The Garage Sale Without a Garage: Declutter Your Life & Make Money on eBay

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One of the things my wife and I do to make some extra money is selling our old stuff on eBay. How do we find stuff to sell? Every 6 months or so, my wife and I take a day to purge ourselves of stuff we no longer use. While most of the stuff is crap and will go to the garbage, every once in a while we will find some great items that can fetch a pretty penny on eBay. Here’s our general method of how we do do our eBay “purge and profit.”

The Purge

Set aside a day for the purge. A thorough purging will take a good part of the day. Set aside weekend where you can devote your self completely to decluttering your house.

Create your declutter attack plan. Plan the order of the rooms you want to declutter. Start off with some easy rooms to get you in the “declutter zone.” If the room has closets, start of with those before you move the rest of the room. If the room has cabinets, purge those first.

Create a “trash” bag an”eBay” bag, and “donate” bag. Have separate bags or boxes for garbage and eBay and sort as you go. Some items, like clothing, are better to donate than sell on eBay simply because they don’t do that well on eBay. Make sure to have bags for donations as well.

Ask the “one year question.” If you’re not sure whether you should get rid of something, ask yourself “Have I used this item in the last year?” If you haven’t it goes; if you have, keep it.

Finish a room before going on the next one. Stay focused on one room at a time. If you try to purge more than one room at a time, you’ll overwhelm yourself and end up quiting before the job is done.

Chunk it or donate it. Take the trash bag and put out with the garbage. Drop the donate bags to Goodwill. Ahhh… doesn’t that feel good?

The Profit

Now it’s time to sell your stuff on eBay. Here’s what has helped my wife and I get maximum profits on our eBay sales.

Research what similar items have sold for. Find out what the eBay market is valuing your item at. If you set too high a price, you won’t get any bids. Just get on eBay’s advanced search to see what items like yours have sold for and how much they are auctioning for now. Take into account the item’s condition when researching as well. If it has some dings and flaws, you should look to start the bid out lower than other items.

Set your starting bid low. Low starting bids attract more bidders. Of course you should base your bids on the demand for the item. If it’s a high demand product, starting low shouldn’t hurt you because more people will be competing for it. If your product is in low demand and you think you won’t get many bids, set the starting price closer to what you actually want to get for the item. This is why researching is so important.

Be descriptive in your description. The more detail you put in your item description the more likely it will sell. Tell how old the item is, how often it has been used, and any flaws it might have. Even if your item has a few dings in it, people will buy IF you’re upfront about it in the description. It shows the buyer you’re an honest eBayer and in the eBay game your reputation is your most important commodity.

Edit your description. Make sure to run a spell check and grammar check on your eBay listing. It just makes you look more legit and boosts that all important eBay reputation.

Create a stellar title. The first thing people will see when searching for eBay items is the title. The key for a good title is description. Try to tell everything you can about the item in the space eBay give your for the title. List things like brand, color, condition, designers, and size. If it’s a book or CD, include the artist. That way if someone searches for the author, but not the title of your book, your item will still come up. Don’t use all caps or punctuations. That just annoys people and shows you have no idea what you’re doing.

Include a picture of the item. Don’t just include one, include several from different angles. Make sure you show any flaws or dings the item might have. Again, if the flaw is minor, it shouldn’t hurt you. The picture of the flaw only shows you’re an honest seller.

Run a 10 day listing. If you start the bid on Thursday and run a 10 day bid, your bid will end on the Sunday of the following week. That means your item will be up for two weekends. More people surf and make purchases on eBay on the weekends, so having exposure on two weekends will definitely help increase the bids.

Be prompt in answering questions. If you get a question from a bidder, answer it quickly. It shows you’re serious about selling your item and only increases your reputation. Plus, it’s just plain courteous.

Be upfront with shipping and handling. Make it clear who’s paying for shipping and handling. One of the biggest scams people run on eBay is selling an item for super cheap, but then charging $15 for shipping. You’ll encourage bids if you’re clear about how much shipping will be.

Don’t use eBay add-ons . I haven’t found these to be very helpful. If you follow these tips, you shouldn’t have to use them.

Ship fast. As soon as the auction is over, head down to the post office and send the package off. Buyers will get to vote on you and how you handle shipping will be taken into consideration. Ship fast to earn a high score!

What are your tips for the eBay “purge and profit?” Drop a line in the comment box!

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11 Comments

1. Matt Wolfe on 08.11.2007 at 12:12 (Reply)

   That’s a great idea. I do this about once every three months or so. I go through almost everything I own and either trash it, donate it, or sell it. I’ve been making a huge effort over the past year or so to really declutter my life and I’m so much less stressed because of it. Great advice!

2. Christine on 08.11.2007 at 12:38 (Reply)

   Can someone please clarify what sells well on Ebay and what sort of stuff (besides clothing) is better to trash/donate? I’ve never sold on Ebay before, but I definitely have a lot of stuff to get rid of!

3. Brett McKay on 08.11.2007 at 17:33 (Reply)

   Matt-
   I’m glad there’s another person out there who loves to declutter. I’m with you. I’ve been really working on keeping my life free from clutter this year. I haven’t done so well, though.

   Christine-
   Consumer electronics like digital cameras, iPods, or Pocket PC’s usually sell well. Sporting goods like golf clubs do well as well. If you have video games, books, or DVDs, I would go with Amazon or Half.com. That would be another good post idea- What to sell on eBay and what to sell on Amazon.

4. The Garage Sale Without a Garage: Declutter Your Life & Make Money … at Make Money On eBay on 08.11.2007 at 18:53

   […] Create a “trash” bag an”eBay” bag, and “donate” bag. Have separate bags or boxes for garbage and eBay and sort as you go. Some items, like clothing, are better to donate than sell on eBay simply because they don’t do that well on eBay. … More info… […]

5. Blogging My Way out of Debt » Blog Archive » Link Love: Tuesday 11/13/2007 on 16.11.2007 at 11:16

   […] Brett @ The Frugal Law Student has a Garage Sale Without a Garage […]

6. The Frugal Law Student Month In Review- November 2007 | The Frugal Law Student on 01.12.2007 at 10:09

   […] The Garage Sale Without a Garage: Declutter Your Life and Make Money on Ebay. This was a fun post to write. If you feel like you’re being bogged down by clutter, here’s a step by step plan to clear it out and make some money in the process. […]

7. Katie on 05.12.2007 at 09:38 (Reply)

   You’ve joined “Auction Culture!”

   A great book on the economic ramifications of re-selling our stuff is “Future Shop”. Here’s a blog entry at Geezeo that refers to it:

   http://blog.geezeo.com/2007/11/20/black-friday-free-parking-and-why-macs-rule/

   1. Brett McKay on 06.12.2007 at 00:03 (Reply)

      Thanks for the tip on the book Katie. I’ll have to check that out for my reading over the winter break!

8. Rayven on 08.12.2007 at 11:07 (Reply)

   You said not to use the ebay add-on’s because they aren’t that great. I agree….except for the gallery photo. Having that extra photo WILL boost sales dramatically, and is well worth the nominal charge for EVERY auction.

9. paulette on 10.12.2007 at 09:12 (Reply)

   I also did a garage sale before. But i havent tried it on ebay. All i can say is that garage sale is really worth it because the things that are trash for you areimportant to others.

10. Paranaque Scandal on 18.02.2008 at 03:12 (Reply)

    great post. i liked it… Like the Paranaque Scandal…

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