May 25, 2005
Turn Your Stuff into MegaCash
Turn your surplus stuff into cash online
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.
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.
How the sites break down
Amazon.com
Best for: Books, CDs, DVDs, electronics and other fixed-price items.
How it works: You search through Amazon.com listings for the exact item you want to sell, then click on the "Sell yours here" button on the right-hand side of the screen. (If you can't find your item listed, you're out of luck.) You set the price for your item, compose your advertisement and give Amazon your credit card and bank account numbers, along with your name, address and phone number.
If the item sells, Amazon gives you a shipping credit to offset some of your costs, then deducts its fees from the buyer's payment and deposits the proceeds into your bank account.
Listing fees: None
Selling fees: 99 cents plus 6% to 15% of the selling price, depending on the type of item sold.
Craigslist
Best for: Hard-to-ship items, fixed-priced items and sellers who want minimal hassle and no fees.How it works: You click on the community where you live (listed on the right-hand side of the Craigslist home page) and find the appropriate category under the "For Sale" section. You compose your ad, include pictures if you like and post. Potential buyers contact you directly (typically via e-mail) and you work out the details.
Listing fees: None
Selling fees: None
EBay
Best for: Collectibles, hard-to-find items.
How it works: You create a seller's account and provide credit-card or debit-card numbers, as well as your bank account information. You're given the option to sign up for PayPal, a payment system that allows you to accept buyers' electronic payments (or, for a fee, credit card payments). You compose your ad, decide on your selling format (typically auction method or fixed-priced), add pictures or other special features, select a category and post your listing.
Listing fees: 25 cents to $4.80, depending on the starting or minimum price. For additional fees, you can upgrade the look of your ad or guarantee it more prominent placement.
Selling fees: 5.25% of the first $25, plus 2.75% of the amount up to $1,000, plus 1.5% of the amount over $1,000. (So if you sold something for $1005, you would pay $1.31 for the first $25 of value, plus 2.9% of the amount over $25 but below $1,000.01, or $26.81, plus 1.5% of the remainder, or 7 cents, for a total of $28.19.).
Half.com
Best for: Books, DVDs, CDs, electronics and other fixed-priced items.
How it works: You set up a user account, then click the "Become a seller" link. You type in your credit card number and contact information, then choose the shipping methods you want to offer. If your item sells, Half.com deducts its commission from the buyer's payment and deposits the remainder directly into your checking account.
Listing fees: None
Selling fees: 5% to 15% of the selling price, depending on the cost of the item sold.
Alternatives to using big sites
Trading assistants: Plenty of businesses and individuals will conduct your online auctions for you. You just drop off the item, or arrange for pickup, and your work is done. Count on losing 30% to 50% of any sales to commissions, and consider using assistants screened by the site. You can find eBay's list of trading assistants here.
Trading forums: If you have a hobby, chances are there are several Web sites devoted to it, and many have buying and selling forums. One poster in the Your Money message board, for instance, recommended AnandTech.com for computer aficionados and techies.
Consignment shops: Best for high-end items like designer clothing, formal wear and better furniture. The usual deal is the shop takes 50% of whatever sells; if it doesn't sell, it's usually donated or returned to you.
Yard sales: The time-tested way to get rid of stuff in a hurry. Price things cheaply for quick sales -- the idea is to get it out of your house, not make a fortune. Even then, you'll wind up taking some things to the dump or Goodwill; one Your Money poster recalls having to comfort her husband, who couldn't understand why no one wanted his old recliner with the duct tape patch.
Donations: You won't get cash up front, but you could realize a financial benefit at tax time if you itemize. Check with the charity first to see what items it doesn't accept, and refrain from donating stuff that's unusable.
Freecycle.org: Your only payment will be good karma, but that goes a long way. Freecycle.org connects people who need stuff with people who are willing to give it away.
You can find more details in my earlier column, "Don't need that old blender? Freecycle it."
