Hot or Not?

Recently, thanks to J&J, I have become addicted to online sales sites like Craigslist. I had never even looked at it before and now I am on it as frequently as teenagers are surfing MySpace. However, sometimes the headlines for these items are misleading as a magazine headline I read once. If the headline on the cover reads, The New Power Couple: Smart Women and Hot Men, the article should not be about how a woman is addicting to dating models and looking up their status on models.com.  

There are certain laws of etiquette you should follow when using these websites, as some of the misleading garbage is just wasting other people’s time. 

Law Number One: Just because it’s old, doesn’t make it vintage – Vintage, retro and antique are often abused words on online yard sale sites like Craiglist. Just because it’s old does not mean it falls into these categories. 

Vintage, according to Merriam-Webster, means a “period of origin or manufacture” or “length of existence” unless you are writing about a grape harvest. Therefore, to use the word, you should post the year. Example: Wingback Chair Vintage 1965. 

Retro means, “relating to, reviving, or being the styles and especially the fashions of the past : fashionably nostalgic or old-fashioned” and is appropriate to use if it is a 1950s, 1960s or 1970s item – as that is the common era referred to by this term.  

Antique means that something is ancient, a relic or “a work of art, piece of furniture, or decorative object made at an earlier period and according to various customs laws at least 100 years ago”. So, unless you have something a century old or something that mimics the style of something that old, you probably can’t call it antique. 

Even if you don’t follow these definitions exactly, keep this in mind: Don’t call something vintage, retro or antique because it’s dirty, broken, old and looks like it came out of the basement of a serial killer’s house. 

Law Number Two: No one wants your used undergarments – No tags attached? Throw them out. Period. 

Law Number Three: No one wants your trash – Charging $30 – $100 for your broken, fabricless, dirty stuff is not appealing. If you wouldn’t buy it at a yard sale for that price, or wouldn’t give it to a friend in that condition, don’t post it. 

Law Number Four: Post the price already – Everyone using these sites has had their time wasted by someone who posts something for $1 just to open it and see they are selling a list of $600 furniture. Be honest and don’t try to fool people and waste their valuable clicking time. They could have just missed buying what they were looking for because of you.   

Law Number Five: Take five seconds to write back or update your post – Even if the item is sold or has a pending pick-up, send an e-mail, even a mass one that says the item is no longer available.  If you can’t do that, take the item down or mark it sold. It’s ridiculous to leave an item up for a week or two after it’s gone.

Just keep these laws in mind and your buyers will appreciate it.

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