5 Life Lessons I Learned from Selling My Things Online
Remember Craigslist?
Craigslist was the place to go back in the day if you were a college kid looking for a couch for your apartment.
Although Craigslist is still around, other local marketplaces have dethroned its unfashionable UI. People took their unloved items elsewhere — Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, and NextDoor all offered respite.
eBay? Poshmark? Forget it. The added fees and commission these companies take can make any transaction painful.
But the real benefit for local marketplaces has always been face-to-face interaction. Nothing can replace the kind of business learning experience you get from a transaction made in person.
Here are five life lessons I’ve learned from selling my things in local marketplaces.
Lesson #1: Beware of the Endowment Effect.
First, let’s talk about what you learn by listing your item—namely, the life lesson of learning to overcome the Endowment Effect.
The Endowment Effect is when you overvalue an item simply because you simply own it. So when you list the object for sale, you will most likely overprice it. But in contrast, if you were in the buyer’s shoes, the amount you would pay for the said object is significantly lower.
The difference in this value system illustrates a contradiction in the seller alone. A seller’s overvalued price reflects the price they are comfortable with to let go of the object, not the fair value.
Experienced marketplace users know not to overvalue their items. They’ve been burned before with low response rates because no one is going to pay $1000 for your vintage coffee mug set.
Forbes reasons that The Endowment Effect may be due to our natural human resistance to change the status quo.
Amateur sellers almost show a resistance to sell an item, as if they are doing a favor for even listing it in the first place.
Here are three things I learned that helped me overcome the Endowment Effect:
- Stop personifying your things.
Americans have a massive problem with holding on to things.
Self-storage has seen 7.7% annual growth since 2012, according to analysts at IBISWorld.
This growing need is not because of the lack of space in our homes. Boxbee.com statistics show 65% of self-storage renters have a garage in their home, 47% have an attic, and 33% have a basement.
Our surplus of things ties back to our psychological hold to personify the items we own as almost extensions of ourselves.
But if you genuinely value your inanimate objects, don’t you think they deserve a better life with someone else who would appreciate them instead of sitting in your dusty garage?
2. Putting a fair price is an exercise of human empathy.
At the end of the day, another human is buying your item. It’s not the government or some evil corporation. It’s an Average Joe like you and me.
Putting a fair price on your item is a gesture of good faith. It means you care. It means you’re not trying to rip someone off or pull a “fast one.”
Making sure the buyer gets a good deal not only builds a bond with the buyer, but it’s good for the community you serve.
3. Objects are not meant to be permanent.
I don’t mean to slam the science on you, but I think it’s the best way to remind yourself that the object you are selling is a slowly decaying object.
Remember Newton’s 2nd Law of Thermodynamics:
The state of entropy of the entire universe, as an isolated system, will always increase over time.
Whether you like it or not, the object you are selling is decaying from a scientific standpoint. Would you sell a half-rotten apple for 70% of the retail price? No, because that would make you an asshole. Don’t be an asshole.
Remember that your item is used, not new.
In most markets like cars or diamonds, the item loses significant value as soon as its sold.
Look at the retail stickers at a second-hand bookstore or a vinyl shop. They typically list used items with a non-rarity designation at roughly half of the retail price.
Lesson #2: Never Cancel on Anyone a Third Time
I learned this in the corporate world, but it continues to apply in every facet of life, including when I sell things online: Never reschedule on someone for the Third time.
Why?
You already lost the business.
Whether you are a seller or a buyer, you just wasted someone’s valuable time. No one likes having to deal with no-shows.
You ever been stood up on a date? It doesn’t feel good.
Think of every business transaction like a date. Keep your appointments and don’t be late.
But why is three the magic number?
Everyone deserves a second chance. Maybe something really did come up. You can’t control life. The world is a crazy place.
But a third time shows you either have terrible time management skills, don’t respect my time, or worse, you overpromise and underdeliver.
There’s an etiquette to these things because you deal with the most sensitive variable of all: people.
