As a mom, you know that the chore of organizing the house often falls on your shoulders. Sure, your husbands might help from time-to-time and the kids try to help but most of the heavy lifting will fall on your shoulders.
What if there was a way to make money from your old stuff? You might think this sounds too good to be true, but it is not, and this article will give you some tips on how to clean out your house and make money in the process.
- Garage Sales
Talk about going old school but there are times when the way your parents did things still works today. Enter the garage sale, as it seems like long as people have had garages they have been trying to sell things out of them.
Having a garage sale is the cheapest and easiest way to sell the things that have accumulated in your home. All you need to do is set up a few tables, get some price tags, and then put up signs around the neighborhood to let everyone know about the big event.
From there you hope it doesn’t rain or the buyers won’t show up. It really is that simple and just about everything is a cash sale which means you don’t have to worry about payment processing fees and the like.
In addition, a garage sale is a good way to reach buyers in your immediate area. For example, you might be thinking “how can I sell my junk car for top dollar?” By having it on offer at your garage sale might help to gain interest and this will speed up process of getting rid of your junker.
- The Internet
Moving into the 21st century another way to sell the thing you don’t need any more is online at sites such as eBay have made it easy to reach buyers almost anywhere in the world. All you need to do is list your items, accept an offer, and then ship the items off to the new owner. Ok, you also need to go through eBay’s process for getting qualified as a seller, but let’s put that aside for a moment.
Besides eBay, there are dozens of other sites where you can list what you have for sale and odds are that you might want to use one or more site depending on what you have and who you think the best buyers will be.
To get started selling online there are a few things that you will need to keep in mind. The first thing is a good picture. Without this, it will be almost impossible to sell your items. As such, you want to be mindful of the lighting and to show your items from as many angles as possible. The following will give prospective buyers the opportunity to get a better idea of what it is they are about to purchase.
In addition, you will want to work on the description. Don’t load up on flowery language, but at the same time, you don’t want to be too brief. Try to strike a balance between the overselling and making sure your listing stands out from similar items on the site you have chosen.
You also want to focus on the price, and this means doing your research. Remember the internet has made it easier than ever before to price check and this means that you must assume potential buyers are also checking your price. As such, be strategic when setting prices. This doesn’t mean you need to be the cheapest, but it does mean that your price will need to stand out from the pack.
Lastly, don’t underestimate the importance of an excellent seller rating. This means that your listings will rank higher than others and depending on the number of listings you might even earn a spot on the first page – the holy grail of selling online.
- Auction Houses
You might think that auctions are only for high priced antiques or fantasy artand while that is true to a certain extent, several auctions make their money by selling items we have around the house. Sure, it might help if these items are antiques or have a story attached to them, but you will never know if you don’t try.
One thing to remember with auction houses is that they usually ask for 30% of the sales price and as such this can be an expensive option. However, there are times when an auction house can help you move hard to sell items as they will know the right buyers for certain items.
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