After responding to a few ads on Craigslist and receiving no response I’ve hit upon the fundamental problem with free ad services: the seller has no “skin in the game.” Since the seller’s cost to post is free, he or she has nothing at stake and therefore doesn’t feel as compelled to respond to queries as he or she might when using paid ad services.
Maybe the problem is that email is too easy to ignore. Perhaps if Craigslist offered a better way of contacting sellers this could be alleviated.
I’m seeing it work both ways via Craigslist. I have a car for sale right now, and I’ve gotten several emails – not interested in the car, and it’s condition, but just right out of the gate “How low can you go on the price?”
While these drive-by emails don’t feel very inviting, I make it a point to respond to each.
Thanks for weighing in, Dugald! I guess it all comes down to common courtesy. Perhaps the anonymous nature of Craigslist also feeds into that.
Mark
I’ve bought several things I found on Craigslist, but just recently began to sell. The first email inquiry I received was filtered out and went to my junk folder. When I don’t get a reply, and 90% of the time I do, I figure that’s where my email went!