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I'm a few years from retiring and want to start selling off stuff in preparation.
I've got stuff in the house, the garage as well as hunting and recreational stuff that I don't use anymore.
Can someone who has done this suggest on-line methods of selling stuff; I'm wondering how do you determine how much to charge for shipping to people?
I don't want to have a garage sell as I don't want to burden with setting up and down for what might not sell.
You'll need a Paypal account for a way for out-if-staters to pay you. You can try places like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, for free advertising.
Shipping is not that complicated. USPS has a caculator set up on their website. You can weigh most items on a regular scale. Smaller stuff, buy a digital scale. They are not that expensive. Their website also has a map of "Shipping Zones" This will show you how to calculate the price for each region, from yours.
Good luck
I just have been doing this all year and my process has been multi-fold, basically. I started with eBay and what I did was mainly to go pick up flat rate shipping boxes, small, medium, and large. They are all truth be told fairly small. So if you have larger items, it's not practical, but for a lot of stuff it does work. That way you know what to charge. I shipped 40 boxes of stuff this way in the last two weeks sold through eBay! I have 17 more auctions active right now with maybe 5 more planned.
In the case of larger things, I put higher shipping costs and just winged it to be honest, knowing I'd lose a little bit of money on shipping but make enough on the item itself to be worthwhile for me. If you really want to be exact, you can charge shipping TBD and go to UPS Store, get a quote, go back to the buyer and put in the exact total, etc. I just don't know who has that kind of time, honestly, I wasted enough time just doing it my way and even my way I am not sure I can honestly tell you it was worth it. I spent months selling things, literally like a full time job here, and I have made maybe $7,500? That's not very good. The only thing I can say in my defense is that my company runs pretty smoothly with minimal input, my top employee manages the day to day, so I'm making a lot of money beside this. It was bonus cash for me. I could also do much of the sorting (it was a 48 page list of items on eBay! Not joking, 48 pages I wrote!) while watching movies, so one week I watched 14 movies, another week I watched 13, so at least I got some enjoyment out of this giant waste of time and got a few bucks in my pocket.
Now, the next step after eBay for awkward items that are also common is Offer Up or Craigslist. For instance, Xbox 360. I have about 4 of them. I'd like to keep 1. It's worth around $50 and won't fit into a flat rate box. I figured it's just not worthwhile to auction these off and ship them out, so I'm using Offer Up and I'll list for maybe $60, figure cheapskates offer me less, I accept $50 per one and I'm on my way. I also sold some film gear to a friend who works in the industry, local pickup type of thing, I took below market rate but I mainly wanted stuff I don't use anymore out of my house. I got some money, he's happy and will use it regularly so I helped a friend, and that was that.
You can also use eBay local pickup, which I'll use for some large and expensive items, just to see if I can get any interest in my area for the items before I try Craigslist after. There are cheapskates everywhere, though, just to warn you. Know the value of your items as close as possible. I've had people offer me $300 for $1,000 collectibles and everyone knows their value, only an idiot wouldn't know, so they obviously think I'm an idiot just cleaning out my attic or something. I've had a lot of people ask if I'd accept $10 for something worth $70, so that's always fun. I just mostly ignore them and don't even send them back because it's not worth your time.
You can also use eBay local pickup, which I'll use for some large and expensive items, just to see if I can get any interest in my area for the items before I try Craigslist after. There are cheapskates everywhere, though, just to warn you. Know the value of your items as close as possible. I've had people offer me $300 for $1,000 collectibles and everyone knows their value, only an idiot wouldn't know, so they obviously think I'm an idiot just cleaning out my attic or something. I've had a lot of people ask if I'd accept $10 for something worth $70, so that's always fun. I just mostly ignore them and don't even send them back because it's not worth your time.
LOL... Bear in mind you are posting on the "Frugal Living" Forum...
I would say to anyone selling with these methods to gauge expectations with the environment/exposure you are offering the item.
With Ebay "Local Pickup" you are limiting your potential buyers to those in driving distance with the time/vehicle/manpower/incentive to travel and retrieve the item. Also, how long is the Ebay listing up for? A few days or a few months? Craigslist is roughly the same environment and I have heard folks complain the buyers that search here are somewhat on the "flaky" side.
