[dragonfly]

The craigslist genie sent me this:

SF bay area craigslist > peninsula > for sale / wanted > photo/video

How not to sell stuff in the Photo/Video Section of Craigslist - $1 (mountain view)
Date: 2010-02-02, 1:54PM PST

I see enough posts in Craigslist to know some folks just ain't serious in selling their stuff. So there must be a market for Not Selling Stuff. If you are interested in not selling stuff in the Photo/Video section, follow this handy guide:

Tips for not selling your items on the Photo/Video section of Craigslist:

• Don't post a photograph of the item. After all, it is the Photo/Video section of Craigslist and why should anyone expect you to actually have, you know, a camera.
  
• Mention how much you paid for your item as if any buyer actually cares. Insult your buyer's intelligence by asking for an outrageous price assuming buyers won't spend 30 seconds to Google your item or find similar items on Craigslist.
  
• List a price more than a reputable company (such as B&H) does for a new product that ships for free. And then mention you have to sell today.
  
• If you sell a bag, box or container, list it merely as a bag, box, or container without dimensions or description or even a manufacturer or model. This might give prospective buyers a clue on its capacity.
  
• Use all UPPER CASE in describing the item. It makes you look like a psycho and keeps buyers at bay because few buyers enjoy the notion of ending the deal with a steak knife in their neck.
  
• Use all lower case because if you really wanted to interest buyers, you would take the initiative to reach WAY over to the shift key.
  
• Write your post when you're angry, hate the world, and believe all buyers are idiots.
  
• Ignore standard prose. Type the item description as if you're texting a friend from a faulty cell phone while being chased by a werewolf. Use as many arcane abbreviations, crummy grammar and misspellings as you can. Make it look like the buyer is dealing with an overly medicated, eight-year-old.
  
• Indicate that there are 'too many details, email for more information' but then list two pages of specifications.
  
• Indicate 'No scammers or spammers.' This will certainly prevent scamming or spamming.
  
• Describe the reason you're selling the item is because it doesn't meet your needs, your sister doesn't want it, and you need an upgrade and 'nobody shoots film anymore.' This demonstrates your marketing shrewdness.
  
• Tersely mention, 'Don't ask if the camera is still available. If this listing is still showing, the article isn't sold yet.' This will certainly cover the gap between your selling the item, having lunch, driving back home, downloading some porn, remembering to remove the listing from Craigslist, and the time Craigslist updates its database and actually removes the listing.
  
• Create one long rambling paragraph ignoring punctuation that is painful to read and nearly indecipherable. After all, who wants to buy anything when they have a splitting headache?
  
• Be sure to use the word 'professional.' It makes you appear professional.
  
• If you list a third party camera lens, don't indicate what camera mount it has. Then sound irritated when you get eight calls asking if it will fit an Asahi Pentax.
  
• Describe your item using ad copy from the 1993 brochure of your product.
  
• Mention, 'I only used this camera once to test it,' to limit your sales potential to only those dumb enough to believe it.
  
• And if you happen to include a photo, be sure it's dark, murky and out-of-focus. This will support your professionalism.
  
• Write, 'Will only reply to those who provide name and contact information,' because there is some other method possible that you know of but you refuse to use that method.
  
• Make it difficult for buyers to reach you by indicating you won't read emails or take voice messages, and will accept text messages between 10 p.m. and midnight. Let them know just how much you don't want to sell the item you've posted.

Craigslist Glossary for the Photo/Video Section

• Cannon = Artillery piece that fires projectiles.
• Canon = Japanese camera company
• Classic = See Vintage
• Collectable = Verb or noun, when used to describe anything digital, see Vintage.
• Collectable = Verb or noun, when used to describe anything film based other than a Nikon F6, any Leica or Canon or Nikon Rangefinder or third party lens, see Vintage.
• Includes box = a selling proposition with the delusion that, somehow, the original box provides a value but, in reality, doesn't.
• Len = Either someone's truncated way of spelling lens; a guy's name; or that group from Canada who did 'Steal My Sunshine.'
• Lense = A bastardized way of spelling lens; used by computer newbies who don't know how to use their spell checker.
• Millimeter = a unit of measurement in the metric system equal to one thousandth of a meter.
• Millimiter = A really tiny saw used by millipedes to make accurate cross cuts. Sometimes mentioned by number to describe a lens.
• Mint = Mistakenly used to describe good condition. A true mint condition lens, for instance, has never been handled by a consumer much less mounted even once on a camera.
• Rare = Never really successful when the item was new
• Student Camera = A film-based camera the owner wants to dump.
• Vintage = Lame adjective used in an attempt to glorify gear that is old, worn and mostly useless. No sane person sells true classic photo gear (Leica M2, Nikon rangefinders, etc.) in the Photo/Video section of Craigslist.

* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Is this original or a repost?

I'll add: re-post your shitty camera gear week after week but never lower the price.

[icywarm]

I once asked someone if I could just buy the lens mentioned in an ad.

Pentax Mx 50mm f/3 & Sigma Something something....

Well at the time I just wanted the Sigma, I thought it might be a good walk around lens. The seller simply would not give me the cost of just the lens.

It was $100 for the camera + $100 for lens, than $60 for camera and lens would come for additional $100, but I could not just buy the lens. It was odd, like the 3rd party lens was somehow part of the pentax camera....

[JeffJS]

Applies to everything sold online and everywhere it is sold, not just camera equipment and not just craigslist. The favorite photo shown by most seems to be from a cell phone at a 100 foot distance.