I have given other tips in the past on how to sell products on Craigslist, and the feedback has been very positive from our readers here at 97th Floor. I have often been asked to share more of my “Craigslist selling tips”, even more specifically (and recently) I was asked about tips I have for selling a vehicle on Craigslist. Because I am not selling cars everyday, it was hard to give the examples (and case studies – ie screen shots) I knew I could share (that would help others) until I was ready to get rid of an old Nissan Maxima of mine.
This week was the week I finally was ready to get rid of the car, but I also wanted to use selling it as a teaching experience for all the readers here who have been asking for more tips. It has been a good car, and I have owned it for the last 8 years, but it was just time for it to go. I recently purchased a new car, and hate dealing with sales people at dealerships, and trade-ins when I know I can get so much more for my car selling it out-right. That is where Craigslist comes into play.
I know that Nissan Maximas are hot cars, and there are even websites dedicated to them so you might think it is going to be easy to sell my car no matter what, but what I found out was not the case at all. I did two different case studies with my Craigslist postings this week, and one sold my car in an hour, and one didn’t get me a single call. Besides, when I did a search for “1995 Maxima” in my “local” area, there came back 29 results, and there are tons more people out there selling Maximas that did not include 1995 in the title so they did not even come back as results. The point here? There is lots of competition and you need to make yourself stand out, and that is exactly what my two case studies will show you.
Those of you who may have heard of Craigslist, but are wondering how on earth you can make such an ugly site work for you, and make you money need to pay attention. These tips are not earth shattering, but with so many people posting on Craigslist, I can see that people clearly do not know what they are doing.
Here is the first case study (see picture below) but this is my listing, which as you can see is very boring and does not stand out. I did not receive one phone call all day, or one email the entire day with this posting:
Here is a screen shot of the second case study. I am sorry I do not have a screen shot of what it looks like compared to all the others but you can imagine by looking at my title of the actual post. I was not able to take a screen shot because I had to pull the listing off so quickly because we were getting so many calls of people wanting to buy my car. Since we sold it so quickly I had no more need to be taking the calls!
Do you see the difference? In order for success on Craigslist, you have to make yourself stand out. You must use “call to action words” like I did – *******TODAY ONLY****ONE DAY OFFER**** using symbols as well to make it stand out. My wording is in all caps. If there are 29 other Nissan Maximas that people are going to be potentially looking at, I need an edge to make people come to my listing.
This info right here that I am giving you is not amazing or “incredible” but it is what separates the good users from bad users on Craigslist. Those that understand the importance of standing out with all the other classified ads, and those that speak to your customers, and the kind of people who are using Craigslist. They want to feel they are getting the best deal possible. They want to see what we are “offering” them or using to “entice” them. They feel that I am going to be willing to work with them to get rid of my product, and give them the best deal. That right there is going to get them to click on your ad, and call you. That my friends – is really how I was able to get 30 phone calls, and how I was able to sell my car in one hour today!
