Negotiating Your Way To Savings on Kijiji

Very sturdy toy stroller. Pooh wasn't included.

Kijiji is a great place to pick up used goods at a fair price*. Once in a while you'll have someone on Kijiji post something they are looking to sell AND have a reasonable asking price. However, more often than not, a lot of people post items with the expectation of people haggling (or negotiating) the price down.

This past long weekend, wifey and I purchased two items from Kijiji. Both didn't require much time to close on. However, both did require some legwork.

It is important to note, that for things that I feel are priced fairly, I wouldn't bother negotiating. A few weeks back, we purchased a stroller/car seat combo for $75. That was the price the seller was asking for. I felt it was more than fair. We took a look at the stroller and car seat and it was still in very good condition. Our only concern were the covers and whether or not we can remove them to machine wash. I located the necessary manuals on wifey's phone and determined that we could. However, during the time it took to locate the manuals, the sellers offered to throw in some free things. Wifey suspects they had too much stuff and just wanted to get rid of it all. We're not ones to object to free stuff, so we bought everything.

Anyway, back to the story. On Friday, I saw an ad posted looking to sell a Fisher Price toy stroller. I wasn't really looking to buy any toys so early. However, the stroller looked like it would be fun for toddlers and the reviews on the amazon.ca website indicated it was worth it. The buyer was looking for $15. The price online indicated that it was retailed for $45 (or around $50 after taxes). While $15 isn't a lot of money. I wasn't looking to buy any toys so soon. The baby isn't (wasn't, depending on when you read this) even born yet. However, I shot the seller a message asking if they would consider selling the stroller for $10. I got a reply minutes later agreeing to my price. The seller was only a 5 minute walk away**, so after dinner we walked over to pick up the stroller and give the seller the $10. Maybe I overpaid, but wifey and mother-in-law feel we got a good deal. Mother-in-law was even more convinced while she was cleaning the stroller and realized the bear on the top has a button that plays music when pressed. We plan to leave this toy stroller in baby's room so she can "discover" it when she starts crawling around.

I figured that was all we were going to purchase on Kijiji for a while. Well, that was until Saturday evening when I spotted a baby gate that was just posted. The seller had a story about buying it but it being the wrong size. One thing to remember, is that stories are usually just that. Stories. Maybe seller never actually did use it. Maybe they used it for two years. We don't know. We can never know for sure. Seller indicated that they purchased the baby gate for $99 + taxes and never used it. They were looking for $60. I did some digging and I couldn't find the company that made the baby gate. However, I noticed a similar baby gate being sold under a different brand on amazon.ca. The reviews were favourable and it was retailed for $100. However, being used (at least from an open box), the gate wasn't worth $60 to me. So I expanded my search of baby gates to include all of York Region. I found a baby gate in Vaughn for $30. Not the same bronze composition, but made of plastic. It was a baby gate, nonetheless, so I messaged the seller asking if they would sell it for $30. I also told them that I understood if they couldn't.

After a while, the seller messaged me back asking if I would do $45. As wifey and I didn't need the baby gate, we were prepared to walk away. That's what we did. I declined the offer citing the $30 baby gate I saw on another Kijiji ad. I wouldn't have picked that one up, considering it was all the way in Vaughn, but seller didn't need to know that part. Our baby isn't due until October. After that, the baby wouldn't be mobile until March? April 2017? No idea. Either way, a baby gate was something we didn't need so soon. I thanked the seller for their time and wished them luck.

I put my phone down and wifey and I did something else for 10 minutes (probably reading, I don't remember) when seller messaged me back. The seller was willing to go down to $35. That was interesting. I was definitely tempted. I asked wifey her thoughts and she said that it was up to me. I figured, it was worth a shot. I measured the doorway to baby's future room and determined it was a fit and messaged the seller to arrange for pickup. Seller didn't want to meet at his house for safety concerns (I feel the same way), so we agreed to meet in public. Despite him being 3km away, we ended up meeting halfway at a local gas station. Wifey and I walked to the gas station and picked up the baby gate from the seller and gave him the $35.

As it was getting late (close to 9:30pm at this point), I left the baby gate downstairs and wifey and I went to bed.

The next day, I set up the baby gate. It was very easy. Installation only took 10 minutes.

Wifey loves the look of the baby gate.

Despite giving me the green light to make the decision, I don't think wifey was convinced we needed to purchase a baby gate so soon. I think she was thinking the baby gate was some ugly thing or a plastic thing. I don't know. We did look at baby gates at Toys 'R Us a few weeks back. We weren't looking to buy one then, only to see the style of gates available and how much the retail costs were. However, after seeing this baby gate installed, she was extremely happy that it doesn't look ugly (her words).

I tried to move the pressure mounted baby gate and it seems to be very secure. I can lodge the baby gate, but I need to use quite a bit of strength to wiggle the gate back and forth. I doubt the baby will be able to do that. However, worst case scenario, this baby gate also comes with hardware mounts. Wifey and I agreed we'll wait and see if we need these mounts.

By the time I finished installing the gate, mother-in-law came out of the washroom. She asked me how much the seller paid for the gate and how much we paid for it. When I told her, she was extremely happy. I think as long as she doesn't feel like we paid too much, that's a good thing.

Overall, we picked up a good gate for a fair price. The seller actually listed two gates. One for an extended opening that has yet to sell (the ad of the gate we purchased from the seller was taken down minutes after we picked it up). That means seller was likely overpriced his asking price for the gates in anticipation of people negotiating him down. The fact he was willing to meet up right away means he felt he was getting a fair price for the item as well and didn't want us to change our minds. Otherwise, why not hold it until you get a higher price? Anyway, the baby gate for $30 in Vaughn also seems to have been sold as that ad is also no longer up. That likely means, $30 is the approximate rate for a used baby gate. It probably sold for $25 or something, so $35 for our baby gate is fair.

Anyway, if you combine the retail cost of these two items, you'd come to a total of $163.83 (taxes included). The original asking price of these two items was $75. We paid a total of $45 for both.

That's a lot of savings.

Wifey's cousin mentioned something about feeling sorry for our baby because we were buying her a bunch of second hand stuff.

Probably jealous because we're better with our money.





*At least in Toronto. Wifey's cousin in Vancouver says Craigslist is popular there. Vancouver is messed up though. How is Starbucks the number one coffee chain over there? Overpriced swill if you ask me. Not that I drink coffee.


**Recently, I've decided to only search for items on Kijiji that are within a 5km radius of our postal code. Selecting Markham/York Region shows you items in places like Vaughn, Aurora, Newmarket, or even Kewsick! Too far. The playpen we picked up a while back was in Richmond Hill and the stroller/car seat was picked up in Scarborough. That was the last time we'd drive for Kijiji stuff. Unless the deal is really good.