Selling Your Unwanted Items

As part of the decluttering process, you're going to run into times when it makes sense to sell stuff. Whether it's clothes, toys, furniture, or sporting goods, there is a pretty healthy market for used stuff and you can take advantage of that. Are you going to make a ton of money this way? No, you aren't. You'll be lucky to make pennies on the dollar, but it gets people to show up at your house and cart stuff off and pay you a few bucks for the privilege.

Ebay is probably the most well-known site for selling your used stuff. I used to be an Ebay seller and I have extensive experience in this area both as a buyer and a seller. My advice is to only use Ebay for small, shippable items that are worth at least $100. Otherwise, the fees are just too much. How do you determine if something is worth $100? Go out and search for similar items and see what price they are going for. Search completed items if you can. That way you get what the item actually sold for and not what someone was asking for it.

Amazon is probably a less known site for selling your items, but I actually like it a lot better than Ebay. Even though it is mostly limited to books, CD's, and movies, it is SO much simpler to use. Ebay has about 5 screens that you have to go through and you have to submit a picture. Amazon has 1 screen where you just describe the condition of your item and select your price - much easier. The other nice thing about Amazon is that they pay Amazon directly so you don't have to wrangle with the buyer to receive the payment. It just automatically pops into your account minus a small fee for Amazon. They even give you a budget for postage.

In fact, I just sold a book on there yesterday. I had a book called the Green Collar Economy that I had bought from Amazon for about $18. I read most of it, got what I wanted out of it and posted it back for resale simply by going to the screen where I bought it and clicking the Sell Your Item button. I put my condition - like new, and set my price compared to the other items for sale out there. Then I just waited a couple of weeks for my E-mail telling me it was sold and I pop it in the mail and collect my $15.

PS: I also save a lot of money by buying pretty much all of my books, movies, and CD's from Amazon. Sometimes I buy them new, but a lot of the time, I save a few bucks by buying used copies in good condition and I've never been disappointed.

Craigslist and other local selling sites. I think Craigslist.com is brilliant! I've been using it for about 2 years and I've sold probably dozens of items through it. Anything from end tables to hamster cages to cars (I've sold my last 3 cars online). Craigslist is located in most major cities and it's FREE. You just log onto it and select the city you live in. Then if you want to sell something, you just type up a description of it, post a picture or two, and set a price. Then people call or E-mail you to come and buy it. One caution - Craiglist has a very high "flake" rate. I usually have 4 or 5 people contact me before someone actually shows up. I control this by telling people that I am only going to be available at a certain time for an hour or so and if they don't show up, I will leave. There are also similar sites popping up at most TV and radio station websites. There is even a listing for free stuff, so if you have something you just want hauled away, put it out there and more than likely, somebody will show up in a truck and haul it off.

Garage sales/Estate sales - There's a good reason I'm putting this last. Over my lifetime, I have probably done half a dozen or so garage sales or estate sales and I just HATE them. They are so much work for so little money, I just don't think they are hardly worth the effort. You spend the whole darn morning hauling your junk out into the yard and then spend the rest of the day haggling with idiots who want to buy everything for a quarter. Then you're stuck with all the junk that didn't sell anyway. I think if it's just little stuff like clothes, shoes, kid's toys, paperbacks, and old VHS tapes, you're better to just give them to charity and take a write-off on your taxes.

If you do need to do an estate sale, come and see me for advice. We've now lost all four of our parents, so we've been through this a couple of times and we can give you some good advice on how to do it effectively.