I recently went through a big change and decided to sell pretty much everything I own and pack a bag. There are a million reasons why I came across this decision, but this article isn’t about those. Instead, it’s about how I managed to get rid of most of those things… I sold them online.
That’s right, I put up pretty much everything from my apartment online to see what sold. And I’m happy to report that most of the things sold.
It was a bit of a frustrating process, dealing with second-hand sales can be time-consuming and the cost doesn’t always seem to fit the reward. But ultimately, it was a good learning process and I can share a few online selling tips with you.
Tip #1 Decide on the Lowest Price You’d Take
In my case, I was selling everything. That means that at some point, everything would have to go.
But that doesn’t mean I was willing to give it away. There were a few things that I knew friends and family would cherish more, so instead of giving them to a complete stranger, I decided I would rather give them away to someone else.
That means I came up with the desired price and the lowest price for everything.
In a lot of cases, I was able to sell my products at my desired price. But a few things did end up in my friends-and-family pile instead. With those two prices set out ahead of time, it was a lot easier to negotiate.
Tip #2 Set Pick-up Times
I am not a terribly patient person. I can be, but most of the time I’m not. So, there’s not a lot of things I dislike more than waiting around twiddling my thumbs waiting for someone to pick something up.
So, I made a calendar.
I made everyone pick a time and place for them to pick whatever it is up that they bought. Then, if they didn’t show up, it went back on the market. I told people this beforehand and, in most cases, it resulted in things actually being picked up.
Tip #3 Don’t Take Payment Ahead of Time
For a while, I thought it would be a good idea to take payment ahead of time to “hold items” for people. But that quickly turned out to be wrong.
I ended up having to chase a lot of people for a lot of things. And, quite frankly, it wasn’t worth it at all. So, I stopped taking pre-payments and told people they could pay-on-their-way (if they were doing an eTransfer) or could bring me cash on site.
This was a much better process than tracking people down when they got “busy” or “forgot” they were supposed to pick something up. I only had one or two people get upset about this process. That was a red flag to me, so I didn’t sell anything to them.
Do you have a lot of experience selling things online? Share your tips and tricks below!
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Tae started out as a journalist before following the money into the corporate world. But it turns out that the grass isn’t always greener and now you can find her spending most of her time writing about all the things she loves. Namely, money, travel and business with a hefty dose of self-deprecating humor. She is a podcast fanatic, blogging aficionado and loves to find new ways to turn passions into cold hard cash!