My adventures began five years ago when I developed an extreme distaste for the clutter that had accumulated in my home. I had multiple closets full of stuff I knew I'd never need mixed in with stuff that I needed on a day to day basis. The clutter was making it impossible for me to find ANYTHING. At the same time, we had two kids and a single income - making it effectively impossible to support my raging electronics and hobby addiction. A friend of mine convinced me to list a couple of items on Ebay and before long, I figured it out.
You might ask if it is really worth getting rid of all your junk. Recently I decided to upgrade an aging (at least for me) PC that I have. I sold the parts as follows:
Bottom line? I made $143 AND I upgraded to a newer, faster setup. This is not exactly an everyday situation, but it does happen. I did it following these basic principles:
Stuff Depreciates So Get Rid of It Quick
Unless you're dealing with collectibles and rare comic books, the majority of stuff (especially electronics) will depreciate. Suppose you buy a laptop for $1000 and after 3 years, it's worth $500 today. You go out and buy a new laptop. Your old laptop worth $500 is sitting in the closet. Next month it might be worth $450. That laptop sitting in your closet does nothing for you except decrease in value and take up space. Suppress the urge to give into your inner packrat and start cleaning out those closets!
There is Always (Almost) a Buyer For Your Item
You can be selling the most useless item, it doesn't matter. There is almost always a buyer for what you are selling. There are a lot of used goods that are no longer manufactured that people still need and eBay is one of the only ways to track them down. Take for example the CPU I sold (mentioned above). NO ONE sells them anymore. My CPU was purchased by someone who had an old single core system that wanted to swap the chip without replacing a bunch of hardware like I did. Consequently, I made it available and that part is no longer sitting in my closet gathering dust.
Know Your Accounts-Setting up an Ebay and Paypal Account
In order to sell on eBay, you will need an eBay account (duh) and a Paypal account for sending and receiving funds. Setting up an account on eBay is straight forward - all you need is a name, address, and major credit card. The major credit card is so that eBay can a) verify who you are and b) bill you for sellers fees (more on that later).
You will need a major credit card and/or bank account to use Paypal (http://www.paypal.com). Once you sign up for an account, Paypal will deposit some random amount into your bank account - like $0.02 or something similar. Once you receive the deposit, you log back into Paypal to report the amount. That way they verify that the bank account you entered in fact belongs to you. Once you are verified, you can start receiving payments.
Once you start selling stuff, payments (funds!) will start arriving in your paypal account. You can keep it in there and earn modest interest, or you can withdraw it and transfer it directly to your bank account.
Figure Out How To Price Your Item
Suppose you are selling your Brand XYZ laptop. Go onto ebay and search for it to get a reasonable idea of what it is selling for. When looking at selling prices, the only price that matters is the one that it sells at. An item up for sale can be at $1 10 minutes before it sells due to the fact that most bidding activity on an item takes place near the end, not during the 6 days and 23 hours that it's been listed.
Under advanced search on eBay, there is an item to view completed items. These are the numbers that mean something - these are the actual selling prices for items that have been sold in the last thirty days. Take into account the condition of each similar item that has closed and you will have a rough idea of what your item can sell for.
That said, for stuff that there is a demand for, I usually start my listings at $1 with no reserve. The reasoning behind that is that people will most likely bid on something when the price is really low. When you have four or five people bidding on your item, the final bidding price will almost always end up higher than the $1 starting point. If you do your research beforehand on what your item sells for, it is VERY rare that your item will sell for $1. For an item like an iPod or a laptop computer, I would personally always list it starting at $1 because I know for a fact that there will always be a high demand for these types of items.
For lower demand or higher priced items, you can set a reserve price or a higher starting price. A reserve price means that if the bidding price does not reach your reserve price, you don't have to sell the item when the auction is over. Be realistic - if you notice that ten laptops like yours has sold in the last 30 days for an average of $475, don't put a $500 reserve or starting price as your item probably will not sell.
When selling, also be prepared to get a general idea of what your fees will run. An average listing costs about $1.50 in listing fees + approximately 2% final value fee (the percentage of what the item sells for that eBay keeps as a commission), + 2% fee for receiving funds via PayPal. On a $100 item, this can cost you about $7. I usually partially offset this by charging a few extra dollars on shipping.
Know How to Protect Yourself
Make it very clear in your listing that you will only ship to a Paypal verified address. You will know because when the winning bidder pays you, the receipt from Paypal will indicate whether or not the address is verified. When the address is verified, Paypal will reimburse you if you end up getting scammed. If the address is not verified, inform the buyer that you will not ship until they get their shipping address verified with Paypal.
