School me in searching

I am on the lookout for a NG grill. While Webers are more prevalent, I'm game for other solidly built options. Craigslist is my go to but I search Facebook Marketplace as well. The two problems I encounter are search results on Craigslist that are 95% commercial restaurant equipment, cars and homes. I typically use search terms: Weber grill, natural gas grill, bbq grill and/or combinations of those terms. With FB Marketplace, I'll find great looking grills....500 miles away. Even when I set the miles from zip code parameters. Heck, I'm seeing posts for grills in Toronto??!! Also, and this is especially true on FB Marketplace...to a more limited extent Craigslist. I'll see brand new 2018 Model year Weber Spirits for just under $300...most retailers are getting North of $500 for the these. Always gone when I contact the seller. So, any advice as to how to better search? Whats up with the new Webers at "fell off the truck" prices?

OK, two ways that work for me on CL.
The first is to search all listings for a particular city. I the screen shot below, I search on Madison, WI. This will show posts that were posted to the MADISON, WI CL site. It could be something located in Alabama, but generally, people list items in areas the item is located.
You can see Madison in the top circled in red along with "FOR SALE" as the category and I use "ALL for the sub category because grills can be posted in OUTDOORS or HOUSEHOLD or other sub categories.

Also, notice in this search I used "Weber Grill" as the search term. Sometimes it is better to use "Weber" only because if someone just lists the "Weber" for sale and doesn't use the term "grill" it won't tag it.

You can try different combinations of terms. I also search "Webber" occasionally as some people never learned to spell. I also search for just "Grill" sometimes as some people don't know the difference between a Weber and microwave oven. They just call it a "Grill". But, you will likely get a lot of useless results of other makes of grills, Car grills and many other items no where close to something you would want to cook a ribeye on.

Like I said before, the list in the top portion will only be items that were advertised in the CL for the city you searched on. Then, below that, CL will list items matching your search in nearby CL cities.




Now, this CL search is based strictly on your location and all items listed to any CL listing where the item is located within a search radius that you chose from a given zip code. So, you would put in your zip code and a search radius. Then input a search term such as "Weber Grill" and hit enter. It will display items that people listed showing a location that is within your search radius regardless of the CL city they listed the item too.

Again, I leave the sub categories all checked so I don't miss a Weber grill that is listed under Farm and garden or something even more silly.




FB Marketplace is a bit more entailed and confusing. I am thinking someone else can do a better job explaining that system.

Jay D in Jersey said:

I am on the lookout for a NG grill. While Webers are more prevalent, I'm game for other solidly built options. Craigslist is my go to but I search Facebook Marketplace as well. The two problems I encounter are search results on Craigslist that are 95% commercial restaurant equipment, cars and homes. I typically use search terms: Weber grill, natural gas grill, bbq grill and/or combinations of those terms. With FB Marketplace, I'll find great looking grills....500 miles away. Even when I set the miles from zip code parameters. Heck, I'm seeing posts for grills in Toronto??!! Also, and this is especially true on FB Marketplace...to a more limited extent Craigslist. I'll see brand new 2018 Model year Weber Spirits for just under $300...most retailers are getting North of $500 for the these. Always gone when I contact the seller. So, any advice as to how to better search? Whats up with the new Webers at "fell off the truck" prices?

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The "fell off the truck" prices are usually during the summer/end of summer season. Lowes were clearing them out a couple of months ago and that was a great time to get a new Weber.

I used " Weber " on a CL search, and I got carburators and chuck wagons and far more useless alerts than it was worth.

I got rid of it.

Sam Bee said:

The "fell off the truck" prices are usually during the summer/end of summer season. Lowes were clearing them out a couple of months ago and that was a great time to get a new Weber.

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Agreed. People are trying to flip grills they bought cheap a few weeks ago. I have seen Weber E-310 for $350 and E-410 for $450 at Lowes back then. And I agree with Bruce on how to search on CL. Since I am only looking for Weber I normall search for "Weber" or "Webber". Lost of folks spell it wrong.
Of course if you seach for grill or BBQ you can hundreds of hits with kitchen equipment. There is no way around if you are not including any brand name in the search.

Lynn Dollar said:

I used " Weber " on a CL search, and I got carburators and chuck wagons and far more useless alerts than it was worth.

I got rid of it.

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Same here too. But you can filter out car parts on CL. I am right now annoyed because there is in outlet store in our area which is selling all kind of appliances and also new Weber grills. They are flooding CL, 5miles, Offerup, Letgo with their ads. They seem to have various employees posting Weber grills and have at least 50 grills posted in each of these sites.

Lynn Dollar said:

I used " Weber " on a CL search, and I got carburators and chuck wagons and far more useless alerts than it was worth.

I got rid of it.

Click to expand...

That is because another company called weber made a line of carbeurators for vehicles. Try "Weber Grill". That should get rid of a lot of the unreated stuff....but you might miss a few Weber grills as well.

Yah, there are several ways to narrow down CL searches. Everything from area, to key words, to sections. You just have to play with it a bit until you get what you want. It won't always be perfect because you are dealing with a bunch of knot heads that list there stuff and you are at the mercy of them.

Also, there is a trend on CL where people list various items and then space way down in the description and add hundreds of key words. Sometimes it is simply an innocent attempt to drive eyes to a persons listing, but in other cases, it is more sinister. One guy in my area keeps listing bigger ticket items with great, but not ridiculous prices. Such as a 2015 Honda Civic in great shape with 45,000 miles for $4,500. THen, he puts a ton of unrelated "common" keywords in the description such as WEBER and GRILL along with hundreds of others and uses HTML to make the text white so you cant even see it. But when searching a search for "Weber" or "Grill" or "Weber Grill" will flag that listing. Then when people see it, they say, heck, that is a great price and email him about it. Well, you just gave the guy your VALID EMAIL address and you can expect some never ending spam to follow.

CL takes some time to figure it out, but it is a good simple venue as long as you use some common sense when using. Net Safety rules should be followed.

Craigslist has definitely been diluted by the facebook marketplace, offerup, etc. However, from time to time, it works. Again, like Bruce says, you don't know who you're dealing with so just take it with a grain of salt.

Slainte!

Tim

All good info. Thanks everyone!

A few tips from me:

1. Use CPlus for Craigslist app. It allows you to enter a single query and search multiple areas. In my regio;, I search Boston, Worcester, NH, and RI.
2. You can use - to reject keywords. So Weber -engine -carburetor -etc will refine your search.
3. Use ifttt to write queries to search CL and email you results.