Your Money_ The Missing Manual - J. D. Roth [60]
Note
The Tyranny of Stuff has tips for coping with clutter.
As long as you don't try to do it all at once, it's not hard to sell your used Stuff. To keep things manageable, follow these steps:
Sell your most valuable items on eBay.
Hold a yard sale with everything else.
Try to get rid of the remaining things on Craigslist.
Donate the rest to charity.
Depending on how much Stuff you have, this process can take weeks or months to finish. But when you're done, you'll have far less clutter around the house—and a fat wad of dough you can use to pay down debt or to save for that Hawaiian vacation.
Selling on eBay
If you want to turn your Stuff into cash, eBay—the world's largest auction website—should be your first stop. You can skip this step if you just want to get things out of your hair quickly, but if you want to earn real money, eBay is the best way to get top dollar for your valuable items.
There are tons of great books and websites that can help you master eBay—including eBay Hacks (O'Reilly, 2005)—but here are some basics to get you started:
Research each item you post. Comb through completed eBay auctions to see what similar items fetch (and how often they sell). Also check other sources (like Amazon, Craigslist, and so on) to see what they charge for the item.
Start low. Setting a low opening bid is a win-win situation: It costs you less and encourages more bids. The more popular you expect an item to be, the lower you should set your starting bid.
Timing is everything. You can get top dollar for your Stuff by scheduling your auctions so that folks are more likely to see them. Try:
Ending your auction on a weekend between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern Time.
Running a 10-day auction for maximum exposure.
Not having your listings end within 2 minutes of each other, especially if they're related items. This gives bidders a chance to chase more than one of your items.
Offer a money-back guarantee—with restrictions. Make it clear that you'll refund the buyer's money only if he feels the item isn't as you described it, not if he simply changes his mind or made a mistake.
Charge reasonable shipping. If you're selling a Beanie Baby for $3 but charging $10 for shipping, you're not going to get many bids. You might think it's clever to make a mint on shipping, but you'll just make buyers angry. Free shipping doesn't usually attract more bidders, but high shipping rates scare them away.
Write a thorough description. Be honest: List the strengths and flaws of your item. Write things like "This book is in great shape, but somebody wrote notes in the margins." If you don't provide enough info for buyers to make informed decisions, you won't get many bids.
Post photos. If condition is a concern (as it is for many collectibles), provide as many photos as possible.
Don't accept bids from headaches. You don't have to take bids from people who might cause problems, like folks with negative feedback, people who haven't paid for items, or overseas bidders.
Answer questions. You'll inevitably get questions about your items, and some of the questions will be stupid. Answer them anyhow. If you think other people might wonder the same thing, post your response publicly.
Be friendly. An easy-going style will get you more bids than a business-like listing, so don't be afraid to make jokes and show enthusiasm.
Note
If you don't want to go through the hassle of listing stuff on eBay, then start with Craigslist (Posting items on Craigslist).
If eBay doesn't appeal to you, there are lots of other ways to sell your Stuff online. Two of the most prominent are:
Half.com, which is actually owned by eBay, but uses a different business model. You don't pay to list your items; you only owe the site money when your things sell. The downside is that you're limited to items with ISBNs or UPCs in certain categories: books, music, movies, and videogames. Learn more here: http://tinyurl.com/half-sell.
Amazon Marketplace lets you sell your stuff on Amazon.com,