‘Cash for’ Websites Concur Top Ebay and Craigslist Problems
When you want to sell electronics, there are several problems and disadvantages to using ebay and craigslist. These are all problems which you will want to consider. Review the lists I have compiled. Below the lists, I will show how the ‘Cash for’ websites address and concur all these issues.
Ebay: The Top 11 Disadvantages
1.) High Rate of fraud and Scams:
- If you encounter a fraudulent seller, it takes up to two months to get a refund back. In many cases, you will only receive a partial refund.
- No Guarantee that electronic part will be in working condition. (Users often swap out good parts for defective parts and claim you sold them a defective part.)
- Phishing Schemes are common, in which users receive fake emails about account suspensions which them direct them a fake login page. The scammer gets your login info and uses it to steal your identity on ebay.
- If you do not describe the item completely, buyers can accuse you of false advertisement and demand a refund.
2.) Lost Profit from Fees:
- Ebay fees: These include a listing fee ($0.10 to $4.00 per item), final value fee (assigned when the item sells- 8.75% and up), and extra fees to improve the visibility of your listing, such as border, picture, and subtitle fees.
- Paypal fees: Paypal charges 2.9% plus $0.30 for each and every transaction. Since ebay not longer accepts checks or money orders, customers are forced to use ebay-owned paypal and pay the fees.
3.) Monopoly of the Market:
- Can manipulate the market, set prices, and buy-out competitors: Ebay can dictate prices and conditions, and control all information that customers put online, including ebay filtering and vetoing your information.
- Deals with Larger Corporations: Ebay recently made a deal with Buy.com. Corporate deals leave small business and individuals with lower search engine rankings and no built-in traffic.
4.) Variable Shipping rates:
- Shipping rates can vary and can be hard to track, especially for international rates.
- Misquoting a rate can lead to lost revenue.
5.) Unfair Feedback Policies:
- Buyers can leave feedback but sellers cannot leave feedback on buyers. Buyers have the upper hand and can manipulate the seller.
6.) Poor Feedback/ Customer Support Policies:
- Censored forums: users can’t speak out against poor policies or problems they encounter.
- Lack of communication: Users receive automated response emails from ebay and have no direct source of communication.
- Ebay will often shut down an account due to security reasons, which leaves users with no way to communicate with previous or potential customers/ buyers.
7.) No Privacy:
- As a user you will receive internal ebay spam messages
- When you sell electronics, a stranger (the buyer) can see the contents in your hard drive if you are unable to completely erase all the contents yourself.
8.) Low Bid Results:
- Bids can be low for many items, depending upon market saturation. Often, you have little control over the final price you will get for an item.
9.) High Competition for Items:
- Saturated Market: If supply is high, you will not get a competitive price for your listed electronic or computer item.
10.) Limited Buyer Demographic:
- Buyers looking for bargains: Much of the ebay buyer demographic consists of buyers looking to find discounted items. Sellers with quality items will have a much more limited market.
11.) New Buyer/ Seller Difficulties:
- Ebay forces new buyers to have an ebay-owned Paypal account in order to communicate with seller.
- New Buyers/ Sellers will have much lower search rankings than power sellers.
- New Buyers/Sellers often do not know eBay’s strict keyword policy and will chose wrong keywords for items, resulting in lower search standings.
Craigslist-The 8 Top Disadvantages
If you want to sell electronics on Craigslist, there are many disadvantages that are similar to ebay, however, to avoid repetition, I have only listed those that are more specific to Craigslist.
1.) No Customer Support:
- No management support: The site only offers forums where users can help other users.
- No customer service: You will receive automated response emails or no response at all.
2.) Low Buyer/Seller Reach:
- Local Posts Only: Craigslist rules require that you don’t post in more than one location so your customer base is drastically limited.
3.) High Amount of Fraud:
- No Protection or security: There is no protection against fraudulent behavior. You make contact with buyer/seller and hope they won’t rip you off. Users frequently receive spam from other users.
- No Accountability: Customers frequently back out of purchases.
4.) Breach of Privacy
- To contact buyers, you must give out your information (phone number or address). This is a direct violation of privacy.
5.) Not Time Effective:
- Lengthy Posting/ Monitoring time: It takes times to post and monitor ads, especially for users that are trying to increase their traffic by posting/reposting to keep ad on front page.
- Extra Traveling time: Often, items must be picked up across town or in another city.
- Buyer Contact Delays: There can be lengthy delays in buyer response time, resulting in items sold before buyer can respond or no items sold because buyer never responds.
6.) Flagging wars:
- Competitors can continuously flag your ads so that they can post their ad over yours. Craigslist does not record IP addresses, so the same person flag and re-flag your ad until you are removed.
7.) Vague Seller/ listing info:
- In listings, often there are not enough details about items and Craigslist does not give any information and ratings about the seller.
8.) Site Construction/ Bugs:
- Frequent site construction, bugs, viruses, or internal errors.
What is the Solution? Where can you sell your Electronics?
There are several other internet sites that provide excellent resources for selling a used laptop, blackberry, smartphone, iphone, or ipod. A shining example of this is the ‘Cash for’ family of websites, which give you cash for your used electronics. I will now compare these websites with both ebay and craigslist, showing you how you will encounter none of the disadvantages and problems listed above when you sell your electronics on the ‘Cash for’ websites.
First, the ‘Cash for’ family provides complete privacy for one who wants to sell their used electronics. They guarantee that all hard drive/ computer information will be erased upon receipt of the device so that your privacy is completely protected. The websites also contain the E-trust and Veri-sign logos, which ensure that their business is a trusted source and will protect your privacy, so there is no risk of fraud, unlike ebay or craiglist. Also, the ‘Cash for’ websites pay for shipping so there are no variable rates to worry about and you will never spend money to ship your electronics. The company offers direct feedback and contact information to customers, with a customer service line where you can reach a real person, rather than an automated system or message machine.
In addition, there are no fees to pay, just money to collect for the trade in of your used electronics. Since the ‘Cash for’ family does not have a monopoly and is a smaller company, you are guaranteed to get a competitive market price when you sell a laptop, iphone, ipod, smartphone, or blackberry. Since you are selling your used electronics via a direct sale, there is no work involved, little time spent for each sale, and no worries about buyer demographics. There is no time spent on listing an item, messing with feedback, traveling, or waiting for the buyer to contact you.
Essentially, it is a win-win situation, whereas there are many drawbacks and problems when selling on craigslist and ebay. When you sell your laptop, blackberry, smartphone, ipod, or iphone, use a trusted business source in which to do so. The ‘Cash for’ family of websites provides a fast, easy selling process and competitive prices.
