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Illustration by Drew Shannon
Selling my stuff on Facebook Marketplace starts with a simple action. Just a few keystrokes and it’s done. A straightforward initiative founded on good intentions.
But soon, it morphs into something unpredictable, ricocheting all over the place, taking you along for an emotional roller-coaster ride that you never saw coming.
Reality TV has nothing on this cutthroat hawking and bartering world. Like a Shakespearean tragi-comedy, it’s full of twists and turns, highs and lows, with a pinch of Pollyanna and a truckload of Machiavelli.
If the transaction unfolds as it should, I can walk away feeling righteous satisfaction at having done a good deed. I’ve saved someone some money, decluttered my home and given the item another lease on life with a new owner. Polite and timely messages have accompanied the deal, resulting in a warm and collegial exchange at the door. Both parties are happy. This is how the deal should go down, but it rarely happens this way.
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Instead, the exchange usually involves more complex and mind-bending negotiations than Canada’s current U.S. trade talks.
Here’s a typical scenario. I will post an ad for a “barely used” youth bike for $80. My pitch is clear and direct, with all pertinent details, such as the most recent mechanical tune-ups. Seconds later, a response comes in, asking if I will take $40. I stick to my guns. I did, after all, invest $100 in fixing the bike. (It’s common knowledge that sellers never recoup full market value for an item on Marketplace, so I don’t bother trying.) I feel a tickle of annoyance at this brazen lowball, but it’s early days, and at least someone is showing interest. I remain hopeful.
The lowballer then asks if the bike works. Yes, it works fine, I politely respond. This is stated in the description, after all. I am often quite proud of my restraint at this point, though I’ve had to take a few meditative breaths. The buyer then declares that they’ll e-transfer $40 to hold the bike, because they can’t pick it up until three weeks from tomorrow.
Despite my best efforts to stay calm, anger and frustration begin conspiring to raise my blood pressure. I may need to step away and take a short walk outside to destress. It’s a ridiculous offer – the bike is worth at least $200, but the ad didn’t generate any hits when posted last spring, so I might have to accept the $40, as insulting as that is.
After some fretful internal dialogue, I decide to accept the paltry offer. I really need to free up some space in my shed, after all. However, when I share this good news with the buyer and attempt to establish details of the pickup, they disappear into thin air. Poof. Perhaps they saw a better offer, or gave in to that urge to go pick up a meatball sub. Or toggled over to an episode of Love Island online. Whatever the reason, eventually I realize I’ve been ghosted. (Perhaps not so different from the Love Island episode after all.)
Another common ghosting scenario, perhaps even more infuriating, is when I agree on the time and date of the exchange, and the buyer doesn’t show up, or bother to let you know. They just … vanish. I too want to ghost Marketplace at this point.
In fairness, not all of the interactions are this annoying. Some are downright comedic, like the time when my husband and I attempted to deliver a large, dismantled desk unit across town. We had the address, or so we thought. The two buyers – buddies whose combined ages couldn’t have been much more than 30, neglected to tell us the townhouse number. Many laps later, we found them. I’m still not sure if they’ve put the desk together yet.
Some exchanges may even generate a warm, fuzzy feeling. There was the man who wanted to surprise his wife with our Bavarian dessert plates, because they reminded her of her Oma. Or the man who came to buy our old stereo system and proceeded to wax nostalgic about these classic music players for a good half hour. His passion was contagious. Maybe we shouldn’t have let that one go.
One interaction that I’ll never forget nearly made me cry. A young woman approached our door one evening to pick up a chair. Instantly, I knew something was wrong. Perhaps she’d just received some bad news, or broken up with her partner – whatever it was, she was barely keeping it together. “Are you okay?” I asked gently. She began crying and said “no.” Then she looked at me and said, “Can I have a hug?” I embraced this perfect stranger, someone I’d only talked to for a few seconds, all because of Facebook Marketplace.
If you decide to give it a go, don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s frustrating. But then you’ll make a sale, and be right back at it. Just like me.
Barbara Wilson lives in Cambridge, Ont.