eBay Vs. Craigslist

I have had a number of people inquire from me this year (and previous years) about them selling stuff on eBay and / or Craigslist. Questions about the safety and reliability of online shopping continue to be asked, as well as whether it's easy to set up, whether it's hassle-free, and whether better deals can be had. I have some strong opinions here, and will share them with you, since you can find many websites that simply detail the pros and cons of each from a rather objective perspective, but you won't find many places giving honest, experience-based critique of both systems. Again, all this is based on my own experience of being both an eBay seller and buyer for seven-plus years, as well as being a craigslist buyer and seller for about a year now. My goal here, even though I inject my own opinions, is not to draw any definitive conclusions, but instead, leave it up to you to make an informed decision.

First, eBay. It is international in scope, with over a hundred million accounts globally. It has been around since 1995. Here are some advantages of using eBay to buy and to sell:

Advantages of using eBay to sell: 1) Greater audience exposure. People from other cities, provinces/States, and even countries see your product. I have felt the impact of this, as I have dealt with many out of town/province/and country customers (I only deal with the U.S. and Canada for ease of communication and shipping reasons). If eBay wasn't around, I wouldn't be able to find buyers for a lot of the old books and out of print CDs and knick knacks that only very specific persons would want. 2) Feedback system - you see a record of how other sellers have rated the buyer's ability to pay quick and respond. As a result of this, I have been able to, on numerous occasions, made a judgement call and deny a sale to someone since they had a fairly volatile history of transactions. 3) There is a forced accountability and commitment level - people can't just back out once they win an auction or purchase something through Buy-It-Now. This still doesn't guarantee that you'll be paid, but if you're not, you can get your listing fees back - it's still a hassle though. But having a more or less legally binding contract, would weed out a number of the non-serious buyers. 4) Setting up a seller account is relatively quick and painless, and requires credit card authorization to somewhat confirm your identity, as well as a means to charge your fees (see below). 5) It's a good way to make a few extra bucks, selling stuff that you'd get very little for at a local garage sale, for much more to someone who actually wants it or is looking for it. It can be a potentially long-term or full-time income opportunity that affords one the flexibility to stay home and work your own hours (there are disadvantages of this as well, as far as being stuck with merchandise as well as the seasonal cyclical nature of sales and some items). 7) You can post as many photos of the item as you like in as large of a resolution as you think your buyers' bandwidth can handle. When posting photos, you can save a ton of dough by not using eBay's fee-based picture service, but rather, hosting them on your own web space and linking them to your listing.

