topic Re: Selling things in Home

Selling things

Mominohio — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 18:25:58 GMT

Cleaning out the last couple of months, both here and at my mom's house, has made it clear we need to make an effort to sell some of the things we are unloading, as they are very nice, mostly household and kitchen items, and some small furniture.

We are planning a garage sale, and getting ready for that. We don't do all that well here, mostly because of the rural location.

I have tried Craig's List, and Ebay as well, and they both have their drawbacks, but considering listing a few things there as well.

We have no consignment shops around here that I can find, so that option is kind of out.

Anyone have any other suggestions I may not have thought of/heard of, to make some money off these things, before we just give them away?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Re: Selling things

gidgetgh — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 18:49:15 GMT

I've sold quite a bit through Facebook yard sale pages.

Re: Selling things

lucymo — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 19:04:51 GMT

@Mominohio Here in my area we have a lot of 'online yard sale' type sites. You just put pictures on, price and it's all local area. We can let them come to our house or meet at a public place. I've sold some items on a few of our sites and I haven't had any problems. I do this with items that I don't want to sell for cheap 'garage sale' prices mostly as people know the price when they message you.

Re: Selling things

Mominohio — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 19:13:13 GMT

@gidgetgh wrote:
I've sold quite a bit through Facebook yard sale pages.

I've tried this, but not much comes up here locally. We are near a town of about 50,000 people, but the nearest larger city is about 70 miles.

I'm going to search a little harder on this one, and see what I can find. I had kind of given up on it, but will try again, thanks for the reminder.

Re: Selling things

Mominohio — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 19:19:15 GMT

@lucymo wrote:
@Mominohio Here in my area we have a lot of 'online yard sale' type sites. You just put pictures on, price and it's all local area. We can let them come to our house or meet at a public place. I've sold some items on a few of our sites and I haven't had any problems. I do this with items that I don't want to sell for cheap 'garage sale' prices mostly as people know the price when they message you.

I've been searching for local things like this here, and I'm not finding anything that is productive at all. I'll keep looking though, and thanks!

Re: Selling things

ID2 — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 19:21:13 GMT

I don't know why the OP feels she won't do well having a garage sale since she lives in a rural area. So do I and every year we have our garage sale we usually do VERY well! We have "customers" that come back yearly and clean us out! Does your area have a community for sale items on Facebook? We sell a lot on there too.

Re: Selling things

geezerette — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 19:35:36 GMT

@Mominohio wrote:
@gidgetgh wrote:
I've sold quite a bit through Facebook yard sale pages.
I've tried this, but not much comes up here locally. We are near a town of about 50,000 people, but the nearest larger city is about 70 miles.

I'm going to search a little harder on this one, and see what I can find. I had kind of given up on it, but will try again, thanks for the reminder.

Heck, that's a major metropolis compared to where we are!

Re: Selling things

ANewHue — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:34:40 GMT

Many years ago I had my first and only yard sale. I had many great items most brand new with tags still on them. Designer baby clothing and many unique house goods (into the arts). don't know where these people came from but they wanted everything for free. By noon my patience wore out and I packed up everything and closed the door. All the clothes were donated to orphans .

I am now in the position again to get rid of things and I doubt I will be going down that road again. I was thinking about trying one of those new apps to sell things. I am in a small city near to NYC but the traffic I got was horrible, these people were not from around here for sure.

Re: Selling things

RedTop — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:36:59 GMT

April 1st kicks off flea market season in my area. We have several locations; both indoor and outdoor, where people set up on the weekends, and sell their stuff.

Re: Selling things

Mominohio — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:02:01 GMT

@RedTop wrote:
April 1st kicks off flea market season in my area. We have several locations; both indoor and outdoor, where people set up on the weekends, and sell their stuff.

We have a once a month flea market at a local fairgrounds, and it gets pretty good traffic. I had considered doing that, but it had slipped my mind recently. Thanks for that reminder @RedTop.

I'll check on the cost of a space and think about that again.

Re: Selling things

Kachina624 — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:04:31 GMT

As @ANewHue said, garage sales are such a hassle, when my dad sold the house and was getting rid of the last of his stuff, we just put it at the curb with a "free" sign. Nobody wants to pay even a fair price at garage sales.

Re: Selling things

BabyYoda — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:47:44 GMT

Garage/yard sales are a nightmare for me. There are companies that you can hire to run one for you and they take a % of what sells. If I have to do this again I would hire a company. I do like the idea of a flea market where you can sell your items. Good luck.

Re: Selling things

homedecor1 — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 01:16:31 GMT

@Mominohio

our community yard sale is this weekend. Im hoping to do well as in the past But I know it's a "yard sale" so pricing has to be reasonable.

I can't value actual price vs. yard sale price only because I don't want to bring it home!

