Dabbling in Carousell over the long weekend

It’s been a busy long weekend. We went for a church service on Good Friday morning, went for lunch and dinner celebrations with our families later that day and on Sat as well. Not to mention the whole lot of shopping my wife did with her mum in between the lunches and dinners. We finally have a day off to ourselves today and will probably just relax and do nothing.

There was something I did during the past 2 days that I felt was worth mentioning on this blog. You see, while my wife and her mum were out shopping, I was resting at home on my sofa. It’s not in my nature to take a nap because I find it to be unproductive. But I found myself dozing off. And I started wondering about what I could do around the apartment. It had already been cleaned the day before, the dishes and laundry were done. Not much luck in that department. I remembered thinking about how to get rid of this cooking pan that I won as part of a division-wide lucky draw at a company event last year.

It’s been taking up space in our kitchen for a few months now. Just sitting unused and unwanted. Felt bad to see it lying around and I tried giving it to our families but they don’t need a cooking pan. When we left Sydney in 2013, we sold most of our stuff in the rental apartment on Gumtree. I had already stopped work but my wife still had a few weeks to go. It was an interesting and eye-opening experience because I didn’t realise there was such a demand for second-hand goods in Sydney.

But I never thought the same idea could take off in Singapore. I had heard of Carousell from my wife’s friend when she was shifting rental apartments and managed to sell quite a bit of stuff on Carousell. Before I go any further, I should say that this post is not sponsored by Carousell. This is consistent with the current approach for my blog whereby I do not write sponsored posts for money and there are no ads anywhere. I might consider allowing guest posts for different topics and perspectives but that’s a separate issue. I didn’t think I had to make it clear that this is not a sponsored post for Carousell but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Anyway, It was unbelievable to me that a market for second-hand goods could actually exist in Singapore. Actually, if you think about it, it’s not that far-fetched considering how you have a lot more people renting and moving around now than before. And they don’t want to pay full prices for first-hand goods that they might not hang on to for a long time. So they rather pay lower prices for second-hand goods that are still functional and can be used for a short time.

Back to that cooking pan. I decided to set up an account on Carousell and list it for sale to test the market. Good thing I have some prior experience with this. I know I have to review the current market prices on Carousell so I don’t price myself out. But I don’t want the listing to stay on Carousell for too long. Plus I didn’t buy the cooking pan so any money collected will be immediate profits for me. I decided to undercut the average market price by S$10 to be the lowest priced seller.

The strategy works and I have a few potential buyers contact me by the end of the day. I was willing to deliver the cooking pan (since I drive) to an address in the East side of Singapore for an additional S$5 – S$10 depending on how far the buyer is from me. This delivery fee concepts works as well. I sold the cooking pan the next day at the listed price plus S$5 for the delivery fee.

I was getting excited about this. I know I’m late to the game because Carousell has been around for a while already. And I probably listed the cooking pan at too low a price for a buyer to bite so quickly. But I still made money and the cooking pan goes to someone who will use & appreciate it. Win-win for all parties. The next time, I might list the item close to the average market price (especially if I paid for it previously) so it takes a longer time to sell but I get a better price. Lesson learnt for the future.

Actually, that future is now. I just sold a standing fan today that my wife’s family passed to us a few years ago after they bought a new standing fan. So this old standing fan has become even older after we bought a new one but it’s still of value and use to the buyer. However, I made the same mistake of undercutting the average market price by too much since we didn’t pay for the standing fan previously. Seems to be a common theme here. Never mind, it’s time to learn the lesson again for the next item I’m planning to sell.

I can’t help thinking about how much the world has changed. I told this story to both our parents and they were surprised that this could actually work in Singapore. It’s definitely a much better alternative to throwing our used stuff away since someone out there could be willing to pay for and use it. I’m not going to count this as my side hustle since I have only sold two items. But I’m going to keep looking out for stuff in my apartment that we are not using and could potentially be sold on Carousell. Good way to pass my free time!