The trick seems to be that when it comes to pricing…. if you’re going to price it for .50 cents or .25 cents… you’d do better to price it 2 for a dollar or 4 for a dollar…. the first people tend to ignore, the second they think they’re getting a bargin! but it’s worth a try

I would be interested in trying Craigslist for items I can’t sell on ebay (big items like furniture) but I’m not crazy about inviting strangers over to my house. I live alone and I don’t want to end up dead in my basement cuz of of my granny’s sofa. ;-)

I might check out Amazon as well to see how their terms compare.

I think of all the three, a yard sale is the worst in terms of value/time. Not only is the setting up extremely labor and time intensive, but when you’re running it, that’s where your time has to be spent for hours and hours … not just when is convenient for you to respond to a potential buyer. And everything that *doesn’t* sell also has to get packed back up somehow, whether for donation or back into storage. And on a lot of yard sales, that’s a good half of the stuff.

Remember, on either ebay or craig’s list, you don’t have to list everything as a single item. You can list a ‘lot’ of 20 mixed dvds or T2 girls clothing or whatever it is and as long as your opening bid/asking price is reasonable it will probably sell.

I love ebay. Have sold items that I would in the past have donated to Goodwill and made some good money. In the past 3 years, I have made over $4K selling used clothes, dvds, electronic devices, cameras, computer equiptment, cell phones . . .

First, I’d suggest either pricing your item so that you aren’t going to lose money, or add a handling fee to cover the cost of materials/fees.

Second, and more important, you have to consider the value of the feedback rating that several lost value auctions can generate. For many people the value might be minimal, but if you plan to do much selling your feedback rating is very valuable. Its impossible to attach a dollar amount, since that depends on future sales volume, the type of items being sold, etc.

For a new seller, I would actually suggest selling several of these low cost items before listing any higher priced items. Especially if the higher priced item is something that buyers might prefer buying from a more-established seller. I can easily see where a feedback rating of 50 (perhaps even lower) could result in bringing in an additional $100 or more on certain items compared to a new seller with 0 feedback.

For low cost items I am saving a lot more time just throwing everything in a bag and taking it to goodwill.

I say just share the wealth and donate the stuff to an organization like Easter Seals or Goodwill that with resell your used items and use the proceeds to help those in your neighborhood with special needs. That is a good use of my time, and it feels good too.

Several years ago, when I was finishing grad school, I had a very specialized, musical instrument I needed to get rid of. I tried advertising it for $700 (I’d paid $1500 for it) on my university’s version of craigslist. Only one person expressed interest, said she couldn’t afford more than $350 (which I would have taken), and then decided she didn’t want it after all.

By this time, I just wanted to make sure it went to a good home, so I contacted my university’s music department and asked if I could donate it. They said they didn’t have room for it, but that gave me the idea to contact other university music departments in the area. I found two people who were interested, one offered me $800 and the other offered $1000, so I ended up selling it for $1000, or $300 more than I’d expected to get.

The whole process took more than a few hours, but my “hourly wage,” however you want to calculate it, was still pretty good.