When shipping items, make sure you have some sort of delivery confirmation. I always ship using the US Postal service, and shipping with delivery confirmation will provide a tracking number. If in the event the buyer claims that they never received your package, the delivery confirmation will prove otherwise if it wasn't legitimately lost. If you ever have to file a claim with Paypal, they will ask for proof of delivery.
Make sure you ship your item insured if it's a pricey or delicate item. I generally insure everything I ship that costs more than $100. It's just good policy and you can pass the expense onto the seller as eBay allows you to have insurance options on your listing.
Once in a while you will receive requests from some buyers to “end the auction early”. This is a bad idea for several reasons. You will usually end up settling for a lower amount than your item would have closed at had you let the auction run its course. These buyers will usually convince you to close the transaction outside of eBay. Don't do this! Transactions that happen outside of eBay and Paypal do not have any protection whatsoever - you may get ripped off and have absolutely no recourse whatsoever.
Know How to List Your Item
Make sure you include lots of details and photos of your item. Its a proven fact that listings that have pictures and good descriptions will sell for much more. Make sure you take photos of your item under good lighting, so the potential buyer can examine what it is that he/she is planning to bid on.
Also exercise full disclosure. If you omit some detail like a missing or defective feature, you will have an angry buyer on your hands. You want to avoid a refund if at all possible as it costs you money in the end.
The title of your listing is extremely important. You have a limited amount of space there, and its important to make the title of your item count as this is what allows people to find your item when searching on ebay. If you botch the title (like misspell a word), it can have a negative impact on the number of people that find your item. The fewer people know about your auction, the lower your final bid will be.
Know When to List Your Item
Historically speaking, Sunday afternoon/early evening has been a good time for an auction to close. If you must close your item on a weekday, try to close it between 6 to 8pm. A lot of people bid at the last minute, and you want your item to close at a time when it is most likely/convenient for your potential buyer to be at a computer. Avoid times like 4am. (Again, duh!)
A seven day auction duration is ideal. Five days doesn't give your item enough exposure and after ten days, people tend to lose interest.
Don't Overlook the Small Stuff: Sell in Batches
When, in the course of cleaning out that abyss formerly known as your bedroom closet, don't overlook small items that may be worth only $5 or $10. If you make a single trip to the post office, it doesn't take too much extra effort to sell several low value items.
Conversely, it doesn't make sense to make a trip all the way to the post office to make five lousy bucks.
In order for this activity to be worth your time, you will have to sell in batches. I usually list about a dozen items at a time on a Sunday. The auctions will run for a week and close the subsequent Sunday. People usually take between 1 to 3 days to pay. Once the whole batch settles out (i.e. I get paid), I'll box everything up and make one trip to the post office in the middle of the week. I then take a week off, and do the whole process over again. Repeat until your clutter is gone.
Know the Ins and Outs of Shipping
US Postal is your best bet when shipping your items. When listing your items, its useful to have a digital mailing scale handy. Before you even list your item, put it in the box you plan on shipping it with, and weigh it. Punch in the weight and dimensions of the box at http://www.usps.gov with a zipcode as far away from you ask you can imagine. This will give you a pretty good estimate of what it will cost at most to anywhere in the continental US. I usually tack $3 to $5 on top of this amount to cover my ebay and paypal fees.
If you ship via priority mail, US Postal has several foldable self sealing shipping boxes free for the asking. All you have to do is wrap your item in bubble-wrap, drop it in, seal it and affix a shipping label.
Offer your buyers a couple of shipping options - I usually offer both parcel post or priority mail. One little known secret is the US Postal Priority Mail Flat Rate Box. Like the priority mail boxes, these are free for the asking. The difference is that it costs $8.99 to go anywhere in the U.S., regardless of weight! I've shipped 20lb car parts using this method and have saved a bundle. If you're shipping priority and your item weighs more than 3lbs, this is definitely the way to go.
Communicate With Potential Buyers
As your auction progresses, you will have multiple people watching your items and you will invariably get questions from them. I get about one question on average for every item I sell. Providing useful information with buyers will increase your connection with them and increase the number of serious buyers for your item. Doing so may also resolve issues with the item (i.e. something that wasn't clear or you didn't disclose in your listing) early and prevent problems later on.
That said, it takes a few transactions to get the hang of things. Start with smaller items and work your way up once you establish your confidence. It's been five years and to date I've gotten rid of over 200 items and put a serious dent in my mountain of junk.