Ive been trying to sell very nice furniture (accent pieces, end/coffee table, 2 yr old cal king bed still wrapped in plastic) so far not 1 call. I think furniture is very hard to sell, I'm going to donate to Habitat if no offers his weekend.

i have asked to join the online yard sales in my area (closed group) and never heard from the moderators -- guess that's out.

Good Luck!

Re: Selling things

SunValley — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 02:16:15 GMT

People will only pay pennies on the $ at garage sales around here. I cannot believe how peopele want to offer you a nickel for 10 cent item and think they are doing you a favor.. My last sale I ended a day early and I said no more.

Re: Selling things

Snicks1 — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 12:49:56 GMT

When I have things I want to clear out I just donate them. I have zero interest in yard sales, consignment shops, etc., holding them or going to them to shop. Good luck with whatever you choose to do with your items.

Re: Selling things

RespectLife — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 14:57:24 GMT

@SunValley wrote:
People will only pennies on the $ at garage sales around here. I cannot believe how people want to offer you a nickel for 10 cent item and think they are doing you a favor.. My last sale I ended a day early and I said no more.

I agree.

Still working full time and caring for others in my family doesn't give me the time I need to organize, set up and price things. Everyone around here says Friday's are the most profitable day for a garage sale....I would lose a days pay.

Yet, I have the need to downsize! Tried Craig's list...got crazies....total loonies. Never again. Tried ebay...the rules and costs are just not worth it.

I now donate everything to Goodwill. I get a GOOD receipt and am able to deduct the 'garage sale' value on my taxes.

No work, no hassle....just drive up to the trailer and they unload it for me and give me a receipt.

If I am going to have to let it go for that cheap...why not let Goodwill (or Amvets) make a little too?

Win for Goodwill

Win for me....

Re: Selling things

CelticCrafter — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 12:23:03 GMT

@RespectLife wrote:
@SunValley wrote:
People will only pennies on the $ at garage sales around here. I cannot believe how people want to offer you a nickel for 10 cent item and think they are doing you a favor.. My last sale I ended a day early and I said no more.
I agree.
Still working full time and caring for others in my family doesn't give me the time I need to organize, set up and price things. Everyone around here says Friday's are the most profitable day for a garage sale....I would lose a days pay.

Yet, I have the need to downsize! Tried Craig's list...got crazies....total loonies. Never again. Tried ebay...the rules and costs are just not worth it.

I now donate everything to Goodwill. I get a GOOD receipt and am able to deduct the 'garage sale' value on my taxes.

No work, no hassle....just drive up to the trailer and they unload it for me and give me a receipt.

If I am going to have to let it go for that cheap...why not let Goodwill (or Amvets) make a little too?

Win for Goodwill
Win for me....

That's what we do, not into yard sales or going the Ebay route because I would be the one to have to pack it up and take it to the post office or UPS.
I once made the mistake of donating items to Lupus and now I get every other charity associated with the pick-up company calling.

Only once did I have Goodwill tell me they wouldn't take something, it was an opened jigsaw puzzle - all the pieces were there but I understand them not wanting to believe me!

Re: Selling things

Lipstickdiva — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 19:12:04 GMT

Would it be worth it for you to hire someone and have an auction? Some of them do very well here, even in rural areas.

Otherwise, I donate. I did a garage sale once for 2 days with my SIL and never again. She was thrilled spending 8 hours both days sitting there to make less than $200.00. I was not. I'd rather just donate the stuff or toss it than go through setting up, pricing, sitting there and having people haggle over the price of a bundt pan.

Re: Selling things

XmasCarol — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 19:34:32 GMT

I've had great success using the Facebook sale sites. I live in Wisconsin. If I lived in Green Bay, I would search "Green Bay Buy Sell Trade". There are a number of sites for the city I live in. I picked a couple of sites by the number of people who had joined, I figured I would have a larger audience.

The sites I am a part of, you first "ask" to be added, as they are closed groups. I am staying away from "open groups" hoping to eliminate some of the rif raf. lol Once you've been added, first find the rules. Each site has them, but they can be hard to find. One site I belong to does not allow the sale of clothing items. Another does not allow the sale of cell phones. It's good to know these things before taking the time to post, then never seeing it appear as something wasn't allowed so your post was not uploaded.

It takes a little bit to figure out how to price items. I usually start out a bit high, as almost everyone asks if I'll accept a lower price. I always do accept as I want the money and to get rid of my clutter. Sometimes I try to negotiate, but I'm not very good at it.

I hope this info is helpful and that you'll give it a try. I keep walking around my house, looking for things I no longer use so I can sell them and put some money in my pocket. :-) Good luck!

Re: Selling things

RedTop — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 16:09:02 GMT

Anything belonging to my daughters and I, we offer to our family or friends first, then decide between donate or trash.

My husband loves to go to the flea market and look around, but as a seller, he winds up giving our stuff away rather than bring it back home. First of all, it is not valuable to him once I box it up as something I no longer want in the house, so if he sells it for $1, he got rid of it, and made something, which is all that matters to him.