My experience of trying to sell an iPhone 6 on Quikr, Olx, Sulekha and Facebook Groups
A spur of the moment decision, I decided to buy an iPhone 7 Plus last evening. Since then, I have been experimenting with many avenues to sell my current iPhone 6, 64GB version. 24 hours hence, this is what I’ve found.
Quikr:
Posted the ad with photos of the front and back of the iPhone last night and received an email saying that the ad was live. Tried seeing the ad, but couldn’t. Thought there was an issue with the cache and forgot about it.
Tried this morning, again, and couldn’t find the ad. Created the ad yet again. Got an email that the ad was live. Tried to look for it, and couldn’t find it under my ads. Got in touch with Quikr via Twitter and they were surprisingly (I’ve been having a bad experience with Uber, PayPal and a few other brands about their social media interaction, but that story is for another day)very responsive.
Soon after this interaction, both the ads (for the same iPhone) went live.
Note the number of views on both the ads. All put together, a paltry total of 27 views, and zero enquiries.
Olx:
Uploaded the ad last night and it went live almost immediately. Started getting enquiries almost immediately.
A total of nine enquiries from 73 views. Except for perhaps 4 people, the others seemed resellers (buy today, sell tomorrow for a marginal profit).
Sulekha:
There was a time Sulekha meant “online classifieds” in India, much before “marketplaces” became a term. This site used to be my go-to for selling anything second hand. Every mobile phone I’ve owned till date has been sold on Sulekha. My two-wheelers (Scooty and Pulsar) were sold on Sulekha. So when it was time to sell my iPhone, Sulekha obviously was one of my options to sell the device. However, I was in for a surprise. While the website looked much cleaner, I couldn’t figure out how to sell my phone.
I figured that given it was getting late, I’d explore the site further after a good night’s sleep. Woke up this morning and tried again, and still couldn’t figure out how to sell. Tried contacting them using the live chat function, but the lady at the other end didn’t bother understanding my question. (Aside: How difficult is it to understand “How do I sell my iPhone on your website?”.) Instead, she as giving me template responses, something that I hate. Closed the tab, and that was the end of it.
Facebook Groups:
There are many groups where you can re-sell your stuff and for those in Chennai, Moore Market, the online FB version of the offline namesake was my first choice.
Lots of responses, a few of them on the group, and a few more on private messages. 11 enquiries in all, and FB doesn’t give me data on the reach of the post.
Did try other groups like Chennai Shopping, Re-use Sandhai and a couple more. A few likes on the post, but no response whatsoever.
Bottomline:
Haven’t managed to sell the phone yet but I’m sure that it will take place in the next couple of days. But here are my key takeaways:
- OLX is the clear leader as far as the online classifieds business is concerned. Quikr seems to have lost out somewhere along the way. Perhaps they are focusing more on real estate, jobs and other verticals they’ve entered into recently.
- I’m just not sure what Sulekha is doing these days.
- The engagement on Facebook Groups is just amazing on some groups and not at all in others. Also, Moore Market (the FB group) rocks :)
̶F̶i̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶C̶h̶e̶n̶n̶a̶i̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶u̶y̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶e̶c̶o̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶P̶h̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶6̶ ̶6̶4̶G̶B̶,̶ ̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶e̶!̶
Sold the phone yesterday, and it was not by any of the above means. Put up a post on my Facebook wall and the phone was taken in two hours flat.
Yes, you read that right. In two hours flat :) Social circle #FTW :)
