With more and more of our lives happening online, it is no surprise that some of our habits also shift accordingly. The internet nowadays is far more than a place to look for information or talk to friends; it can be of use when it comes to nearly everything from sharing pictures to buying houses.

Our buying habits are one of the things that changed quite significantly with the rise of the internet. The door-to-door salespeople were faced with the challenge of competing against online stores, and spending countless hours driving from store to store has been replaced by repeatedly clicking the mouse by your computer.

Consequently, even second-hand shopping eventually moved into the online world; hence, the somewhat bizarre listings on this list.

Nowadays, there is no need to make the trip to the store if you don’t feel like it; even if it’s a second-hand item you want to buy. A quick online search can typically lead you to an abundance of listings and all sorts of websites, from Ebay to Vinted, Craigslist, and many more.

According to last year’s data, the former—Ebay—was the most popular online platform for second-hand purchases in the United States, used by as many as two-thirds of the surveyed US consumers. It is followed by Facebook Marketplace (with 55% respondents saying they’ve used it to buy something), and OfferUp (with 24%).

Even though now it might seem like it’s been around forever, Ebay’s history actually spans less than three decades. It was started by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, when after spending the Labor Day weekend writing code on his computer, he launched what became the forefather of Ebay—AuctionWeb, a site "dedicated to bringing together buyers and sellers in an honest and open marketplace".

The same year Pierre made his first sale—a broken laser pointer, bought by a Canadian, Mark Fraser. At that time, Mark was doing quite a lot of presentations and thought he could use such a pointer, but couldn’t acquire all the details necessary to make one, until he found the broken item on the website.

Mark’s story about the laser pointer might put things into perspective, showing that maybe—just maybe—people selling all sorts of broken or worn-out items are not crazy (as someone might actually buy them). Yet the people responsible for certain listings, asking for hundreds of dollars for something clearly not worth such money, often seem to be rather out of touch with reality. 

“There are a ton of people that... shall we say... underestimate or understate the wear and tear on a couch, for instance, and think that a couch that's torn up by a dog, or just decades of normal use, is still worth over $100," one of the moderators of the ‘WTF Garage Sale’ subreddit, u/Lyle_the_Crocodile, told Bored Panda in a previous interview.

Another popular choice among fans of online listings, Facebook Marketplace, was introduced in 2016, and made its way to the second place among the most popular platforms for purchasing used items rather quickly.

Meta pointed out that Marketplace was launched as a result of people already using Facebook groups for selling and buying items. It suggested that in 2016, over 450 million people were doing it each month, “from families in a local neighborhood to collectors around the world”.

Anyone who’s ever spent at least a couple of minutes on Marketplace has likely noticed that you can find nearly anything and everything there, from used kitchen equipment to shoes in odd numbers, and much more. But no matter how peculiar the items are, giving them away is better than throwing them away, as long as there are people who need them.

The moderator of ‘WTF Garage Sale’, u/Lyle_the_Crocodile, told Bored Panda before that they see listings on Facebook Marketplace and other platforms as a net positive. "If someone, somewhere wants your old prosthetic leg, it's better to sell it to them (or give it away), rather than having it end up in a dump,” they explained. “The clutter and chaos of the modern online marketplaces is a reflection of modern consumerism and waste, so it's hard to look at some of it, but it's important. A landfill full of prosthetic body parts is just as full as a landfill full of car tires and electronics."

Redditor u/Lyle_the_Crocodile has a point; overflowing landfills are indeed a huge problem nowadays, and giving a used item a second chance to live might be one of the ways to slow it down, at least. 

According to The World Counts, people dump over 2 billion tons of waste every year, which accumulates at a rapid pace because 99% of what we buy is thrown out within six months. As I’m writing this, there seems to be roughly 1,560,440,600 tons of waste dumped this year already.

Next time you see something weird or funny-looking among listings online, you don’t necessarily have to refrain from laughing (seeing someone trying to sell a Flintmobile in the age of Tesla is indeed somewhat amusing). But it’s worth remembering that putting up a listing as such might be worth it, as you never know when an individual looking for exactly that shows up. Chances are, people didn’t think anyone would need a broken laser pointer either.