Friday, September 21, 2007

Craig and His List

Well, I was going to play a little golf this afternoon at Quail Ridge, but I have apparently badly strained my achilles tendon. I was playing basketball last night in a Men's Open league in Cary, and it was our first game. It started feeling pretty sore toward the end of the game and I awoke in the middle of the night with it throbbing. I guess I'm not 25 anymore.

Does anyone use Craig's List? I have known about it for years, but we would normally use eBay for selling things on the Internet. We have just recently listed a couple of things (moving boxes, an old bicycle) in the FREE section and have had people come pick them up here in Sanford. But it appears while browsing through many of the sections of both the Raleigh section and the Fayetteville section that there are not too many people in Lee County using the site. We have tried to buy a couple of things we have found, but we weren't quick enough. Things of decent value that many people might need apparently get snatched up rather quickly. And i imagine that there are resellers out there who find things on the cheap and buy them low while trying to resell them for a good profit.

Things I am looking for on Craig's List in the region:

1. A travel trailer or larger pop-up camper. Toilet must be separate from the shower for the wife's sake! Used but in good shape. (Just window shopping now. Maybe after Christmas we'll get serious.)
2. Dog kennel fencing - 10x10x6. We are trying to give the dogs more room.
3. A set of patio furniture for our back deck.
4. An entertainment center. Large enough to hold our 36" TV. Prefer darker stained wood and nothing contemporary looking.
5. A simple table and 2-4 chairs for our homeschool room. Not too high for the boys to work comfortably.
6. A simple coffee table for the play room couch.

Possible dangers of using Craig's List versus eBay, etc.: No financial guarentees if you get ripped off like those offered on trusted sites. The anonymity disappears. Weird people will email you. Yes, they will. Parts of the site are unfortunately for adult eyes only. Don't let the kids wander around on it. (Or your eyes either!)

Bonuses of using Craig's List: It's free (except for a tiny handful of cities where they charge a small fee for job listing (seven cities) or real estate ads (New York only, I believe). You can go out and look at the thing you are buying if it is local/regional. You can always back out of a raw deal. Currently no ads. It is a simple text based site that is not out to make money, believe it or not. More than 20 million people are using it each month. Lots of exposure.

We are still "experiementing" with it now, but we hope we might be able to find a good deal here or there with the site. Who knows?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bought a kayak on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago and got a nice deal.

Leatherwing said...

I have two 10x6x6 dog kennels I'm no longer using. You can have them if you have something to haul them away in (which I think you do).
Let me know.

Joe Jon said...

Hey, John, I definately could use them. They would be very useful to us. Email me at sanford (at) redmullet (dot) com and give me your address and I will try to come and get them in the next week or so.

You rock!

Anonymous said...

I __LOVE__ Craigslist. I've bought and sold lots of stuff. You might also want to check out the Moore/Lee Freecycle list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mooreleefreecycle). Sometimes you can find (or get rid off) good stuff there, too.