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Top Tips: Selling your household furniture, appliances, unfinished TV/Cell phone/Wifi contracts, etc.

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  1. #11

    Join Date
    Feb 2011
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    Hong Kong
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    Buying things is generally a nightmare, and sell them too.

    I find it pretty easy to sell appliances and electronic items, as long as it is priced right. I always play by the rule, whoever shows up first to take it gets it. If you hold items for people, I don't see how that pays off, as they rarely show up. So when people say an item is sold, I always say let me know if it becomes available again and more so than not, it does.

    As a buyer, I typically look through the forums and save a couple phone numbers and shoot them a message. I find most of the people selling stuff have a bunch of stuff to sell, so I always kind of ask them what are you selling and how much, and if important the measurements and more photos. Merely to judge to quality/condition of an item. Then I try to put together a good bargain.

    I ask about the price because sometimes they will say a cheaper price on whatsapp, and I think on average I save about $100 per item and that adds up, so why not.

    Some pains as a buyer, people don't hold items for you after they said they would, people don't prepare the items for you when you arrive (i.e. bookshelves full of books), people ask your movers to move some of their own furniture around, people don't tell you it's ikea, people don't tell you its in a walkup, people don't tell you the furniture can't fit out of the door, people don't tell you it doesn't fit in the lift, after you pin point a time you are coming, you arrive in the time frame and they say they are at work or busy. But the seller is supposed to be selling stuff.

    And if someone broke your lamp, then they need to pay for it. If someone left a deposit and wants to cancel an item, make them pay for everything or keep the deposit and put the stuff back for sale. I mean people need to follow what they say.


    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiaque:
    I once gave away for free a broken kettle.... this one man called and had to ask 20 questions. 20 questions!!! To which my reply is something like "It's free, you don't get to ask questions...". Eventually, I arranged for him to come pick it up, but then I made some mistake and wasn't home at that time, which he was very upset about (understandably), but I tried to carry on the question of "when would you like to get it?"... instead he had to really berate me about how I didn't show up when we agreed on a time. I ended up hanging up on him, and so he proceeded to keep calling me back! About 20 times. Then he switched to a different number to get me to answer. The whole time I couldn't even tell if he was actually still interested in the broken kettle, or if he just wanted to go on a rant about how I had inconvenienced him.

    In defense of buyers, though, while all of your points saminhongkong are good, to some degree you can't take it too seriously. Measurements and more pictures actually are really helpful to save you 2+ hours to go in person to see something. (And it's so annoying that many people actually fail to include measurements, which leads me to just skip their ad because I can't be bothered to bug them...) But at the end of the day, you're selling used items, and they have lost value, and while you might think it worth $xx to you, it might not really be valuable. I once witnessed negotiation about some curtains a new tenant was buying from an old, and the guy really refused to go down on the price even though he was stuck in the "I'm relocating and don't need it" boat. After I had been traveling around in a developing country, this whole conversation seemed to petty to me -- that this guy who lives in a 6-digit-rent apartment would be so stubborn about a few hundred HK...

    So when you buy new stuff, know you're going to lose when you try to resell it. So buy used stuff!!!
    Elegiaque likes this.

  2. #12

    Join Date
    Aug 2005
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    shit, save the hassle and do what the locals do, dump it all to the landfill

    MandM! likes this.

  3. #13

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    Feb 2011
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    End up throwing away a lot in the end.


  4. #14

    Join Date
    Oct 2012
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    Quote Originally Posted by wtbhotia:
    shit, save the hassle and do what the locals do, dump it all to the landfill
    Quote Originally Posted by MandM!:
    End up throwing away a lot in the end.

    That's awful. If you offer it for free, no matter what condition, usually someone will come and take it within 1 day. The landfills are in awful shape in Hong Kong, and sadly that's where all our rubbish is going. Definitely a huge waste.
    HK_Katherine likes this.

  5. #15

    Join Date
    Sep 2012
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    in my suit case
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    Some new fraud alert!

    *** People will call your service provider for wifi/TV service now using your telephone number to transfer your service. PCCW does several verifications. I had an idiot try to add channels to my TV subscriptions before I agreed to transfer to him. PCCW called and I was gobsmacked.

    Agree, there are sellers that are awful as well. That's why over detail in selling descriptions help sell. Confirming before heading out. I confirm, reconfirm. Unless I do an open house. This way, if the flakes don't show up, it doesn't bother you.

    I caution, do NOT hold items, just don't - if the person is serious they will come see it early and will put a deposit. If they aren't even motivated to come look at it and say they want it - chances are they are playing with you.

    I have been burnt so many times with pleads to hold items for them then listen to 50 dog ate home work excuses. Or, bargaining you down when you've turned others away.

    Bizarre world: I had some buyer accuse me of selling our things as a helper and would be calling the police. She was annoyed that we wouldn't negotiate the price. I told her to threaten someone is a crime in HK. Which it is.

    Be safe people. No good deeds goes unpunished.


