5 Tips For Making Some Cash Selling Stuff on eBay

November 20, 2008 By Debbie Dragon

Selling things you no longer need or want on eBay is a good way to drum up some extra cash.  Depending on what you have to sell, November and early December could prove to be good months for attracting buyers who are doing their holiday shopping!

Here are some tips for successfully selling the items that clutter your home (or garage, or car…) on eBay.  Remember, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure!

1. Forget about the reserve price.  When selling used items on eBay, don’t set a reserve price.  Your idea of how much the item is worth and the buyers’ ideas of what it’s worth are likely to be two very different prices.  Having a reserve that’s too high will result in the item not being sold.  Having a lower price will encourage buyers to “outbid” each other and essentially drive the price of your item up, anyway.  Start your price at about $1.
2. Shorten your bid period.  Some people figure having a full 7 days or more to attract buyers to your item will give you a potential for more bids and finding the lucky buyer.  While this may be true, it’s been proven that people bid higher as the auction is coming to an end, so close the bidding after 3 days and people will likely start out with higher bids because there is less time available to bid.
3. Take photos.  Whenever you are selling something that’s been used, it’s a good idea to show a photo that puts the item (and anything else you might be selling with it) in an attractive appearance for buyers.
4. Relist items that don’t sell.  You can quickly re-list an item that doesn’t sell on ebay without having to retype all of the information in.  Relist the item once or twice, but if it still hasn’t sold you probably should consider a consignment store, or listing it for free on freecycle.com or craigslist.
5. Figure out how much it costs to ship the item and add a few bucks.  Usually you’ll be surprised when hitting the post office that it costs more than expected to ship an item. 

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