Disadvantages of using eBay to sell: 1) eBay is a target of many phishing scams. Sellers will undoubtedly face a lot of phony messages from phony buyers eventually, but even more disturbing than that are the amount of schemes that go through email that tell you your eBay account is suspended and click here if you want to reactivate. The link will then take you to a page that looks exactly like eBay, but if you look at a URL, it is somewhere totally different and their goal is to capture your login ID and password for unscrupulous use later. 2) There are fees charged to list products (fees vary based on many factors such as starting price and features desired on the listing), and these fees are charged irrespective of whether the product sells or not. There are also fees charged on the final sale of the product as well, so factor all these fees into your final selling price. 3) eBay forces their sellers to accept PayPal (owned by eBay) as the default payment method. There are ways around this, but it takes more work. I do not list the use of PayPal as an advantage, because I do not believe a monopoly of payment methods is considered a benefit, and from my experience, I have been a victim of a paypal scam (through no fault of mine) and Paypal ended up siding with the buyer, who had his credit card stolen and was issued a chargeback, which then hit Paypal, which then hit me. Now I am out the $600.00 U.S. as well as the the item I sold). I try to avoid PayPal like the plague, even though I know that I will need to use it for transactions. I always encourage my buyers to pick up locally and pay me cash so that eBay and PayPal get squat. eBay will also specifically target other payment systems and will not allow their use on eBay (like Western Union - there are ways around this too) 4) Internal eBay spam - if you use the "My Messages" internal eBay messaging system, not only will you eventually get messages in the nature of what I have described in point #1, but you will be innundated with eBay internal messages which include mostly ads, promotions, etc. 5) More often than not, you will need to ship the item, which also runs the risk of potentially undercharging or overcharing shipping amounts. You then will need to worry about the package getting there on time and in the right condition. You also need to worry about scams on the receiving end - particularly selling stuff like technology items, in regards to users swapping out good parts for defective parts and claiming you sold them defective parts. My suggestion to you is to record all serial numbers before shipping. Lost packages can be a hassle - for larger items, I strongly suggest insurance. Also, unless you send to the U.S. via a trackable means (Small or Light Packet does not qualify), you are at the mercy of a potentially dishonest buyer. 6) eBay has some pretty silly (sorry, can't be objective here) restrictions on what you can sell. Some things are common sense, that should not be sold anywhere. But if you have some restore CDs from a computer you bought, and the computer died, eBay won't be able to sell the CDs. While firearms are banned from being sold on eBay, air guns and airsoft guns can't be sold on eBay either, even though you can buy them in stores (eBay requires its account holders to be 18-and-over, so there should be no reason why things airguns can't be sold on eBay). 7) eBay forums are censured - if you speak about about why Western Union should be used, or encourage people to use Craigslist, your messages will be filtered and censured. That's just how a monopoly works. 8) Their technical support or customer support absolutely sucks. You try to send them any suggestion or concern, and 10 times out of 10, they will be sending you back a canned pre-filled response. You respond back to that saying they didn't answer your question, and you'll get even more canned pre-filled responses, until you give up. Their customer service department are a bunch of useless mofos. The customer service, or lack thereof, applies to both selling and buying. 9) FEES! They add up - you have listing fees + end of auction / listing fees + paypal fees. 10) You can't sell services on eBay? Why? Probably because with services, it will be done outside of eBay and as a result, they can't get their grubby hands on your hard-earned money.

Advantages of using eBay to Buy: 1) You will more often than not get a good price on a product, better than retail. 2) You can almost always get a gently used item which saves you a significant amount of money. 3) For the most part, you legally avoid having to pay retail sales tax via a private sale, which everyone appreciates. 4) There are a plethora of items that you cannot find anywhere else other than on eBay - your selection of items is massive. 5) Unlike Craigslist, you will likely get, on the good auctions, a good set of photos of what you are buying, which helps make the listing more attractive. 6) You see the seller's record, so you know what others have said about him/her, and whether they have a reputable record of doing business.

Disadvantages of using eBay to Buy: Most of this is pretty common sense, but I'll highlight it nonetheless. 1) You will, more than likely - I'd say almost always, get hosed on shipping. Due to the exorbitant costs involved with doing business on eBay, unscrupulous sellers will generally jack the price up on shipping to recoup some of their costs back. Other sellers will, at eBay's displeasure, though I'm not sure if this actually illegal, sell a TV for $1.00, but charge $450.00 in shipping. That way, the fees only apply to the $1.00 final sale charge. As a general rule, however, shipping prices tend to be inflated on eBay, so factor that into your overall cost of purchase. 2) Item(s) may not be as described. This is a general risk that you take when you decide to buy something you can't see/feel. Do your research on the item, only buy from auctions where the seller has 100% positive feedback and has at least 50 seller feedbacks. Try to find auctions where the item is located locally and the seller will allow you to pickup (this saves the seller eBay fees too, and I greatly encourage this). You can then meet the seller and inspect the item. Sellers who allow pickup tend to be much more customer-focussed, have less to hide with their products, and are not out to hose you. 3) You can potentially be locked in a bidding war with someone else who wants the item, at which point the product's price will be jacked up, perhaps more than what it's worth. 4) You may find a listing that you like, but the seller won't sell to you if you're in Canada. 5) You may find something that you like, but the seller is using eBay as a livelihood, and as a result, has a registered business and charges taxes on the sale. Boo! 6) Some auctions end at really bad times where you're not around. 7) I was going to include this with the shipping point, but I want this point to have its own, unrelated bullet. One distinct advantage of buying on eBay is that you may find a local seller in your area (or even your street), but because of their greed, or their social inept skills, or because they are hiding something, will not allow you to pick it up to save on money. I would recommend that you never do business with these people. For someone who is going to charge me $35.00 to ship a golf club, when they live six blocks away, is a little ridiculous. I specifically tell them that they lost a potential sale because they are being such an greedy arse.

