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| The Basics | Turn your surplus stuff into cash online
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If you thought your choices were a yard sale or Goodwill, welcome to the 21st century. Check out the best ways to sell online --- as well as a few old standards.
By Liz Pulliam Weston
Like many longtime eBay sellers, Margaret Ivetic of Berwyn, Ill., has a garage-sale-to-riches tale.
A friend bought a toy for 25 cents at a yard sale, and as a lark Ivetic listed it on the auction site with a starting bid of 99 cents. The item was a Snoopy wardrobe -- basically a cardboard box with little hangers meant to store clothing for the Peanuts character plush toys that were popular in the 1970s. The cardboard toy was unused, still in its original packaging, but otherwise seemed unremarkable.
"Neither of us had any idea of its value," Ivetic said. "We didn't think it would get even one bid."
After a furious bidding war, the wardrobe sold for more than $50.
Tapping into a huge market
Getting top prices for your stuff is, obviously, the big lure of online selling options. Instead of relying on yard-sale signs or newspaper ads to find a buyer, you can tap into huge, worldwide markets with relative ease:- EBay has 147 million registered users, 60.5 million of whom bought or sold at least one item in the past year.
- Craigslist boasts more than 2 billion page views and 8 million users a month.
- More than a quarter of all the items sold on mega-shopping site Amazon.com now come from third-party sellers, which include individuals as well as businesses.
But along with popularity comes problems, and the online sites are no exception. Sellers complain about spiraling fees, picky buyers, shipping hassles and even fraud.
Getting started can be daunting for a newcomer. But fear not, gentle reader. People just like you are selling their junk for fun and profit every day. You just need to know a few tips for selling and how various sites work, so you can pick the one that's the best fit for what you've got to offer.
What follows is a general overview of the four most popular sites, a few ideas on how to ensure a successful sale, a detailed breakdown of exactly how each site works and the costs, and finally a brief listing of alternatives.
The four big sites
Amazon.com is pretty easy for newbies to use, but there are limits on what you can sell: individuals can only offer items that Amazon or one of its affiliated retailers already sells. So if you have a new or used PalmOne Tungsten you want to get rid of, you're in luck; if you're looking for a collector to snap up an old Apple Newton, predecessor to today's personal digital assistants, you need to go elsewhere.
Craigslist is perfect if you've got furniture, children's play sets or anything else that's either too bulky for convenient shipping or likely to find plenty of buyers locally. (The site has sections for dozens of cities in the U.S. and worldwide; there's nothing preventing you from advertising in another city, but most people stick close to home.) It's also free, which makes it dear to the heart of many sellers.
Related auction resources
EBay is still the go-to site if you have something rare, weird or collectible. Designer clothes, jewelry, sports equipment and stuff that appeals to hobbyists often sells well. One poster on the Your Money message board sold used sky-diving equipment, an old ammunition belt and a fog light for a Ford Ranger. The fog lights came two to a package, she explained, but her husband only needed one.
"Apparently someone else only needed one too, because (hubby) sold the other on eBay for over half what he paid for the twin pack," she posted.
Half.com, a fixed-price online marketplace owned by eBay, is where many people sell newer books, music, movies, computers and electronics, usually for 50% or less of their original value. As with Amazon.com, Half.com is a good match for newbies if the item you want to sell is already in the site's database; you may not be able to list older or rarer items.
Tips for successful sales
Each site has guides and FAQs (frequently asked questions) for newbies, but these principles apply in general:
Do your research. You need to understand how the sites function, as well as the potential market for your item. For example, Ivetic recommends buying a few small items on eBay before you become a seller so you can get a feel for how the process works. Searching to find similar items for sale can help you determine a price range as well as turn up key words or phrases that might boost your potential audience.
Compose with care. You'll want to give all the appropriate details (size, weight, dimensions, what it's made of, etc.) as well as an honest assessment of the item's condition. Failing to do so leads to unhappy buyers, who complain to the site and knock down your all-important seller feedback ratings. Choosing the right keywords is essential to getting the best price; teddy bear collectors are more likely to bid on an antique Steiff rather than just an old tattered toy. Misspelled words could prevent buyers from finding your listing, so use a spell-checker before you post.
Pictures sell. Most potential buyers want to see what you've got. No picture, or a picture cut and pasted from a manufacturer's Web site, will lead to suspicions that you don't really have the item or that it's in worse condition than you say. Amazon.com and Half.com typically provide photos, but at the other sites, it's up to you.
Watch the costs. Listing fees, commissions and shipping expenses can add up quickly. Make sure the potential profit is worth the hassle of listing, contacting buyers and shipping. You may need to make some tradeoffs; for example, you can boost your pool of potential buyers by adding the ability to accept credit cards to your PayPal account, but you'll lose another 3% of your sale price to fees, on top of all your other expenses.
Keep on top of your listings. The sites that take commissions (Amazon.com, eBay, Half.com) will e-mail you when your item sells, but it's up to you to complete the deal swiftly. If you don't check your e-mail for days or drag your heels on shipping, buyers will complain, and there go your seller ratings. With Craigslist, you're honor-bound to remove your listing when the item sells; unfortunately, many people don't.
Protect yourself. Unless you're arranging a face-to-face sale, you'll want some kind of middleman to handle the money. Amazon.com and Half.com collect and disburse money for their sellers, while eBay recommends using PayPal, an online payment service. If the buyer wants to use an escrow service, make sure it's a legitimate one like Escrow.com; fake escrow sites are rampant. (EBay provides a list of recommended escrow services here.) Avoid directly accepting a cashier's check; it could be phony. If it's a face-to-face transaction, insist on cash.
Track your packages. It's fairly easy for dishonest buyers to insist your items never arrived. Without some kind of tracking, it's your word against theirs, and most selling sites back the buyers. The U.S. Postal Service offers delivery confirmation for a small fee and package tracking for a larger amount, or you can use one of the shipping services like FedEx that routinely tracks packages.
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