Thrifty Nickel In Tyler Texas

December 15th, 2009

Learning About Better Online Classifieds Than The Thrifty Nickel

Like many in East Texas I have used the Thrifty Nickel for years. From what I hear they may have changed their name to the American Classifieds but I will always know it as the Thrifty Nickel. I moved away from Tyler back in 1999 and lived in Colorado for a season. While there I started using an online service called Ebay. The Thrifty Nickel lost a lot of appeal for me when I came back to Tyler TX because I was now familiar with just how well a service like Ebay worked for me. I sold a lot of ski and snowboard equipment I no longer needed while back in Tyler and I did it all on Ebay. In the past I would have used the Thrifty Nickel because there was no such thing as Ebay.

Classifieds East Texas

I used the Thrifty Nickel to find things I now find on Craigslist like motorcycles, furniture, personally owned used cars, odds and ends you would find at a garage sell, and the back bumper for a Ford F150. These larger items are too expensive for people using Ebay to ship but the Thrifty Nickel was full of stuff like this. These days the jobs section is full of work from home ops like the envelope stuffing scheme, MLM businesses and such. The merchandise area where I used to find personally owned cars has much less to select from and the Nickel is full of car dealer ads everywhere. Blah! I don’t use the Nickel for car dealers. I would just go to the dealer and cruise around the lot if that is what I wanted. I am looking for good deals and I get more frustration from the Nickel than satisfaction. Back in the good ole days the Nickel was something I always grabbed along with Autotrader but those days are over. Autotrader is still a good magazine but what happened to the Nickel?

Order Of Greatness

1. Amazon.com
2. Craigslist.com
3. Ebay.com
101. American Classifieds (Thrifty Nickel) blah!

Differences Between Popular Online Classifieds Like Ebay and The Thrifty Nickel

The difference between Ebay and the Thrifty Nickel back in 2000 was night and day. I was able to sell really obscure items every time I listed them and many times at retail prices on Ebay. Many of my ski gloves were old used retro gloves but people in Europe loved them. They would buy old used ski gloves for $40 a pair and higher. Many Europeans were buying my ski goggles and other ski equipment for nice sums of money on Ebay. After selling a bunch of ski junk on Ebay I managed to make about $3,000 on unwanted ski items my friends gave me to sell. The Thrifty Nickel back in 2000 was good for unloading a used car or selling an old refrigerator for a decent sum. Because these larger items can’t be shipped affordably you had to sell this stuff using the Nickel to someone local. So Ebay remained an online place for selling smaller items to anyone in the world in order to make a handsome profit and the Nickel got you about what you deserved for an old used car. The Nickel remained your local marketplace to sell and buy items that were not easy to ship. Now I use Craigslist to buy and sell most of those larger used items.

10 Years Later The Thrifty Nickel Is A Much Different Animal

Now it is the year 2009 and we are almost approaching 2010. 10 years later after using Ebay for the first time my interests have changed a bit. I will still pick up the Thrifty Nickel from time to to time but what I have noticed is that the magazine has way too many national spammy advertisements in it. They may have changed things since a few months ago but I saw a lot of car dealer ads that were not from local people selling their automobiles. I also noticed that the jobs in Tyler Texas that were posted in the classifieds section were spam type junk job ads selling opportunities and get rich quick schemes. Some of these ads resembled envelope stuffing work from home schemes and other related waste of time job classifieds.

Giving The Nickel A Few More Chances

After picking up the Thrifty Nickel in different cities throughout East Texas while on my way out of a gas station or other convenience store I finally began to see that there was not much appeal to the Thrifty Nickel anymore. The classifieds magazine has way too many car dealers and national job seeker ads. The few and far between real ads are sparse and you really don’t get the selection that you used to. I would think that the reason the Thrifty Nickel has lost a lot of its quality may have to do with Craigslist.com website and Amazon.com taking over this market in a large part. Ebay still competes as well but for large local items like cars and furniture you will find that Craigslist.com has many local Tyler Texas residents selling anything from a filing cabinet, office conference table, to a used Volkswagon Rabbit. Ebay is also a very good website for finding local automobiles but as far as furniture and other large local items I would stick with Craigslist.

What Is So Great About Ebay?

Ebay remains a great way to pick up some unique antiques, home accesories, gadgets, and replacement parts but I would be wary of power sellers selling you something used you can get new for cheaper elsewhere. Amazon.com is a much less frustrating Ebay with no auctions only competing prices on new and used items. I consistently get a less hassle free experience at a cheaper price when buying merchandise from Amazon.com. Craigslist.com is the king of cheap prices on large items you couldn’t possibly have shipped to you. I have bought cars, filing cabinets, desks, and you name it on Craigslist. You can also get some good deals on used engagement rings on there from awkward local break ups but I imagine it would be weird buying a used ring from someone who just broke an engagement. Anyway this gives you an idea about how online services compare to the Thrifty Nickel. The Thrifty Nickel is online also but they don’t have the type of things you see on Craigslist so I don’t see the point.

If You Like The Thrifty Nickel Or American Classifieds Let Us Know

I challenge local Tyler Thrifty Nickel enthusiasts like I once was to look at a recent addition and see if it has changed for the better. I would love to write up a positive review about a paper that used to be one of my favorites but I have been disappointed just one too many times. Maybe I have missed some of the great positive aspects of The Thrifty Nickel. If I have missed something please tell me. There is a comment section at the bottom of this article for providing your two cents about the Thrifty Nickel. Feel free to leave a response.