Even if uncontrollable circumstances truly got in the way that third time, let that be a sign that the business transaction was simply not meant to be. Learn from it. Move on.
Lesson #3: Keep an Open Mind to People of Different Backgrounds.
I’ll never forget the day I sold my guitar amp to an old white man who refused to wear a mask and proudly stamped a MAGA sticker on the back window of his pickup truck. With the rise of Asian-American hate crimes, I was especially cautious.
But he turned out to be one of the nicest, coolest guys I’ve ever met. We didn’t even talk about our differing politics. We just talked about our favorite jazz artists and our journeys as musicians. He just also happened to believe that covid-19 is a scam.
So we believe in different things. So what? That doesn’t mean I should be cold to him or treat him any less.
Connecting with him through music reminded me that all of us on this planet are a lot more alike than we are different. And it’s always better to highlight similarities rather than differences.
Lesson #4: Trust is not earned. It’s offered.
When you are an avid seller, you notice patterns in people’s behavior. It’s hard not to. You have to meet them in person, answer any questions, engage in small talk, shake their hand (pre-Covid), and exchange money. It can be an intimate ordeal that can take time.
One pattern was especially evident throughout all those interactions: Any time I sold to a Black male buyer, they were always on edge.
And I totally get it.
The Black Lives Matter protests have taught me that the fear that I feel today as an Asian American during Covid-19 is the fear black men have felt every day of their lives.
We are all strangers, and it’s natural for people to be immediately on guard. We all come from different backgrounds and different upbringings, so we shouldn’t just expect any interaction with a stranger to be completely smooth.
As a seller, I tried to make people feel as comfortable as possible. I try to lighten up the mood with small talk and crack a joke or two. It reminds my buyers that I’m just an Average Joe and that I’m not a threat.
I want them to know that this is a safe place, a place of trust, and they always respond in kind.
Trust is a gift that everyone has the ability to give.
Lesson #5 People Love Feeling Special.
There’s a lot of psychology involved in marketing, and you can exercise a few things in your own marketplace interactions.
Here’s a tip: People love feeling like they are getting an exclusive deal.
I’ve had a lady offer me $18 for a work stool I listed for $20. It didn’t make a difference to me, but it made me wonder if she really needed those $2? Or was she trying to save for the sake of feeling like she got a special deal?
Another gentleman offered me $100 for an old camera I had listed for $120. I said no, but I’ll throw in the camera bag and lens cleaner just for you. Deal struck. He paid the list price of $120.
The truth is, I was going to include the camera bag and lens cleaner anyways. But because the gentleman thought I was cutting him an “under-the-table” deal, he went along with it.
People love feeling special. There’s a thrill and excitement of feeling like you got a deal that no one else received. There’s a sense of accomplishment with it — a show of bravado.
But this thrill can be misleading. Business Insider reports how coupons actually make you spend more money.
Business Insider quotes Uptall Dholakia, a professor of marketing at Rice University,
“The thrill of using a coupon and getting a better deal than other consumers takes precedence and shoppers lose sight of the actual cost. The result: Regular coupon users often spend more for an item than those who don’t use coupons.”
Coupons make you buy things you normally didn’t need in the first place. In the same vein, the scourers of local marketplaces never want to pay the list price. What gets them over the edge?
The game of haggling.
When it’s time for me to list my item, I put it slightly above what I’m willing to let it go for. When someone reaches out, I tell them, “Ok I’ll give you a deal, $10 off the list price if you take it today.” They immediately feel like a winner.
In capitalist America, this is what we Average Joes’ call “doing busines.”
But it’s just a game of human psychology, tugging on the endorphins and providing the comfort of connection with a stranger through a back door deal.
Business is life.
Business is a tiny microcosm of our daily interactions in life. Every day we are interacting with people, building trust, respect, and connections with them.
Business is no different. If you come honest and firm, you’ll get results. Every business transaction is a relationship. And you can’t enter a relationship only thinking about yourself.
