Why do sellers try to avoid making a sale?

[Sir Stinkalot]

I have been looking recently on Gumtree, particularly for sanitary ware for our planned extension which if you are patient you can often pick up new items at a good price.

What has been astonishing is how hard sellers often make it to purchase off them. In addition to poor quality photos and limited descriptions sellers seem unable to answer simple questions.

I have lost count of the times that I have emailed somebody to say I want to purchase an item and request their address and preferred pickup time only to have the response come back with only the time or only the address, leading to the need to make contact again. My responses are articulate and shouldn't appear like spam, I don't write "I want your item and will pay more cash provide your bank and I pay".

On Thursday I contacted a guy to ask if he would be willing to post 3 items he had for sale. I mentioned I would post up three Australia Post satchels, self addressed so all he would have to do is drop them off in a post box (no visit to the post office needed). I know the item can easily be sent in a 3kg satchel. I said if he was happy to do that he should send me his details so I could make payment and send up the satchels. His response was (a day later) was that he would be happy to post but would need to get the items weighed and was concerned that the cost if postage would make the purchase unviable. I got back in touch again after an hour and said I was happy to pay for the goods & postage, confirmed again that they can be sent in a satchel and all I needed was details on how he wanted to be paid. Still no response.

If I was the seller I would be bending over backwards for a sale. This guy has the opportunity to get rid of three items in one hit. No negotiations on price, no need to wait around for somebody to collect from his house. No risk as the items would be paid for prior to him putting them in a post box.

I would have thought that if you had the skills to list an item on Gumtree (with a photo) then it wouldn't be too difficult to negotiate the details to complete a sale.

Rant Off

Cheers

Stinky

[Big Shed]

Stinky, I hear what you are saying and have experienced similar things, especially on Gumtree.

There is however another side to that. I have been selling a few things on Gumtree after buying another van.

Had a set of rims and tyres on there for $150, someone sent me text.
"Would you accept $50 I live in Melbourne and it is expensive to come and pick them up"
As I hate communicating via text, probably may age, my answer was short and sweet
"No"
Have now had 3 different people ask for my address, make a time to come and pick them up, nobody ever fronted!
Next lot due this morning between 11 and 11:30, we will see.

Selling our caravan, listed for $21,900.
Received a text
"Will you accept $12000"
Same short answer
"No"

Selling a portapotti and toilet/shower tent for $95
Received a phone call this time (yay!)
"I live in Leongatha would you be prepared to meet me in Melbourne (a 400km round trip for me!)"
Slightly longer answer
"Sorry no, would cost more in fuel than you are paying for the item"

I don't know what it is about Gumtree, I have had more people that work on oil rigs and want to pay me more so that their courier can collect the item,"Just give me you Paypal address". This is for a $21,900+ caravan.

I could go on, but funnily enough this sort of behaviour I have never experienced on Ebay.

[Sir Stinkalot]

I agree that there is a lot of spam and time wasters. I sold my car a few years ago using the various online car sales sites and was bombarded with similar offers.

This is why I go out of my way to show the seller I am a real person interested in the item. No fake story about oil rigs or wanting to pay more, just a simple email personally addressed to them with an offer to purchase and even including my contact details. Personally I find emails to be the best way of communicating, particularly as I am often searching Gumtree late at night, but I might have to start calling more.

[Master Splinter]

The only explanation I can offer is that people are idiots.

Case in point - I won a paper feeder mechanism for a laser printer on ebay - It was large and bulky, so he said he'd find out the actual postage cost so he could put that in the price. The item got sent to me the next day, but despite a number of "So how much do I owe you" messages, he never finalised the transaction. I can only presume he got hit by a car on the way back from the post office or something.

[Sir Stinkalot]

So it then leads to the question ..... Any forum members near Margate QLD who would be willing to collect some tapware and post them over to Adelaide Perhaps a question best asked in another forum!

[Justin]

Yes, you often have to swim through the shallow end of the Gene Pool in order to make a purchase or sale on Gumtree. My pet hate is cruddy descriptions and poor quality photos where you can't ascertain the basics like model number or condition of the item. Also that stupid saying that's so popular on Gummy now......."Need Gone"

[Sir Stinkalot]

Well calling works well

The phone number goes straight to message bank, not the handy type where you can leave a message, nor the frustrating one where it is message to text, but the complete waste where the callers number is sent (at the callers expense) as a text message. How is this any more useful than just showing up as a missed call?

[Big Shed]

I agree that there is a lot of spam and time wasters. I sold my car a few years ago using the various online car sales sites and was bombarded with similar offers.

This is why I go out of my way to show the seller I am a real person interested in the item. No fake story about oil rigs or wanting to pay more, just a simple email personally addressed to them with an offer to purchase and even including my contact details. Personally I find emails to be the best way of communicating, particularly as I am often searching Gumtree late at night, but I might have to start calling more.

I have no problems with emails, at least they can usually be deciphered. It is SMS I have a problem with, stupid acronyms, illiterate senders etc.

I will always respond to emails as well as phone calls, even SMS but it is not my preferred mode of communication.

Maybe it is my age, but I see SMS as a form of communication between people that are known to each other, not between perfect strangers, especially as half the time you can't decipher what they are trying to say.

We did sell our caravan to a lovely couple from SA, guy rang me, we actually communicated like civilised people and both parties achieved a pleasing outcome.

It is my opinion that communication has expanded 10 fold in quantity and contracted severely in quality.

[Big Shed]

Just to confirm that there are still some reliable people that can communicate, the buyers for our rims and tyres turned up at the promised time and paid up without trying to beat the price down, so another good conclusion to a Gumtree sale.

[Sir Stinkalot]

Just to confirm that there are still some reliable people that can communicate......

Well my seller also returned my call. It sounds like we are still back on track for the sale which is good news for me ...... it still doesn't change the fact however that it is much more difficult than it really needs to be.

[Fuzzie]

For the most part I think Ebay is just too expensive now that you have to pay commission on postage as well as lose the Paypal cut and double that if the other party pays Paypal via credit card, not to mention the amount of effort it takes to package things properly. And then half the time the buyers don't leave feedback.

Gumtree is better if you want to just get rid of things at garage sale prices (i.e read "Need Gone ASAP") , but I find when I try and sell things there I seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time answering strings of sms's and emails that go nowhere. On the piddling mobile plan I use, all those SMS's also add up to a significant cost. I can't see why these people want to string out sms after sms rather than just make a phone call and ask all the relevant questions at once.

[Christos]

...... I can't see why these people want to string out sms after sms rather than just make a phone call and ask all the relevant questions at once.

That would depend on the mobile plan they are on. My SMS are now free to any mobile, not that I make many SMS's.

[Sawdust Maker]

They are just as silly on ebay

I got a message the other week

'how much do you want for it?'
answer
'whatever the top bidder is willing to pay, it's an auction'

[DSEL74]

We were going to look for a car this weekend. I contacted 14 people via carsales, I later phoned each one and left voicemail asking for the them to call me to make a time to inspect. That was sat morning and I saw 0 cars because none responded. The one guy I spoke to during the week said he was only available on weekends but he was going away on the weekend call him again next week. Nowonder they don't sell and have been advertised for ages.

[Handyjack]

Looking at Gumtree the other week I viewed a Festool sander. Now I do not need a sander but it was new and the price was tempting (about $400). So I sent the seller a message via Gumtree just to find out the history of the tool. I never received a reply.

If the correct answers had come back I may have purchased but it just looked too good to be true and I wondered if the item was "hot"?

Its all about communicate, communicate and communication. A reply is nice even if it is "sorry no longer available".