Liz Pulliam Weston's column appears every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions in the Your Money message board
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.
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.
How the sites break down
Amazon.com
Best for: Books, CDs, DVDs, electronics and other fixed-price items.
How it works: You search through Amazon.com listings for the exact item you want to sell, then click on the "Sell yours here" button on the right-hand side of the screen. (If you can't find your item listed, you're out of luck.) You set the price for your item, compose your advertisement and give Amazon your credit card and bank account numbers, along with your name, address and phone number.
If the item sells, Amazon gives you a shipping credit to offset some of your costs, then deducts its fees from the buyer's payment and deposits the proceeds into your bank account.
Listing fees: None
Selling fees: 99 cents plus 6% to 15% of the selling price, depending on the type of item sold.
Craigslist
Best for: Hard-to-ship items, fixed-priced items and sellers who want minimal hassle and no fees.How it works: You click on the community where you live (listed on the right-hand side of the Craigslist home page) and find the appropriate category under the "For Sale" section. You compose your ad, include pictures if you like and post. Potential buyers contact you directly (typically via e-mail) and you work out the details.
Listing fees: None
Selling fees: None
EBay
Best for: Collectibles, hard-to-find items.
How it works: You create a seller's account and provide credit-card or debit-card numbers, as well as your bank account information. You're given the option to sign up for PayPal, a payment system that allows you to accept buyers' electronic payments (or, for a fee, credit card payments). You compose your ad, decide on your selling format (typically auction method or fixed-priced), add pictures or other special features, select a category and post your listing.
Listing fees: 25 cents to $4.80, depending on the starting or minimum price. For additional fees, you can upgrade the look of your ad or guarantee it more prominent placement.
Selling fees: 5.25% of the first $25, plus 2.75% of the amount up to $1,000, plus 1.5% of the amount over $1,000. (So if you sold something for $1005, you would pay $1.31 for the first $25 of value, plus 2.9% of the amount over $25 but below $1,000.01, or $26.81, plus 1.5% of the remainder, or 7 cents, for a total of $28.19.).
Half.com
Best for: Books, DVDs, CDs, electronics and other fixed-priced items.
How it works: You set up a user account, then click the "Become a seller" link. You type in your credit card number and contact information, then choose the shipping methods you want to offer. If your item sells, Half.com deducts its commission from the buyer's payment and deposits the remainder directly into your checking account.
Listing fees: None
Selling fees: 5% to 15% of the selling price, depending on the cost of the item sold.
Alternatives to using big sites
Trading assistants: Plenty of businesses and individuals will conduct your online auctions for you. You just drop off the item, or arrange for pickup, and your work is done. Count on losing 30% to 50% of any sales to commissions, and consider using assistants screened by the site. You can find eBay's list of trading assistants here.
Trading forums: If you have a hobby, chances are there are several Web sites devoted to it, and many have buying and selling forums. One poster in the Your Money message board, for instance, recommended AnandTech.com for computer aficionados and techies.
Consignment shops: Best for high-end items like designer clothing, formal wear and better furniture. The usual deal is the shop takes 50% of whatever sells; if it doesn't sell, it's usually donated or returned to you.
Yard sales: The time-tested way to get rid of stuff in a hurry. Price things cheaply for quick sales -- the idea is to get it out of your house, not make a fortune. Even then, you'll wind up taking some things to the dump or Goodwill; one Your Money poster recalls having to comfort her husband, who couldn't understand why no one wanted his old recliner with the duct tape patch.
Donations: You won't get cash up front, but you could realize a financial benefit at tax time if you itemize. Check with the charity first to see what items it doesn't accept, and refrain from donating stuff that's unusable.
Freecycle.org: Your only payment will be good karma, but that goes a long way. Freecycle.org connects people who need stuff with people who are willing to give it away.
You can find more details in my earlier column, "Don't need that old blender? Freecycle it."
Liz Pulliam Weston's column appears every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions in the Your Money message board
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