At least you are listing on computer sites, however. Try Garage/Tag Sales that run for one or two days over a weekend for a few hours each day, and of course are exposure limited to whoever is in driving distance and can make the sale on that day(s) in the given time slot. Add the fact that many items may not be priced, welcoming an "offer". Offering a quarter to a third of the value (remember it's cash here) over what someone could get for the item with massive, multi-faceted long term exposure/worldwide shipping and possible financing, answering countless dead end inquiries before finally finding a buyer, etc. should honestly not offend the seller IMO...
I’m offended by any offer less than 80% of value but keep in mind I’m talking about collectibles. The portion of my Star Wars collection I sold, I’ve made $30,000. I kept the best half and won’t sell it off, estimated value is $55,000. Most of the remaining items are so rare they haven’t appeared on eBay in years or only once or twice. One sold at Sotheby’s. So for me, when buyers offer under market value by a lot yes it’s pretty insulting. Best is to ignore them just like trolls though, it’s too much wasted time to reply to them all.
I keep seeing the same thing on forums and I feel sorry for these people posting, my experience has been totally different. Clearly didn’t buy the right things growing up did you guys?! Literally almost everything I had from my childhood and collecting days was worth a fortune compared to what I paid and the absolute lowest value stuff was still worth around what I paid. I sold my comic book cards for around $700, which is about what I paid. I have all 14 Nintendo Virtual Boy games, didn’t even think they’d be worth anything as I just bought them to enjoy, one is worth $580!! The total collection value is almost $1,000 and I paid $40/per game but again I didn’t ever see them as collectible.
My advice is exactly the opposite based on my life experience - you’d be surprised what’s collectible and almost everything I’ve collected turned to gold. On my Star Wars props everything appreciated 100-400% over 20 years. Plus I really enjoyed it, too. My Magic: The Gathering cards maybe 500-700% appreciation. Only my comics and comic cards were a wash.
I'm a few years from retiring and want to start selling off stuff in preparation.
I've got stuff in the house, the garage as well as hunting and recreational stuff that I don't use anymore.
Can someone who has done this suggest on-line methods of selling stuff; I'm wondering how do you determine how much to charge for shipping to people?
I don't want to have a garage sell as I don't want to burden with setting up and down for what might not sell.
Ever thought of a garage sale? No cost to you.However, you could make up some flyers giving a few prices (get a leaflet distribution service to distribute them)
A few years ago, I had a small home nursery. I sold all my stuff at weekend flea markets. I had a small trailer.Sold a lot of stuff. People do try to haggle, so ticket prices can be exaggerated.
I buy a LOT of stuff online. Things I've bought range in price from $5 to $1400. I use Ebay only, and Paypal to pay. .
I Use Ebay because I have some protection. I've only had a to two problems in several years, Ebay was great help.
I've started watching What the Hales on utube. It's a guy who bids for and buys unclaimed storage units. He collects and sells a lot on eBay. He also goes into detail as to how to get started and held a seminar on it in March. He's debating doing another at some point. He lives in Ohio though so that's out for me.
He also mentioned Facebook marketplace. I just recently heard of that so don't know a lot about it.
I'm a few years from retiring and want to start selling off stuff in preparation.
I've got stuff in the house, the garage as well as hunting and recreational stuff that I don't use anymore.
Can someone who has done this suggest on-line methods of selling stuff; I'm wondering how do you determine how much to charge for shipping to people?
I don't want to have a garage sell as I don't want to burden with setting up and down for what might not sell.
I have sold a few household furnishings via craig's list. I didn't want to deal with shipping so it had to be picked up. Husband moved items into garage because I didn't want strangers in my home. I set prices based on similar items on craig's list. Most people gave me close to what I asked because my items are good quality and in good condition. I did make me feel good when a young couple getting married bought a sofa that they were happy about. From my experience most of the people who responded were exhausted from looking and happy when they found my items. From what I was told a lot of what is on craig's list is of poor quality.
I did get someone who offered me a low price on a very popular item -- a rowing machine. I think he was hoping to get it cheap and re-sell it himself. So there are people looking to do that.
I clicked the thread to find out what DALE stuff online meant!
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