Tags: Amazon, American Classifieds Thrifty Nickel, American Classifieds Tyler Texas, Autotrader, Car Dealer, Craigslist, Dealer Ads, East Texas, Ebay, Ford F150, Frustration, Garage Sell, Good Deals, Good Ole Days, Greatness, Merchandise Area, Nickel Back, Odds And Ends, Ops, Thrifty Nickel Wat Ads Tyler Texas, Tyler Texas, Tyler Texas Amazon.com, Tyler Texas Thrifty Nickel, Tyler TX, Tyler TX Craigslist, Tyler TX Ebay, Tyler TX Thrifty Nickel
Posted in Classifieds | No Comments »

Tyler TX Craigslist

September 18th, 2009

For those of you like me you may have been brought up using Ebay to buy your good deals and merchandise on the internet I think you will find Craigslist to be less of a headache. I absolutely loved ebay for years and years until things started to happen that became a real nuisance. After I had enough with Ebay because of several different issues I tried out Amazon and Craigslist. I found that Amazon allows you to buy everything immediately without having to take it to auction. Since many of Ebay’s auctions seem fake because of fraud I moved over to Amazon and started buying several things from the cheapest verified seller offering what I wanted on Amazon. This setup on Amazon worked very well and I could pick between used or new. I immediately decided that in almost every case Amazon was a better choice over Ebay. There are exceptions to the rule and a great example is when I needed to buy an antique triple block pulley. I could only purchase a used item like this at an affordable price on Ebay. Amazon did not offer used or new triple block pulleys. Antiques like the triple block pulley example are why Ebay is still needed. Ebay really needs to create a separate place to go for those who want to completely avoid the whole fake auction experience. It just has become too much to want to deal with.

Craigslist fills the gap between Amazon and Ebay by being a place for those wanting to find good deals on larger items that cannot be easily shipped for an affordable price. For instance, I bought a large wooden filing cabinet that originally retailed for $500 for $100. It was a great buy and all I had to do was drive 5 miles, load it up in my truck and deliver it to my house. It was worth it as I would have to deliver a new item like this anyway if I were to buy something like it at Office Depot. Tyler Texas Craigslist has also allowed me the ability to buy a bicycle, a car, bike rack, and several other items at discounted prices I could not find on Amazon or Ebay. Rather than fight it out over a week in an auction only to see the auction go to retail price for some used junk I can go on Craigslist and buy the same thing at a negotiated price that does not have to go to auction.

Tyler TX Craigslist has had its opposition mainly due to its adult section and I agree that Craigslist should really shutdown that sleaze but the rest of the site is really amazing. You can find jobs, very cheap merchandise, free classifieds for selling your own junk, and some interesting money making opportunities. I will warn that most of the “too good to be true” opps on Tyler TX Craigslist really are too good to be true and you should consider getting a real job or at the very least attempt to go about doing an opportunity without handing your money over to a swindler.

Craigslist Tyler TX is a place where you will find what is known as “I don’t want it anymore” syndrome. I have actually participated in this syndrome when my 1999 Saturn was sitting in my front yard for over a year not running. I took the car to the shop and although they were able to get it back to running with little repair they showed me that it had many issues. The cost to get the car back up to a reliable standard would be more than the car is worth. I decided I didn’t want the car anymore. I found a city employee here in Tyler Texas that would buy the car knowing about all issues wrong with it for $300. Now the car probably had a few years left in it and I think it was worth more but I really wanted the car gone. I could just see the car back in my yard sitting there filling in that white trailer trash stereotype that I seem to immolate every so often. I thought I would do me, my neighbors, and my family a favor and get rid of the car ASAP. Craigslist is full of cars, and merchandise like this where the person just really doesn’t want it and you can usually haggle the price down further once you show up with cash in hand.

It is important when considering using Craigslist that you are not being tricked into coming to some perverts house, or a robber of some kind. If you are a woman I recommend bringing a guy along with you when you pick up your item. As a woman or man if you are paranoid about the other seller you could agree to meet at a local Coffee Shop or something and exchange money and goods there. You really want to be careful especially if you are being offered an iphone for $50 or something as chances are the guy is setting a trap for you to come to a location where he can then steal your cash. As long you follow some common sense when using Tyler TX Craigslist you can get some really good deals. Between Ebay, Amazon and Craigslist I think you will come up with a really good guage on where prices are at for what you want to purchase. There is no place like Tyler TX Craigslist as it is the impulsive buyers paradise for used I dont want it anymore local Tyler Texas merchandise.

Tags: Amazon Tyler Texas, Antiques, Auction Experience, auctions, Bicycle, Car Bike Rack, Craigslist, Ebay, Ebay Amazon, Ebay Tyler Texas, Exceptions, Fraud, Gap, Good Deals, Headache, Nuisance, Office Depot, Pulley, Tyler Texas, Tyler Texas Craigslist, Tyler TX, Tyler TX Craigslist, Wooden Filing Cabinet
Posted in Tyler Businesses | 2 Comments »

Recent Posts