  6. #16

    Join Date
    Sep 2012
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    in my suit case
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    Elegiaque, I'm not sure if this whole thread is petty. You tried to give away a broken kettle and wrote a wall on that experience

    It's important to first be safe when you're selling or buying.

    Most people actually if you surf the classifieds here are practically giving the items away. I sold my treadmill for HKD$200, an Ikea white table w/ red legs for HKD$78.00 that was in mint condition. If you convert these to Euros, pounds, USD, we're talking about lunch money. The way we price is 25% of the actual value then we peer it to what's on other resell sites.

    No one selling is intending to make money off of selling their used items.

    Why do most people sell: So, it doesn't go into landfill. So, items are repurposed. So, others who don't have the financial means can also have items they need, so it gets used as there's more use value. That is a social and cultural upbringing that disposable societies don't necessarily imprint.

    HK_Katherine likes this.

  7. #17

    Join Date
    Aug 2006
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    11,884
    Most people actually if you surf the classifieds here are practically giving the items away. I sold my treadmill for HKD$200, an Ikea white table w/ red legs for HKD$78.00 that was in mint condition. If you convert these to Euros, pounds, USD, we're talking about lunch money. The way we price is 25% of the actual value then we peer it to what's on other resell sites.

    No one selling is intending to make money off of selling their used items.

    I agree and have had similar experiences- I throw stuff up on online ads sometimes with purely nominal prices because I want to give things away but also want to put up a slight barrier to being inundated by "me me me" requests online. And there have been times where I've found online people to be so annoying to deal with, that I've tossed the items by the building trash collection in the hope that the garbage collectors will resell or recycle them.

    Though lately for some things it's gotten to the stage where I prefer the curbside recycling approach than going online. If I leave something out in the right place, someone will take it. When I used to live in Sheung Wan, I found an informal community dumping spot- people would drop things off around 4pm and other people would sort through it and take things. It was great.

    I ask about the price because sometimes they will say a cheaper price on whatsapp, and I think on average I save about $100 per item and that adds up, so why not.
    On the other hand, to me this is a red flag that the buyer is going to be a hassle to deal with! Similar to buyers who ask for all the technical specs of an item (i.e. a camera) when a quick Google will give them every answer they are looking for.
    Last edited by jgl; 27-07-2015 at 04:20 PM.
    saminhongkong likes this.

  8. #18

    Join Date
    Sep 2012
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    Agree!! Gosh, I'm right about there to donate my things to schools that need a conference room table or a leather sofa for a teacher's lounge. (I just hate calling up the schools like a pervert saying I want to give them something for free and have them look at me like I'm nuts as I've no kids at their schools).

    For me, at least I know it'll go to someone who wouldn't have been able to afford it versus someone who can easily afford these items new but just trying to scam a deal.

    I actually had a lady that came to my home, climbed on my sofa, shoved the sofa out (scraping my landlord's wood floors) to see the back of the sofa, open the lining (I didn't even know about that?!) to see if the leather was real. Wanted to see the original receipt, asked where I bought it (relevance?).

    She then refused to put a down payment/deposit on it, but insisted that I hold it for her.

    Let us persevere on reselling, donating, if it's still useful, as the Earth can only take so much landfill. And, avoid the idiots that keep asking "your last price?"

    Last edited by saminhongkong; 27-07-2015 at 09:36 PM.

  9. #19

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    Oct 2012
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    Quote Originally Posted by saminhongkong:
    Elegiaque, I'm not sure if this whole thread is petty. You tried to give away a broken kettle and wrote a wall on that experience
    ???

    The kettle still worked, but had some issues. Now it has a new home with a lady that uses it to make soup and is quite happy with it. It's not in a landfill and is being usable again to someone, which is the amazing thing about these classifieds.

    The guy's behavior was very strange. I've never had someone harass me over an advertisement like that. Dozens of calls! For about an hour, he called non-stop. It was the worst experience I've ever had with this kind of thing. Don't know why that's petty?

  10. #20

    Join Date
    Jun 2007
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    Ex Sai Kunger Sunny Qld for now
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    WOW....

    Sounds like you guys have had a bit of a run around lol

    We've bought and sold things within the Sai Kung community classifieds via face book, Sai Kung Magazine and via the expat groups and never had any issue apart from folks trying to bum a free delivery out of you. Pretty rare though.

    I tend to offer low prices to make things as impulse/price attractive as possible and not the type to mess people around. I think because a lot of people out here own a car, that it tends to negate the folks that say they are going to turn up, but don't. They drive up, pay for the item, pop it in their car and drive away.. Too easy! Maybe it is a public transport user thing, to be more likely to mess folks around ?
    Maybe....

    At the end of the day, if I have decided to get rid of something because we no longer need it, then it offers a good opportunity for somebody else. Everybody likes a good deal. I do shake my head at folks that are so mean spirited and hard up who advertise loose audio/computer cables etc on the classifieds from time to time. I'd give that sort of stuff away for free.

    Last edited by Skyhook; 28-07-2015 at 09:53 AM.