Ask Lemmy

Outside of eBay, I do alright with my local thrift stores and the occasional garage sale. It's how I got an LCD tv from 2009 and an aerial antenna that gets most local stations with decent quality. I'll probably look for a more powerful aerial, since it looks like it's from the late '90s and doesn't quite do the job for some of the movie channels that are available.

It's Cuck porn, 100%

Ebay is still the best. It sucks that local thrift stores are such garbage these days. Goodwill, Salvation Army, Knights of Columbus, they're all pretty crummy these days. Goodwill went super corporate and became more like Big Lots (buying unsold department store stock) rather than a perpetual garage sale like it used to be. And prices for anything good are Ebay level.

Facebook marketplace seems to be a bunch of scams these days, not to say it isn't useful for some stuff but I've noticed niche items are often scammers/fakes. Not sure what their goal is. Craigslist depends on location but in my area it's shit now.

So since Ebay charges to list and sell stuff it's still best since that weeds out most scammers and you'll probably be paying Ebay prices wherever else you look at these days.

If you can find a locally owned, not-for-profit thrift store, that would be ideal. I’ve got one near me, it’s all volunteer run, any excess profits after building costs etc are paid go to charities. Local soup kitchens, that sorta thing. I feel good supporting it.

If you don’t have something like that near you, eBay is probably still best. If you’re in Canada, Kijiji is Canadian owned so you can feel better about supporting that rather than eBay. Facebook Marketplace can be good but you’ve gotta be careful, there’s lots of scams there.

A lot of hobbies will have used markets for that hobby specifically. Those will probably be best for those specific things. I’m not sure what you’re looking for specifically so I can’t offer suggestions on that obviously.

Gotta be Craigslist. There’s a small learning curve due to the simplicity of bulletin board sales, but there’s zero overhead so all money stays local. Peter Thiel gets none of it.

What kind of stuff are you looking for?

Also: Where?

There's a UK-based site called Preloved. I've only bought 2 things from it so far, but they were both like new and pretty rare. Reasonably priced, too. One of the things I got was an OG Steam Controller, which was selling for ludicrous prices elsewhere since it was discontinued, but the person I got it from sold it at face value. I think your success at secondhand buying is stronger when you find wee sites like that that most of the internet is unaware of. The best advice I have is to type your search query into your desired engine, and immediately go to page 2 or 3 of search results and start from there.

Here in Finland, tori is default. In Germany there is Kleinanzeigen. Often, flea markets are also quite good, especially when it comes to children's stuff.

For electronics I like bestbuy in canada or backmarket in the US just because they give you a warranty which is one of the things I'm worried about when buying 2nd hand so the peace of mind is nice.

One thing I really miss is the Used CD market. I know you can still get second hand CDs, but in the bad old days every music store would buy used CDs and sell them for like $7-$14 depending on how popular. In a mid-size town like mine, that'd be half a dozen stores.

I used to go to a music store every Sat and just flip through their used stuff. I'd pick up a CD or two every week and before you know it, I had a collection that's robust enough that I've never created an account with a streaming music service.

Still go to Craigslist sometimes

Local mom 'n' pop specialty shops are going to be the best, if you happen to have one nearby. Usually you get a fair deal near market price, without the bloat from eBay and Paypal taking cuts.

Thrift stores and yard sales have occasional great deals, but for the most part everyone knows if their item is worth something these days, so almost only junk goes there. And even if the donators don't realize, I think most thrift stores will filter valuable items out and sell them online.

I've only bought clothes (except socks, underpants, shoes and anything that's supposed to be waterproof) at second-hand stores for several years now. I got two pair of pants for 100 DKK (~12€) at a second-hand store in the spring. Also easy to get cheap shirts this way. The biggest problem for me is not the lack of good items, but moreso that they're usually too big for me.

from other comments it seems second-hand stores are worse in other places.

It depends.

eBay reflects the true market price, so it's a good place to sell. It's also a great alternative to *zon if you don't like Bezos.

craigslist is a great place to find bargains, but selection is a lot smaller, and you have constantly scan and respond quickly for the good stuff.

shopgoodwill.com, and also many local/regional goodwills have their own websites.

They're a great resource to find bargains, as well as a good variety of obscure stuff, without much competition, but once again, selection is limited, and there are bidding wars.

tcgplayer.com for cards 'n shit.

Garage sales. 200/200 times, garage sales

Disc Replay

Oh, yeah, sure, ebay if we're counting the internet too.

For the Netherlands:

• Marktplaats.nl
• Ebay.nl for tech you want to import from abroad (useful for slightly better deals)

The local "kringloop" (closest translation would be goodwill) is also always a good place to check out for certain things.

Poshmark for clothes.