Finally got rid of the old TV and all the furniture that was taking up space in the bedroom and closet. I managed to sell both the TV and the TV stand separately on Craigslist, and posted up the console table in the free section of Craigslist.
The most interesting part of the sales process was this one Chinese couple that came to pick up the TV stand and then tried to haggle with me over the price. They strategized in Mandarin right in front of me (thinking I could not understand them), so I played dumb and just let them talk. This gave me a distinct advantage in the negotiating process (Mandarin in italics):
Husband: Well? Want to just take it?
Wife: It’s a little expensive
Husband: We’ve looked around and haven’t found any as good as this one.
Wife: Is the price negotiable?
Kabitzin: No.
Naturally they kept trying, but I continued to stand firm since I already knew they were resigned to buying the TV stand anyway. After a few more pathetic attempts to haggle, the couple paid full price for the item and took the TV stand off my hands.
Of course I had to withstand the steep Craigslist learning curve as well. At first I made the mistake of reserving items for people who called in about the stuff on sale. In particular, there was this one group of firemen that wanted the TV to play video games in the station. They were supposed to come by in their firetruck and pick it up. Everyone acted like they were going to pick up their goods on Saturday, but I waited around for hours and nobody showed up at the condo. Instead of getting strung along for several days (undoubtedly they inquired about several items and just took the best deal, leaving the others for backup), I just sent emails to all the interested buyers and informed them that I was going to sell to whoever came to pick up the items first. Once this happened, all 3 items were sold and taken away within 40 minutes.
Now I know that to survive on Craigslist, you have to be cold and heartless. I also know not to live in the district where those firemen are from (Bunky tracked them down), because they are unreliable and would probably be slow to respond to emergencies (too busy playing video games).
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LOL! I don’t know why but it’s just too funny hearing that a Chinese couple tried to keep you out of the loop in Mandarin
I’ll have to remember that for my bag of tricks 
LOL, this is awesome. My mom and I often talk about prices in Chinese when shopping. This is like one of my worst fears lol, to meet someone that speaks Mandarin haha.
The worst part is that speaking Mandarin isn’t even rare.
Some good tips on using Craigslist! That reminds me of when I was trying to sell my monitor at the end of my 3rd semester at CU. I’d agreed to sell it for $50 to a guy (and turned down other offers), but when he showed up, he conveniently “only had $20 in his pocket”. I ended up having to sell it to him for $20 since it was the last day to move out. I’m definitely using the first come first serve policy for future sales.
Ender, you are weak. The key is to just not respond to the other offers, ever. Just be rude and ignore them so you have a fall-back plan. The buyers are doing the exact same thing.
wait a sec… if you know Mandarin… THEN YOU MUST BE OF ASIAN DECENT!!! OH EM GEE!!! *writes down in stalker journal*
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