I've posted about this before. About selling "worthless" stuff on Carousell. I called the stuff worthless because as of this point in time the stuff actually is worth nothing to me. It is usually just taking up space in the corner of my house and if I can convert this to a couple of dollars it would be more beneficial to me regardless of how much I can get for it. Any amount is better than a worthless paperweight.
I previously ran a blog shop with my wife and we didn't sell off all our inventory. I was trying very hard to sell the stuff on Carousell one piece at a time. It was by sheer luck that someone wanted to buy a large number of my products for resale. Upon hearing that she wanted to resell the items I immediately offered her a bulk purchase. She initially only went to buy 20 only pieces, which was about 1/3 of my remaining inventory. Instead I offered her a large discount for her to take all of my inventory. She accepted the deal and I met up with her and completed the transaction. This resulted in quite a large loss on the remaining inventory almost 50% of cost. However I was actually very happy with the deal as it allowed me to clear up a large portion of my room and remove the clutter. I was also tired of selling the items one piece at a time.
You see, when I was selling the items one at a time, people would want to buy maybe one piece. I sold each piece at five dollars. This would mean that I need it to set aside time and travel down to the place to meet up with the person. After which, the deal may or may not even go through. The uncertainty of individual deals and traveling up and down itself was a cost. Could you imagine previously for a $5 to $10 deal I would need to set time off on the weekend, travel down to the meeting place and still be uncertain whether the deal would go through. Transportation itself was at least $3 not to mention the time spent.
So when the buyer was interested in a bulk purchase, I jumped on the opportunity and gave her a deal which she could not refuse. In one swift move I managed to dispose all of my remaining inventory from my previous business venture. Although it was at a loss, I found that that was the best final outcome, and it was also the most efficient one.
I still have different types of inventory which I have listed on my account, but does take up a lot less space. I am also attempting to slowly sell those items or hopefully someone will offer me another bulk purchase again.
So I come to the point of today's post, the thing is, I see many people listing items on Carousell. They list items at maybe one dollar or five dollars. I'm wondering whether it is even efficient to transact at such prices. I recently offered to buy something from somebody on Carousell. I wanted to buy a large number of the items at a discount. So I offered the seller three dollars for each of his items. He had items listed between three dollars to $10. So I told him that I would take any of the items if he was willing to sell them at three dollars each.
I expected him to sell me everything that he had from three dollars to six dollars. This was because I thought that it made good business sense, cause it simply was inefficient for him to keep waiting for someone to buy individual pieces one at a time. To my surprise he only was willing to sell the items which he listed at 3 to 4 dollars.
I found it quite strange and I think many people also think like him. They would prefer to wait for someone to offer a slightly higher price. And yet if we think about it logically, it would be faster and more efficient to sell items at a lower price if it was going to be a fuss-free deal.
From my own thinking I did not expect him to sell me any item 7 dollars and above. For this range I think it might be worth waiting for a better offer. However, I had expected him to be willing to sell me everything that he listed between 3 to 6 dollars.
This is because, at six dollars, he was waiting for another offer only three dollars more than me. (I had offered only three dollars per piece) . So if he waited for another offer at six dollars he would still need to travel to meet up with the buyer, or negotiate, or will have to wait an extended period of time before someone offers that price.
And to me that would have been just inefficient. Truly I think that a bird in hand is really worth more than two in the bush. Waiting for a deal that may or may not happen in the next six months just for a couple of bucks isn't really good business sense in my opinion.
Nonetheless the products are still his so it is up to him to decide whether to sell them or not. Personally I just found it inefficient to be holding out for at that price at such a low quantum. It's not like stocks where there is an open market and it is highly liquid. Most items listed on Carousell are usually illiquid and would take quite some time to sell.
After going through with that deal, I went back to my account to review all my listings. I decided to reduce the prices of many of my items again as I was very inclined and motivated to clear off many of my "worthless" items.
(Note that I use the word worthless but my items are mostly new and can still be used. They are just worthless to me because I do not need them and they are just taking up space in my storeroom.)
So from my logical point of view, any amount is worth more than just leaving the items idle in the store room. Of course the amount offered still needs to be worth for me to travel down to complete the deal.
Hope that today's post was able to bring some new perspective to readers. And maybe this would inspire you to also list some of your stuff for sale so that you might be able to declutter your house.
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