Now, onto Craigslist, or CL for short. CL has been around for about 10 years, and unlike eBay, is more of a localized way of selling. CL has locales in many cities in many countries. For instance, to see the Toronto, Ontario, Canada listings on CL, the URL would be http://toronto.craigslist.com. CL is much more of a grassroots old fashioned classified ads style of listing. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of selling and buying on Craigslist.

Advantages to selling on Craigslist: 1) the most obvious one: NO FEES! There are no fees to list, no fees for items when sold. 2) the listing stays on for 45 days and if you wish to relist after that, it's a piece of cake. 3) you are targeting a local audience so more often than not, you can meet up with the buyer locally and they pay you cash and you are done. NO FEES! 4) There are virtually no restrictions to what you can sell, as long as it is within the bounds of decency and the law. This is what an open marketplace should be. People can sell their consumer products, but also sell property and services (services is something you can't buy on eBay). You can sell your ability to teach English, you services as a landscaper, painter, or you can even sell yourself in other ways (use your imagination here). 5) There are a lot of very local, very specific, time-sensitive things you can buy on Craigslist, such as tickets to a local event. People fundraise for their kids using Craigslist. 6) There is a tremendously long character length you can use for your title, which unlike eBay, allows you to put in even more information to attract buyers. 7) You don't even need an account to sell on Craigslist - just an email address, which one one sees (they just see the CL forwarding email address).

Disadvantages to selling on Craigslist: 1) No forced accountability or commitment level. People can and have backed out of transactions, even once arrangements to meet are made. 2) you only have a limit of 4 photos that you can publish, and they end up being resized to very small photos. You can link other photos, but it's not as easy as on eBay. 3) The scope of buyers is local, so you are severely limited in your sales. While eBay is a long-term viable option for income for many, using Craigslist is much less an option due to its dramatically reduced exposure.

Advantages to buying on Craigslist: 1) If you need an item quickly, you can generally arrange the deal within a very short time period. The fastest sale I've done is about 15 minutes after I listed the item. 2) it's local, so you don't have to worry about not only paying shipping costs, but grossly inflated shipping costs. 3) This is a disadvantage for a seller, but an advantage for a buyer - you can possibly or negotiate the price of the item. Of course, there is a reasonable offer and then there is lowballing. Beware that you respect the bounds of professional business. Some sellers, including myself, don't take too kindly to lowballing prices. I'd rather not have the sale than to deal with uber-Scrooge.

Diadvantages to buying on Craigslist: 1) Higher risk tolerance, since there is no identifying information exchanged. As a fictitious example, let's say that I were to buy a TV from you on Craigslist, I'd respond to the ad - you'd contact me back and we'd agree to meet somewhere. Of course, I have no idea if the TV works, so I go home plug it in, and it doesn't work. What do I do? If you were a seller with no balls, you wouldn't respond to my inquiries to have you look at it. Some sellers are good, but unlike eBay, there is no accountability, so while I've had nothing but good experiences on CL, it's still the old case of caveat emptor when it comes to buying things. 2) While it's all local, the item may be located way on the other side of the region, which would mean more travelling. The seller may also have very tight restrictions on when/where to meet. 3) Most Craigslist listings are short and to the point, so the level of detail is not there, that would make most people comfortable. 4) You know nothing about the seller - there is no history of customer satisfaction, no feedback system, no indication that they can be trusted. 5) For people who try to meet up with someone on CL for a relationship, you don't know if they are who they say they are - I've always been skeptical of people looking for their signficant others or mates using online means.

I hope this has helped you in your decision process in terms of whether you should sell on eBay or Craigslist. If you have any questions or comments, you can either email me or post a response in this blog.