My mom’s moving to a much smaller house and we got a lot of stuff to clear out. I hate to see it go into the trash.
One Example.
Dad had a large collection of coffee cups. Some are marked with various organizations that gave a cup to him. There’s probably fifty of them.
Are they worth trying to sell? Individually or maybe in lots of 4 cups?
Dad had a really nice reel to reel tape player. It’s in a suitcase cabinet and there’s a separate tube amplifier. Each piece is portable. If you can pick up 20 lbs.
How do I handle shipping? I’m really worried about the cost of buying boxes and packing material. I don’t want to buy this stuff and get stuck with it if these items don’t sell. Or end up losing money on a sell because my shipping costs are too high. Where’s the best place to buy this stuff? Fed Ex Office charges way too much for boxes and packing material.
How does postage work? I’ve noticed as a buyer that Ebay emails me immediately after a package is prepared for shipment. How does that work? Does Ebay prepare a mailing label and charge me postage fees? Do I need a postage scale that connects to USB?
I’m really debating whether it’s worth the hassle of selling small items. I doubt there’s more than a few hundred dollars to be made.
My biggest concern is getting these things in a collectors hands that wants them.
I did a ton of selling on eBay; not so much anymore.
Shipping is the first consideration. These days you almost have to ship using their labels, tracking info, and same-day to the post office to drop it off. If you don’t the customers will flame you. Buyers like free shipping even though there is no such thing; you just build the cost into the opening bid or reserve. I would still avoid free shipping and make the cost as bare-bones as possible.
Look at closed listings/past auctions. Anything you have that is failing to sell or going for less than 10 bucks, donate it. And feel free to move that price threshold up depending on how you value your time and effort. Ebay is a strange world; original naugas (where naugahyde comes from) go for more than $200 and $200 sneakers can go for as little as $20. Its hard to make any clear and fast rules other than research for yourself and play the cards as you see them.
Read through the eBay Community message boards. Those will give you a good idea what sellers face and how they handle things.
Yes; but with qualifications. The people I know doing that are either homebound or cycling things from/to a physical local shop. One example of the latter will list things on eBay like small local advertising pieces for about half what they would price them in their store hoping for a “national fight” over it from a couple nostalgic displaced former residents. If it sells fine, if not it goes back into the shop. She also uses it to move non-local stuff that came with box lots of things she really wanted. She gets some return and clears the space. If it fails on eBay, it goes to Goodwill.
To really make money under say $10 per sale, you have to list a LOT of stuff week after week. It can be done but it takes a certain dedication to the task.
How much is your time worth? I can’t imagine that you’ll sell random mugs for hardly anything at all.
My personal cutoff for eBay is around $30 per item. If it’s less than that, it just gets donated. After ~11% fees for eBay and Paypal, 20ish minutes of work listing, packaging, printing postage, occasional hassle with returns/complaints, it’s just not worth my time for less than that. I’ll just take the tax write-off and be done with it.
Don’t spend your life worrying about what will happen to things you don’t need or want. There’s plenty of stuff in the world.
I used to sell years ago, and made pretty good money, but I understand things have changed quite a bit. I sold small, specific collector/restoration stuff. Cheap to ship, but still pretty valuable.
Coffee mugs? I’d just drop them off at the thrift shop. Vintage audio? Craigslist. No shipping. Local pick-up only.
Vintage motorcycles? Then I’d go back to ebay for the wider coverage. Or list on Craigs in multiple cities nearby. I gotta get crackin’ on this any day soon now…
when ebay was first popular and were all auctions people sold all sorts of stuff …one lady had a really big odds and ends drawer so shed make a “surprise box” …you didn’t know what was in it she just threw stuff in a box and put it up for auction as is with no returns fir feed back was “you pays your money you takes your chances”
Those boxes were going for 30-40 bucks a pop a couple of times she had a collectable that was worth something in them but it was mostly junk …
No personal experience, but I’ve heard that it’s tough for new sellers to get into the marketplace nowadays. Nobody wants to buy from anyone without a lot of positive feedback, and you can’t get positive feedback without selling anything.
We did some spring cleaning recently and I sold a bunch of stuff using Craigslist.
I was clear in my ads that I wasn’t playing around. First $X in my hand got the item. No trading phone numbers or anything, we weren’t going to be pen-pals. I deleted any reply that was scammy. I met buyers at a Sheetz after work. I had one no-show; she contacted me later that she’d had car problems. I explained that her item was sold.
I just realized I’m coming up on my 20th anniversary at ebay :eek: but I’m not very active these days and can’t be of any help in that.
However, my friend owns a charitable thrift store and I’ve spent a good chuck of my time there. Clean-outs, with all items donated, are a good part of her business. They try to keep inventory of everything - housewares, tools, clothing, books, collectibles, linens - and they end up with a lot of oddball things that people aren’t sure what to do with, but don’t want to throw out either. And they sell. See if there’s a place like this near you.
The reel-to-reel is some hobbyist’s treasure, sell that on Craigslist or LetGo or something.
I’m also coming up on my 20-year eBay anniversary and was in eBay’s now-defunct Voices program. I haven’t sold anything in several years. I agree with people who say either donate or sell on OfferUp/LetGo, or hold a yard sale if there’s enough stuff. For the the reel-to-reel, I’d do a little research. See if you can triangulate a value on it from eBay and/or other websites. Then you could figure out if it’s something to donate or sell to a local hobbyist, or just send it to Goodwill.
I appreciate your comments and advice. I’ve always been leery of selling on eBay. I too am celebrating my 20th anniversary as a Buyer. I have watched eBay evolve from hobbyist and collector sales to corporate. A lot of big companies use eBay as an extension of their regular store fronts (web sales or brick & mortar).
I agree donating to Goodwill is a good option. I can’t see myself patiently wrapping and boxing dozens of coffee mugs for shipment. My free time is so limited and that’s not how it should be used.
I wasn’t sure if I was being selfish. There is a need to help our families. Be there for them. But I can do that by boxing stuff up for donation.
