My Old Mac, New Marketplaces, and a Try at Social Selling
I sold my old Macbook Pro today. She was 2 years old and still had a year of Applecare to go. My reason for selling? I recently upgraded to a Macbook Air. Now that I stop and think of it, I upgrade all my Apple stuff pretty frequently. I think I might be better off paying for an Apple equipment subscription than to keep buying - and sometimes selling - all these Apple gizmos.
Back to my MB Pro. She was top of the line when the processors were updated and configured with the max upgrade hdd from apple.com. Not the frugal option. But I rationalize buying her after the major rollout and right after price breaks and speed increases that come with the .1 and .2 releases.
I haven’t sold anything on craigslist or any community marketplace online in years. My last iPhone I pawned through Gazelle.com, and I was satisfied with that experience. But for some reason, the aftermarket services really low-ball you for used macs. I think they were offering between $250 and $400. I sold for $800, and by the looks of it on craigslist, I could have gotten a full $1,000. But I wanted to move it fast and not have to deal with hagglers.
I’m always amazed at the dominant role Craigslist continues to play in aftermarket peer to peer sales (and in Real Estate, but I’m going to cover that in another post for RentHackr). I really don’t enjoy using CL, but I respect it. I performed some searches and modeled my post after another one that I thought was straightforward, one that I could se myself responding to.
But we’re supposed to have some post-craigslist options now, right? What Social-slash-2.0 type services could I try while I was already listing? I decided to try Socialisting, since I was familiar with it and curious how it would work. I listed my mac for $50 less on on Socialisting. I figure my friends, and their friends, should get a break on my asking price. (I’m looking forward to my friends at Bondsy entering this market with their service soon). Finally, I looked for Facebook’s built in classifieds. Didn’t they have one? I ended up on their Oodle Marketplace, which it looked like Facebook partnered with at some point.
So here I was in my little experiment. I got the usual CL hustlers.
Emailer: “I can pick it up today for $700.” No. Caller: “Uh, do you still have that mac?” Yes. “Uh, (audibly licks lips) can you deliver it to Brooklyn?” No. Pick up only.
I got a couple CLers that seemed earnest, but fell off after one or two communications. In the end, the girl who came to buy saw my listing on socialisting. I think she said she couldn’t figure out how to contact me over socialisting, so she kept looking and found me again in Oodle. So she was at the lower price point, but that was fine.
She showed up today with her sister and checked my old macbook pro out. (Is it pretty much standard for a girl to bring backup for CL transactions? I figured it was.) I clean-installed Lion and more the night before, and I cleaned the case and polished the screen. It was pretty much mint. Then she says she can pay me with a check. In my head, I heard the sound of silverware clanking onto plates.
Me: I can’t let the mac go for a check.
Me: I’m not judging you, it’s just not a safe way to do things.
Me: How about Venmo?
Buyer: Never heard of it.
Me: Paypal?
Buyer to sister: Do you have one? Sister: No
Me: Well it’s Sunday. You could come back tomorrow with a cashier’s check.
Then I remembered I had my little square tucked away somewhere. It turned out sis was covering for the buyer, so she dug out a credit card and after about a dozen swipes, it went through. I charged $800, but I wondered who was paying the fee. I checked up on the transaction. No way to tell in the app, so I went onto Square’s site. Sure enough, $22 was taken out of the transaction for fees. So the buyer gave me the additional $22 cash to cover. Deal closed.
This was my first real experience acting as a seller for square. It seemed powerful, swooping in to save the day. It seemed elegant in that the design of the app and receipt were great. It also seemed a bit too light on features - I couldn’t calculate the fees in the app and charge my buyer up front, and I couldn’t see where the money was going to go. I eventually saw that the Help section said the money would automatically be deposited in whatever bank account I signed up with. I didn’t find any way to verify what account that was, or the change it.
Would I use Square again? Yes, but I’d try to use Venmo and Paypal first. And aren’t the banks themselves offering p2p payments now? I think I’ve seen Chase advertising theirs on Hulu. We were stuck, and I was happy to come up with the option. But with my nerdcore friends, it would be far from the first choice to pay each other. Fees are for the birds – especially Square’s high 2.75%.
The big thought that occurred to me is that we have a multitude of markets to choose from in our pockets now. From local mobile markets like to Zaarly and Taap.it to payment platforms like Dwolla, Paypal, and Serve; we’re gaining ever increasing choices in how to discover and transact with our community (#collcons). New modes like NFC, and new currencies like bitcoin are only going to help this trend grow. Now, will the craigslist still be the place we have to go for apartments and used gear?
