs - something advertised for $100 and then being offered $25 for it. I ended up replying with “I’ll take $25 down and then 3 more payments of $25. When paid for, you can collect.”
Usually you wouldn’t hear anything more, however one woman was so keen she came to give me the first $25 as a down payment. She turned up in a right beater, clearly didn’t have much money - looked Thai and said it was for her daughter’s birthday. She was so made up, and I felt super bad, I ended up just giving the item to her. Maybe I got screwed out of some cash, who knows!
I've had two experiences with it.
First Selling;
Sold an MR2 Mk3 hardtop stand, it was advertised for £20, and was up for ages, probably abut 3-4 months, I guess it's a niche item. Finally someone wanted it, came round, no problems and left happy.
Buying:
I told a guy I'd buy an item off him for the asking price, a collectors item (set of Star Wars prints from all 3 films). He wanted £50. Happy with that, the day I was due to collect and pay him, they strangely got damaged by a flood (?!?!) and couldn't be sold. i think he may have figured out how much they were probably worth (at least £100).
I do keep a close eye on cars in market place at the moment as I'm intending to buy a track day car in a month or so and there seem to be a few nice examples of what I'm looking for on there.
First Selling;
Sold an MR2 Mk3 hardtop stand, it was advertised for £20, and was up for ages, probably abut 3-4 months, I guess it's a niche item. Finally someone wanted it, came round, no problems and left happy.
Buying:
I told a guy I'd buy an item off him for the asking price, a collectors item (set of Star Wars prints from all 3 films). He wanted £50. Happy with that, the day I was due to collect and pay him, they strangely got damaged by a flood (?!?!) and couldn't be sold. i think he may have figured out how much they were probably worth (at least £100).
I do keep a close eye on cars in market place at the moment as I'm intending to buy a track day car in a month or so and there seem to be a few nice examples of what I'm looking for on there.
It's great for giving stuff away that you can't be bothered to take to the tip. I've given away quite a few things, even stuff that could only really be called junk and the phone is buzzing away like mad within minutes of posting the listing and the stuff is gone within the hour. I've bought a few things with mixed results, much like gumtree.
Gary29 said:
Absolutely this, it works the other way around too. We bought a shed of a car off FB, my missus had arranged it, geezer called Piotr, I thought to myself 'This is going to be dodgy as fk'
Turned up to view the car, nicest guy you could ever meet, he'd done loads of work on the car himself, and had taken great pride in presenting it for sale, cleaned it properly etc, gave him the £500 he wanted for it, drove off 15 mins later, worth every penny, he was made up. It hasn't missed a beat in 12 months, we've just put petrol in it, not spent a single penny on anything else.
I've bought 4 cheap old german cars from poles and they have all been exactly as described, and very well looked after, The last one I was talking to the guy and he said back home those cars would still have strong second hand value and as such would be properly looked after to keep them going a long time. Also that they get strong discount from polish mechanics, and polish mechanics are more biased towards working out economical repairs instead of scattergun parts swapping. Makes sense.k'Turned up to view the car, nicest guy you could ever meet, he'd done loads of work on the car himself, and had taken great pride in presenting it for sale, cleaned it properly etc, gave him the £500 he wanted for it, drove off 15 mins later, worth every penny, he was made up. It hasn't missed a beat in 12 months, we've just put petrol in it, not spent a single penny on anything else.
I have found fb marketplace a great place to buy broken motorbikes very cheap.
Spare tyre said:
Don’t use Facebook but selling stuff of gumtree is easy
I tell people my address, it’s in the porch, leave money in letter box
Sold perhaps 300 things this way not a single problem
All £50 or less value
It’s great I come home and there is money on the door mat.
This strikes me as slightly brave. Still, if it works for you, keep going with it!I tell people my address, it’s in the porch, leave money in letter box
Sold perhaps 300 things this way not a single problem
All £50 or less value
It’s great I come home and there is money on the door mat.
OldGermanHeaps said:
I've bought 4 cheap old german cars from poles and they have all been exactly as described, and very well looked after, The last one I was talking to the guy and he said back home those cars would still have strong second hand value and as such would be properly looked after to keep them going a long time. Also that they get strong discount from polish mechanics, and polish mechanics are more biased towards working out economical repairs instead of scattergun parts swapping. Makes sense.
I have found fb marketplace a great place to buy broken motorbikes very cheap.
How do you spot the broken ones apart from spares or repair wordingI have found fb marketplace a great place to buy broken motorbikes very cheap.
Sa Calobra said:
How do you spot the broken ones apart from spares or repair wording
Price?I’m slightly addicted to marketplace. I’ve set it to only show me stuff working 30 miles.
I’ve sold and given away for free all sorts of stuff. Mostly without time wasters.
Buying wise I’ve entirely upgraded my DeWalt kit to the latest xr stuff, bought some ladders, a PS4, building materials, a chainsaw and a ride on lawn mower. Plus much more I’m sure.
I almost always find the sellers easy to deal with and buyers good as gold
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