I may never get the hang of social media. It is faster to get the message out that you have a hangnail and need help to cure it. It’s free to advertise your business or something for sale. But remember you get what you pay for.
Jeez-O-Pete! Back in the day, if you listed, say, a tractor for sale in the newspaper, people who called you were actually looking for a tractor and had the money for a tractor.
A newspaper ad doesn’t get 37 responses in two minutes all wanting to know if the tractor is still available. No one ever called and the first thing out of their mouth was “What is your bottom dollar on this item?”
A caller is not likely to want to know when the spark plugs were last changed on the tractor, how the tire lugs are and what its Social Security number and bank account are.
Likewise, it is probably pretty uncommon for someone to offer a rusted minibike frame, 13 pounds of topsoil and a kite string for the tractor.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I like a barter as well as the next gal and I have an eye for a bargain. But when did good manners go out the window? And why did they have to take common sense along with them?
To post an item for sale on social media, you’d better include the parameters up front. Things like we want cash, we will (or won’t) negotiate the price, and we don’t do trades. Or maybe we do. Like I need a rusted minibike frame.
Then, don’t forget to tell them you won’t bring the tractor to them, you aren’t (or are) going to take payments, and where the tractor is sitting, within reason. I mean, if you give the precise location, what are the odds someone will take off with it? Probably very high. I’m sure there are individuals out there who make all their income from locating and swiping items listed for sale on social media. Sheesh!
Then here is the other thing. If you really want to sell the tractor, no one is interested in it. That’s true no matter where it is advertised. But, oh, boy, if you are just testing the waters, aren’t sure you want to sell, and don’t have any idea how you will replace the tractor when it sells, that joker will fly out of the yard at light speed and you’ll be left standing with a pile of cash and no tractor.
Then, when the sale is completed to the satisfaction of both parties, on social media there is no end to the whining and gnashing of teeth about it. How could you have sold it to the first person who showed up when promised, cash in hand, and made the deal? After all, they had messaged three weeks ago and promised to come kick the tires when they had the time, got paid and felt like it. If it wasn’t raining, or the wind blowing.
Or they really needed the item in question to escape a fate worse than death, get out of town, end homelessness and hunger in America, and you thwarted the mission by doing what you set out to do, sell the item. You dirty rotten capitalist.
It goes on and on and on. No end to it, because the Internet remembers forever. Someone is bound to message you about the tractor in five or six years just to see if it is still available.
Yes, newsprint has its limitations. But it goes a long way toward eliminating the woo-woo factor, and that is saying a lot these days.