One man’s trash may truly be another’s treasure. If you’re like me you most likely have a collection of stuff that’s simply taking up space. You know it has value and you don’t want to donate it or throw it away. How will you find someone to buy it?
I’m faced with this question all the time both at my store and with my personal collections. I have a collection of plates from cities across the country. Basically, they’re from places I’ve visited or lived and some have memories. However, others have no value to me and I simply don’t have the heart to toss them.
I did a quick search on eBay to see if others are selling similar items and I was shocked. Some of the plates I have are worth a few bucks and a couple have no monetary value. While I was searching for values of the plates I also did a quick search for other items I have in my possession. I figured out my old camera lenses are also worth some money.
eBay is a great place to list shippable items. Pretty much anyone armed with a digital camera and computer can list their wares. Setting up an auction is fairly straight forward: take a picture, write a description, select an auction time and starting price.
After the auction has been successfully listed, hopefully there will be some interest in the item and bidding will start. As the auction nears completion bidding should increase due to the item moving to the top of the search query. When the auction is finally complete most bidders will pay immediately with only a small percent needing a friendly reminder.
Shipping the item can be difficult if the item is large or oddly shaped. I’ve only had a few items that proved difficult. One was a grandfather clock and I used a casket box (yes, I used a casket box) to ship. Andirons were also one of the more difficult items I’ve had to ship due to their odd shape. A benefit to eBay’s platform is that the onus of paying for freight falls on the buyer.
My plates didn’t bring as much as I was hoping. I sold one for around a dollar and the others sold for around ten dollars each. Camera lenses are surprisingly still in demand, fetching between fifty and two hundred dollars each. Until last week I had six lenses that I’d been schlepping for the past twenty years.
Had my items been more generic or too large to ship I would have used Craigslist or the newspaper. For those who have never been on Craigslist, it provides a means to buy and sell similar to the classified ad section in the newspaper. Sellers can snap a picture, write a description and publish. Items like furniture and appliances do very well on Craigslist.
Some people simply don’t want to deal with the headache of listing the item, dealing with customers, boxing and shipping. Some businesses offer the service of selling items online which takes the headache out of the process. For a nominal fee, usually a percentage, they will handle everything and write you a check after the final transaction.
One of the potential downsides to selling is ending up with a little bit of extra loot. From my latest wave of sales I ended up with around four hundred dollars. In between listing items I started my search for my next collection: Winross trucks. No matter if you use the money to start a new collection or simply use it to pay bills, selling your surplus may prove to be better than throwing it away.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can text him at (978) 413-2840 or call him directly at (978) 919-8059.)