Up for grabs — a slinky silver morphsuit
Facebook Buy & Sell groups are attracting thousands who like the safety of community
Like a grocery store on an empty stomach, the Internet on alcohol can be a regrettable combo. Whatever led to his purchasing a silver morphsuit online, Kevin Delaney isn’t sure.
“I legit don’t remember buying it,” laughs the Toronto-based software salesman. “I know that I’ve never worn it or used it.”
But with the growing marketplace of online garage sales, boozy regrets can quickly be remedied if you know where to look. Though Kijiji, eBay and Craigslist may seem the go-to sites for off-loading unwanteds, an emerging platform of “For Sale” groups on none other than Facebook is a new trusted route for experienced sellers like Delaney.
And that’s where he took his shiny new spandex friend. “Would be great for Halloween, scaring people, and no doubt for weird bedroom antics,” reads Delaney’s sales pitch in the “CityPlace Buy & Sell” group.
Posting a classified ad on local Facebook “For Sale” groups is easy once you’re admitted.
Members simply create a “Sell Something” post to the group and wait for a response. Responses to Delaney’s post came within minutes, some of the more than 1,000 members joking he should start a blog about his online purchases, or that he could charge more than a crisp green bill for the suit.
“I posted it to make people laugh, add a little bit of humour, and it accomplished what I was trying to accomplish,” he says.
Delaney has had a lot of success on Facebook selling mostly musical equipment, and he prefers the social network to the anonymous connections of Kijiji and Craigslist, where he’s “met too many people on subway platforms.”
Over the last two years, he estimates he’s made a couple thousand dollars selling on neighbourhood Facebook groups. Though many sellers like Delaney use both Kijiji and Facebook, they often agree that the latter is a better avenue in terms of sales and safety.
“I find on Kijiji I get a lot more people trying to lowball me,” he says. Facebook is also a platform that both buyer and seller feel more secure using.
Since the neighbourhood-specific groups are on Facebook, the transactions are never faceless or anonymous.
The community feel of the groups also allow for amusing neighbourly inquiries. When Toronto Beaches mom Ann Marie Pellat was faced with a lost toy and a crying toddler, she thought she’d try her fellow Facebook moms:
“ISO* Wait for it . . . half a plastic play avocado,” she wrote to the “Toronto Beaches Moms Buy & Sell” group.
“My husband ran over it with the lawn mower and our 3 year old is devastated.” Quick to respond with a matching avocado-half was Kathryn Damianidis, who found the toy at her Beaches preschool Lil’ Learners.
“I wasn’t sure if she was serious,” Damianidis recalls with a laugh. The Facebook platform was a space unlike Craigslist where the moms felt secure posting about their children’s lost toys.
“I like the fact that it’s in the neighbourhood,” says Damianidis. “It’s a comfort thing.”
Most “For Sale” groups are “closed” and require admittance by an administrator, one of the keys to their success.
“It’s a little bit more private than Kijiji and Craigslist,” says James Wilkinson, currently selling a “bunch of sticks and birch in a glass vase,” and one of the “Liberty Village Buy and Sell” group’s administrators who govern more than 4,700 members.
But like any tight-knit community,
“I posted it to make people laugh, add a little bit of humour, and it accomplished what I was trying to accomplish.” KEVIN DELANEY ON POSTING HIS SILVER MORPHSUIT ON A FACEBOOK GROUP
neighbours may squabble, privacy or not.
“There’s the rules part, which can get rather volatile at times,” says Wilkinson. On groups like his, one motto rings true: good fences make good neighbours, and these digital fences are rules — strict rules.
Post the same item only once a month. No links. One photograph per post. No “price bashing.” No “bumping” posts. No firearms. No clothes. No animals. Sell in sequential order to interested buyers.
Violation of the rules will result in your post’s removal without notice and your possible banning from the group.
For some buyers and sellers, the administration can seem a little authoritarian.
“It feels like the rule book is getting bigger and bigger,” says Kristina Lyublinskaya, a member of Wilkinson’s group and avid seller of clothing items. Since the spring, she estimates she has made about $500 on Facebook, but not on the main group. Since clothing was disallowed on the original Liberty Village page, splinter markets have formed for niche items.
“In any online community, especially something like Facebook, you’ll have mods that are power-tripping,” says CityPlace resident Delaney, a member of several “For Sale” groups, including the 18,000-member GTAwide “Junk In Da Trunk,” which follows a firm next-in-line rule where sellers must move in sequential order through interested buyers. “Rules do have a place in order to keep things fair in a community of that size.”
Despite the rule book and ease of community engagement, morphsuit owner Delaney knows that some sales don’t always pan out. “I had somebody interested, but I didn’t sell it,” he says.
Still up for grabs: “1x XL Silver Morphsuit. $20.”