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I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

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Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#151

Post by [deleted] »

anigbrowl wrote: post #140
the__alchemist wrote: post #124

I wonder what we need to do to make buying and selling used items convenient. My experience has been that the bid/ask spread is too large, and liquidity too low to be practical. And if you're giving something away, no one will take it. No explanation; just observations. I want to not throw things out and buy new, but haven't found a workflow that works. (I'm in an apt building near the one listed in the article; more…

We don't have to do anything, Craigslist already exists and works great. I've bought stuff from departmerting college students, the transaction is as simple as showing up and saying 'hi, are you X? Great, here's $50, thanks for The Thing'. Some people just cannot be bothered, and if they're wealthy they simply may not care about concepts like wasting money - doubly so if they grew up with money and have never had to…

[deleted]

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#152

Post by dataflow »

the__alchemist wrote: post #124

I wonder what we need to do to make buying and selling used items convenient. My experience has been that the bid/ask spread is too large, and liquidity too low to be practical. And if you're giving something away, no one will take it. No explanation; just observations. I want to not throw things out and buy new, but haven't found a workflow that works. (I'm in an apt building near the one listed in the article; more…

> I wonder what we need to do to make buying and selling used items convenient

I'm not sure how feasible it is in practice. In theory I think you'd at least need the following to be possible:

(a) Being able to leave them literally outside your door in a manner that anyone in the neighborhood can see (basically impossible without additional technology for a lot of people)

(b) Being able to put them literally outside your door without causing issues (also impossible for many people due to everything from fire codes to simply lack of room or your own potential of tripping on them)

(c) Being able to make sure that anyone who takes them pays for them appropriately (nobody is going to keep an eye on them for free)

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#155

Post by thephyber »

dkga wrote: post #150

A few „anthropological“ impressions from this text. First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „…

College students (undergrads) aren’t full adults yet. They are transitioning from living under the protection of their parents to living on their own.

Throwing away things that could be sold could be a matter of (1) frustration/exhaustion with the end of the semester, (2) no place in their car / plane luggage for extra items, (3) indifference of kids who don’t know the value of a dollar (the Ballenciaga slides are literally the most expensive version of a slide you can buy — I usually get mine for less than $10).

On the street might be a better solution, but in the US you can be fined for littering (“dumping”) if you abandon items on someone else’s property. Lots of local laws in the USA are designed to maintain high property values (while subsidizing the very expensive police departments).

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#156

Post by foobarian »

madcaptenor wrote: post #93
matthewowen wrote: post #68

I live near UPenn. Some locals call the end of the academic year "Penn Christmas". I definitely see some resentment, but having made an international move in my life I have sympathy for it. You need to buy things to live, shipping that stuff when you move away is often very expensive and time consuming, so you condense your life down to a few suitcases and do the best you can.

As a Penn grad student I definitely looked at the piles of stuff the undergrads threw out hoping I could get something good from them. (I don't recall if I ever did.)

As undergrad students in the 90s we couldn't forage after moveout day, but we did get tons of cool stuff from the CS building loading dock outbound trash heap. My God they were getting rid of some really strange 70s gear. One time we grabbed an old rackmount tape drive - it was enormous. We disassembled it for fun and the thing I remember the most was the cooling fan. It was a squirrel cage blower driven straight from mains power and it blew so hard you could not keep your hand on the exhaust. On. A. Tape. Drive.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#157

Post by freetime2 »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #129
the__alchemist wrote: post #124

I wonder what we need to do to make buying and selling used items convenient. My experience has been that the bid/ask spread is too large, and liquidity too low to be practical. And if you're giving something away, no one will take it. No explanation; just observations. I want to not throw things out and buy new, but haven't found a workflow that works. (I'm in an apt building near the one listed in the article; more…

Yeah liquidity is a big one. last I moved out of a house I didn't want to bother finding a buyer for my furniture (probably been worth 500 total max even waiting for someone who wanted to pay) so I ended up putting it in my yard the last day of my lease with a free sign and posted a photo to craiglist, dining table chairs office furniture... And that's the day I learned a 7 foot sleeper sofa can fit comfortably in th…

When I moved, I sold some furniture with a local consignment shop [1]. I sent them pictures, and they gave me estimates. They even sent a truck to pick up the furniture, with the transportation cost coming out of the final sale proceeds.

It couldn’t have been simpler, and they mailed me a check when the items finally sold after about a month.

[1] https://thehomeconsignmentcenter.com/location/

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#159

Post by slibhb »

dkga wrote: post #150

A few „anthropological“ impressions from this text. First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „…

> Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „gratis - zum mitnehmen“ (free to take with you) and people who want/need come and collect them. Only if anything is really unwanted, you take back and throw away.

It's common in the US too.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#160

Post by amalcon »

dkga wrote: post #150

A few „anthropological“ impressions from this text. First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „…

> First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination?

It's very possible for the cost of transport to exceed the value of the goods, especially if one is flying to one's next destination.

> Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items?

This I can't help with. As far as I have seen, this is a common practice everywhere in the northeast US. The police don't always love it, but that doesn't really prevent people from doing it.

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