Garagesale 7 0 13 – Create Outstanding Ebay Auctions

Three Top Tips for eBay Selling
&
Three Top Tips for Garage Sales

Once again I got to do a fun field study of garage sale vs. eBay selling. We worked like dogs for 3 1⁄2 days to do the garage sale. We also worked about 15 hours to list 100 things on eBay during that same 3 1⁄2 day period. The results will be posted at the end of this article. What is your guess as to the winner?

If you don’t have an eBay Store, you can create a collection of your $.99 auction items and promote it via your social accounts. Use eBay promoted listings to get more eyeballs on your items. If you’re looking to liquidate multi-quantity merchandise, use promoted listings to get more exposure for your items. We have a huge garage sale every year and pricing is a snap. We keep the price to approximately 50% to 75% of what the item would cost new. You can always check out eBay for questionable items, such as collectibles. Set Prices for Your Garage Sale with Your Goal in Mind. Want to know how to price garage sale items?

You know that I am NOT a big proponent of garage sales. However, there are some times in your life when a garage sale makes sense. Not a lot of times, but some times. For my sister, a garage sale on July 2nd made sense. We will also be holding garage (actually yard sales) on August 6th and August 20th on King Street in Bellingham, Washington. We will have many more items, furniture and as you know what I always say, “No one can know everything.” So you can pick up some great deals and make money selling on-line.

And in my experience, yard sales are a blast when you get family and friends involved! Here are me, my brother, my sister and our really good friends Susan and Teresa Thornberg who lived across the street from us while growing up.

When you go through your items and decide what to sell at a garage sale or on-line, I have some tips for you. After you have figured out what should be garage sale vs. eBay, I have some great garage sale tips for you.

My Three Top Tips for eBay Selling

1. Name brand research

If you have something that is in great condition, all the pieces are there, and it is a name brand, I highly suggest doing your research. My favorite tools are Terapeak, eBay, PriceMiner and WorthPoint.

Here is an example of a brand new item with tags that I researched on Terapeak and decided it would be much more advantageous to list on eBay than put out at a garage sale, hoping to get $5 or $10. As you can see from the sales results, we did much better with it on eBay than at a yard sale.

2. Gut Feeling

Garage Sale 7 0 13 – Create Outstanding Ebay Auctions Online

When I was sorting items, this picture frame seemed to speak to me. Don’t really know what that means other than I had a gut feeling about it. It felt heavy, very much a quality item and it was signed from 1995. I am so glad I chose to put it on eBay instead of selling it at a garage sale for $1 to $2. Sometimes you have to trust your instincts. Actually, most of the time you need to trust your instincts!

3. The Smaller the Better for eBay

One of the items that I had to decide whether to sell at online auction or at the garage sale was this extremely intricate racecar set. It was in impeccable condition and was super cool! I did my research and realized it was a $230 item when sold brand new on the Internet.

However, I knew that it would probably take me 1-2 hours to pack it safely for shipment. I decided to put it out at the garage sale for $75 with a make offer sign. Well, it didn’t sell at the sale. Darn it! I listed it on eBay and it sold for more than that (we even added a video to the listing) so please check it out.

However, it did take me an hour to pack it. In retrospect, I should have put it out at the garage sale for $50 and also added the Or Best Offer to the price tag. It would have saved me an hour (at least) of heartache and listing time .

My Three Top Tips for Garage Sales

1. Tables, Tables, Tables and Clothing Racks

For my sister’s sale we borrowed tables from everyone we knew. Thank you to Jen & Jeff, my dad, my mom, Kay, John & Audrey, and numerous other friends. The more tables you have, the better your items look. No one wants to be digging on the ground at a garage sale for items. Especially as it rains almost every other day in Bellingham. You should also use a clothing rolling rack if you have one or can borrow one. Your items must be presented professionally.

Please also note that our items were placed by category. We had a table of collectors’ plates, a table of clothing, a table of lamp parts, a table of books, a clothing area etc. etc.

2. Everything MUST be priced–although Zach loves “Make Offer”

My nephew Zach (Kiki’s 5 year old) is so darn smart. He actually freaks me out. He can read better than I can! In any event, he was helping me price and he loved the “make offer” tags. My mom had bought about 10 of those pre-priced sticker sets (great tip here as they save a lot of time).

Here is a photo of my pricing table taken when my 5-year-old nephew Zach absconded with my camera. Notice the pre-priced stickers, the diet coke can and the Beanie Baby (that isn’t worth anything )

We did put a price tag on every single item, but did make a sign for our blanket pricing of clothing, books etc. This saves time also. Please read below about our price sign and twirlers.

Create

However, we did put two “Make offer” stickers on two pieces of expensive furniture. It really helped us in the long run. It is almost like throwing an item on eBay and waiting to see what the market will bear or will bid it up to.

Garage Sale 7 0 13 – Create Outstanding Ebay Auctions Today

My sister had three expensive display cabinets she wanted to sell. We knew that her lawyer’s bookcase was worth about $750 so we put that price on it. The other two display cabinets we weren’t sure. I thought they were also worth about $750 each. I was wrong. Really, does that ever happen? Apparently it does!

Auctions

Well, with the “make offer” stickers we didn’t make fools out of ourselves (a good thing). Three local antique dealers looked at the two cabinets and all three said that each cabinet was worth about $250. So, we finally put a price of $300 on each one. We actually were able to sell one of them to a former customer of Leaf’s antiques for $250 and my sister and I were so happy it was going to a great home.

3. Signage, Twirlers, Craigslist & Local Newspaper Ads

Signs were posted all over my sister’s sale with these blanket prices (saved us from pricing every single item individually):
Here is a photo of the backside of one of the big signs.

  • Hardback books $1.00 each
  • Paperback books 50 cents each
  • Lamp shades $5.00 each
  • Collector’s plates $3.00 each
  • Shoes $1.00 a pair
  • Sweaters, dresses and jackets $2.00 each
  • All other clothing $1.00 each
  • Socks 50 cents a pair
  • Videos $1.00 each

Then please make sure that you post a great ad on craisglist (it is free), also post a short newspaper ad in your local paper with a “Please see craisglist ad for more info” (this does cost money) and post signs all over your neighborhood with arrows pointing in the right direction.

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Finally, twirlers are an awesome idea! We found that around noon time our traffic stopped. We got all the kids (age 11 and older) that were there helping to make more signs and go to the busiest closest intersections and twirl their signs. Cracked me up but really drove traffic!

Here is a photo of our twirlers.

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Happy Garage Selling & eBaying!
Lynn
www.thequeenofauctions.com