Video killed the radio star. It was the classifieds, Craigslist killed those, now Marketplace took over everything.
I don’t find selling on Marketplace nearly as annoying as I used to. I used to answer every message and get really annoyed at the time wasters, but then I figured out it is easy to sort out the serious buyers from the time wasters.
1. Anyone who asks a list of detailed questions is a time waster. 1 maybe 2 legitimate questions of information that is not contained in the ad I will reply to. Otherwise I just delete their message.
I was selling a snowmobile and this guy sent me a list of 10 questions starting with do I have all the receipts for all the repairs that have been made on the sled. Like it was a 1992 snowmobile. Who would have all the receipts? Deleted. Then he sends me another message wondering why I haven’t replied. So then I replied with your message has been deleted and blocked him.
2. The number one concern for a legit buyer will be when can I see it. A real buyer wants an in person time and they want it soon. Real buyers know that there’s competition on Facebook and they want to be the winner. I want to sell to winners. Not tire kicking losers.
3. A real buyer has his Schmidt together and is ready to buy. Anyone sending me requests asking if I can hold it until the weekend when they can get to the bank to get money and get permission from their mom is not worth dealing with and I just delete their message.
Basically once I started applying those rules and just filtering out the messages and immediately deleting the losers it was a lot easier and a lot less hassle.
Good luck.