Des Moines Craiglist Buyer/Seller's Review

My old roommate first introduced me to Craigslist almost three years ago. We were moving out of our townhouse and I was looking to sell my patio furniture. I knew I would never actually have a garage sale, but I didn't want to give it away since I had only had it 2 months and had paid a little over $100 for it. Craigslist was a great solution.

Not only is it easy to use because everything is broken down into convenient categories, but you are dealing directly with local people so most purchases can be picked up directly making delivery and shipping charges basically unheard of. For the most part, you can find any type of item or service on Craigslist including childcare services, electronics, clothing ... you can even barter items with other people.

I ended up selling my patio furniture for $75 which was much more than I had initially thought I would ever get. After that I began looking to sell and buy just about anything. I bought a wii system (the entire sports package, nunchucks, remote controls, etc.) for $50 less than I found on ebay. Probably my best find on Craigslist was a service. I had been looking everywhere for an in-home daycare close to my neighboorhood with no avail. Most of the childcare services I found on advertisements were large facilities. Craigslist just happens to be a great place for people to advertise because it's free and easy to use. My new daycare provider had just moved back to the area and while extremely qualified, didn't know how to go about getting her name out there, thus she tried Craigslist and pulled in 5 new clients within days!!

There are certain downfalls of Craigslist. People often post and repost items multiple times creating a lot of clutter to sort through and there isn't an extremely effective search system put into place yet. Another downfall actually is often times the result of one of the good part of Craigslist. Since Craigslist is local, when purchasing a big item, many times people come and see the product they are thinking about buying. Because of this people will hold onto items thinking someone is going to come look at it, only to be disappointed when that person doesn't show up.