Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Buy the Set or Buy the Piece?




I wrote about getting this French Provincial set a few months back. This unit basically had 2 bicycles and this bedroom set with a few boxes of used children's clothes that I gave away and some other boxes of unsellable stuff that I threw away. The bicycles sold right away. But not so fast for the bedroom set.

I listed the set on Craigslist. Got inquiries both scamming and legitimate, but more scammers than legit. And, the legitimate folks never followed up past their initial inquiry. So, it languished. I lowered the price by about 20%. Finally, a woman got in touch with me who only wanted to buy 2 pieces. Her husband picked them up on Sunday and that day I redid my Craigslist ad to sell the remaining pieces individually.

Well, wham! Monday I sold the 2nd dresser. Today, I sold the remaining nightstand and bed frame. Tomorrow, someone is coming by to pick up the mirror. And with that, it'll all be gone.

An important lesson has been learned. You'll appeal to more potential buyers if you offer a set up in pieces rather than just as the set. This is a good lesson to learn now since Monday we clean out the mother of all storage units that is just filled with furniture.

3 comments:

  1. That's an impressive, practically overwhelming set of furniture. It's understandable that there would be more people looking for a piece or two, rather than a whole room. You can always tag the individual ads with "Ask about other matching pieces."

    Hope the sales give you a motivational shot in the arm. If not, there's always caffeine. :-)

    -steve

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  2. Steve- good point on the "overwhelmingness" of the set. I think I was looking at this like our bedroom, where we have a set that my father made from a Sears kit. The way I handled the ad for the pieces was all together in one listing so anyone checking it out would see all the pieces available.

    It definitely was a motivator to get all this action after feeling like I wasn't going to sell this stuff at all. Woo hoo!

    - Cranky

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  3. I agree, because some people (like me) want to buy a piece to "flip" and have no intention of keeping it "as is".

    I don't want a "matchy-matchy" bedroom set for example. I want each piece to be completely different but go together. =)

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