Craigslist vs. Ebay

First off I want to say this is not an argument about which one is better. Craigslist and Ebay are both fantastic in their own rights and both have their place in buying an selling. In this chapter I hope to relay to you the proper time to use each one, and how you can maximize your profits by making the proper decision.

Ebay

Ebay is an online auction site (if you don't know already). Wikipedia defines Ebay as:

“An American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide.”

On Ebay when you post an auction, the whole country is your marketplace. On Craigslist you can only post to one city at a time. So you have much less viewers and potential customers when you post on Craigslist. Therefore it is wise to sell only popular, functioning items on Craigslist. And leave the rare and non-functioning items you have to sell on Ebay. Let me explain why:

The goal is to make the most amount of profit on your sales. The way successful people do this in the world is first by understanding the concept supply and demand. An item in LOW supply and HIGH demand will go for a higher price because of its scarcity. Lots of people want it but there is only so much to go around. This drives the price up.

Now because your Craigslist market(your particular city) is so much smaller than the Ebay market(which includes the whole country), you can only sell high demand items on Craigslist simply because there may not be enough interested people in your city to create a demand for a rare item. But there may be enough interested people in the entire country to create a demand.
In other words you want a lot of people to want your item.

Here's what I mean: Say you are selling a laptop computer in the city of Phladelphia. This particular laptop is fairly new and in excellent working condition. Well, newer, working laptops are a very popular item right now (they are in demand), so you should sell it on Craigslist. There will be enough people in your city who want a laptop that you will have enough demand to get a good price for your item.

Now say you have a laptop with a broken screen that you want to sell for parts. The demand for a broken laptop will have a much less demand than a working laptop, so you'll probably want to sell it on Ebay where there is a higher chance you will find someone who will want it. Remember, Ebay covers the entire country. The chances of finding someone in the entire country who will want that particualr brand of laptop for parts is MUCH higher than finding one in your city only. So much so that there probably is a samll demand for those parts. And even if you do find a person in your city who wants it, he will probably want it at a low price, knowing that you don't have much of a demand for it locally. See the illustrations below:

A broken laptop would probably not get you as much of a profit as selling on Ebay as below:

So when I'm selling computers personally, I'll sell the broken, non-functioning laptops or parts on Ebay, and sell the functioning and in-tact computers on Craigslist. I get good profits for both in this way.

So my rule is:

High Demand Items – Sell on Craigslist
Low Demand Items – You have a better chance of finding buyers on Ebay because the market is so much bigger

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