"Hi, can you tell me the dimensions of the entertainment center you've got advertised in the paper?"
"Yes, but I'm in the car driving right now. Can you call me back in about 15 minutes?"
"Yeah, sure."
No call back.
Or the one who left a message. I tried her back twice, and she never called again.
Why? Why would you go to the trouble of answering an ad, and then not follow through?
Is there something in my voice that makes me sound like someone that you wouldn't want to buy furniture from?
Then there are the blank emails, or emails with the wrong return address. (They can't hear me, so that shouldn't be a factor.)
I'm beginning to think that everyone else has 50 million things going at once too. Three jillion things to cross off their "to do" list. Maybe they forget to call back, and then figure it's already been sold.
But it hasn't.
---
Begin Bloggomercial!
If anyone local (near Birmingham, Alabama) needs some lovely teak furniture...
These are pictures I saved from the ad circular when I bought the furniture, and are a little scratchy (the pics, not the furniture).
It's not politically correct to buy teak anymore, since most of the time it's not grown in a sustainable fashion. Of course it's fine to buy used teak.
If anyone would like to give our furniture a new home, email me... we just don't have room for it.
End of bloggomercial!
8 comments:
When we sold our house in Santa Cruz we had some furniture we weren't going to take with us. We put an ad up in the local university newspaper. Students are often looking for used furniture. Maybe a flyer with those photos at a local college might help.
Good idea, thanks!
Are you sure it's not all wrinkly and covered in words.
Hey, maybe if you throw in a little soap with the deal, the purchaser will feel less "dirty" about buying teak. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
Describing things as "retro" can help.
Saying it is illegal to possess teak would help as well.
Look what it does for the drug trade..
I've been thinking about related stuff lately. There's a woman on my local Freecycle list who has her e-mail set up so that it only accepts mail from her pre-set list of addresses. Invariably she responds to one of my posts but I can't reply to her letting her know she can have the whatsit - I only get an e-mail back asking me to send another note to somewhere else seeking permission to gain admittance to her approved address list. She also posts items using this address so one can't even indicate an interest easily.
Maddening. Why would you respond to a public list if you don't accept e-mails? I'm sure she wonders why Freecycling isn't working for her.
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