16 Tips Buying /Selling Craiglist/Ebay

Craigslist

• Using correct grammar and spelling makes it easier for the person reading your ad. Makes perfect cents. Deliberate puns on the advertisers part might be viewed as clever fun and put smiles on faces.   
• Keep your posting message handy. You will need it in order to check back in and cancel your ad after you have sold your product or service. 
• The most considerate thing to do once your ad has run its course is to cancel it so that people across your region will not take time to respond for something you are no longer in a position to offer them.
• Always be wary of scams. Always deal in cash and in person. Craigslist will not guarantee any transaction. Trust your gut. Always! If you start with suspicions on your mind, more than likely that will be exactly what you will get. There are plenty of buyers for what you're selling.
• Don't forget to use pictures and hotlinks. This post would be more entertain... easily read if there was a pic or two to break up the page. Pictures are an industry standard when selling product on line. It's so easy these days. Click a pic on the phone and post, attach, save, forward or whatever steps are needed to download the picture to your ad.  
• Set up a separate email address for your craigslist account. Even if you use the "Anonymous" option, your customers will get your email address when you respond to them after they have written to you through the anonymous function. I will admit it. This tip is on the top of my to do list. To keep my business correspondence away from all the other crap coming in on my original gmail. It's not all crap. That's my blog address and other stuff like that. I mean they will probably get linked eventually. See what I mean. A separate account will help me focus on selling and only selling. 
• More than 1 ad in 48 hours will get your IP soft-banned. If you break the rule too often the C-class and later the whole ISP will be soft-banned.  That will require a phone-verified account to continue posting.
• Wait at least 48 hours to re-post the same product or service to avoid penalty.

• Auctions will have a "Buy It Now" option.  Meaning you can purchase the item for a certain price without having to get into a bidding war with another person. Be warned: this price can often be higher.
• If you don't win an item, sellers will often direct you to similar items they are auctioning off or you can do another search yourself. eBay is a huge place, so don't get discouraged.
• "Reserve" prices, means that the seller will not sell the item unless the bids have reached a certain level.
• Always make sure to check the shipping costs. If you bid on an item for $100.00 and the shipping is $300.00, you will be paying $400.00. If you are only willing to pay a certain amount for an item, check the shipping costs first.
• Be aware of the snipers. Many bidders wait to the last few seconds of an auction to make a bid and many use a "sniper program" to do the bidding.
• You can be led to pay more than you expected or losing the bid if you wait until the last few minutes or seconds to do your final bidding.
• Better to do some research and decide ahead of time how much you want to spend on the item and put in a proxy bid approximately 2 minutes before the end of the auction and then don't look at the auction until it is over...
• Do not make bids that you can't actually back up financially. This will lead to a poor rating by facebook.  Each bid you make on eBay is considered a binding contract.