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!