Mandolin Cafe Blog

"No one has responded to my classified ad in 48 hours. I'd better remove the ad, reduce the price, and repost it!"

"Bumping" is the practice of submitting, then deleting and resubmitting a Classified Ad on this site before the ad has run it's minimum length of 21 days. A few select users engage in this because they're under the mistaken impression that people only respond to ads when they're at the top of the list, and that their chances of selling are improved by the ad being "near to top".

This perception is not only wrong, but it's annoying to the users of the site, and engaging in the practice sends the wrong signal to users looking for someone honest to deal with.

We've studied this phenomenon for years and you can bet the bank (well, not today's banks, we all know most of them are out of money ) that on any given day, in excess of 50% of all ad replies/contacts will come from those ads not on the first page of returned results. Today, November 26, of the last 100 replies (made in far less than 48 hours), 56 of those were not among the 30 most recently submitted ads. Surprise.

There are plenty of good honest sellers to deal with. Do you really think someone doing whatever is possible to make a quick sale is going to go out of there way if you need to return your purchase? Too good to be true, sorry.

Dealing with individuals that like to bend and break rules and then expecting them to treat you like you'd like to be treated is not sound thinking. Think about it.