Paying Off Debt by Selling on eBay

ONLINE AUCTION CORNER: Pay Off Debt with Your Clutter
by Scott Bilker

Scott Bilker is the author of the best-selling book "Credit Card and Debt Management." He is also the Editor and publisher of the FREE DebtSmart® E-mail Newsletter (http://www.debtsmart.com). Sign up today!

You know all the stuff that’s filling up your garage, attic, or shed? It’s the same stuff that you want to sell at a garage sale if you only had the time. Well, those unwanted items may be able to help you start reducing your debt today!

How?

By selling it all at online auctions like eBay.com. Although I have been recommending doing this for years, I’ve only recently started selling my unwanted household clutter online. It’s really not clutter it’s stuff I don’t want anymore that other people might need.

Since I’m just getting started selling at online auctions I’m also going to start letting everyone know about how I’m doing it and how well it’s going.

So far, it’s going VERY well! Everything I’ve put online has sold! I’ve sold an autographed Norman Mailer book that my father picked up at the library discard rack and a digital voice recorder. Total sales, $56.00 for two hours of work--that’s $23 per hour for creating more space in my garage! Pretty good deal!

To make transactions simple, you can receive payment from your auctions through PayPal. They allow your buyers to use their credit cards to pay. Setting up an account with PayPal is FREE, however, there are modest transaction charges.

I’ve already auctioned off a Sony Handycam Video 8mm CCD-F33, videocamera.

How can you get started making extra money today?

Look through your house for items you believe may be worth selling. Items that you can probably sell for $10 or more.

Next, research the value of your item. Go to eBay.com and do a search for your item. Check the current items for sale and the completed items. Look at the prices that your item has sold for in the past so you can get an idea of its true sale value. Also, read what other people wrote about that item so you have a starting point for writing your advertising copy (fancy way of saying “sales pitch”).

Market Research

Remember that camera I put up for auction? Well, it sold for $71! That's $71 off my debt! So far, everything I've put up for auction has sold.

Look through your house for stuff that you really don't use anymore. That stuff may be very useful to other people, so you should consider selling it online at auction web sites like eBay.com and use the proceeds to reduce your debts.

Once you find items that are good candidates to be sold online, it is important to be able to get an idea of how much they are worth. You can look at StrongNumbers.com for prices of many items, or simply go to eBay.com and do a search for the items.

By reviewing the search results, you'll find the best description for your item. Do another search with the more specific description and see if any are for sale right now.

Next, click on "completed items" which will show you what your item has sold for in the past. Then sort by highest price first. This final research list tells you the highest prices you can expect to get when you auction your item. It also tells you what people used in their description that made the item sell at the greatest price. This is the information you'll want to include in your item description.

Finally, you need to register with eBay.com to get an account. The registration process is easy. Just go to their main page and click on "register now," and fill out the online forms.

Okay, so now you have the item, you have an idea of what to write in the description, you have an account, the next thing you need is a picture of the item.

As the cliché goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words," and this is absolutely true! People want to see what they're going to buy. When you were researching the item description, you should also have noticed the photos used. You'll want to take similar pictures to use in your description.

The best way to get great photos is with a digital camera. I use the Sony Digital Mavica FD73 ($350). Another option is to take a film photo and scan the print.

Also, many companies that process film give you the option of having your pictures posted online. This option allows you to take pictures of your items, then download the pictures. You can then use the pictures that are already posted online to link in the HTML description of your item (I'll talk about that in the next column).

Research your items, pick the most likely to sell, take a photo of each item, and make each picture digital.

Posting Your

You should be ready to:

1) Identified items you're ready to sell online.

2) Researched the value of each item.

3) Developed the "sales copy," i.e. the words you use in the item description.

4) Taken photos of each item and digitized them.

Now all you need to do is post the items.

Quick mention, all the stuff I had for sale last week sold! So far 100% of my items have sold and taken over $150 off my debt! My latest sale is a Star Trek book that I found at the flea market for $5.

Two final notes before we get to posting your items.

First, you need to determine how much shipping may be for your items. You must decide how much to charge, if you're going to include it in the final price at no additional cost or if you'll let the auction winner know the shipping costs at the end of the auction.

Second, you need to be able to accept payment. Many people will want to pay with a credit card. The good news is that you don't have to set up a merchant account. You can simply sign up with PayPal.com.

Back to posting...

There are many online auctions where you can sell your items. The most popular place is eBay.com so we'll talk about posting there.

To post your items go to eBay.com and click on "sell" on the top menu bar then select a category.

TIP: You can enter a category number at the bottom, which is a great short cut, however, you need to know the number. To quickly get the category number for your item, go to an auction for a similar item. Directly below the Item # is a link to the category. When you click on this link look at the URL. The category number is shown in the URL, for example, ".../list/category11724/..." this is a great short cut for finding the category.

Next you need to enter a title for your auction. Again, look at the research you did with similar items. Use the same description that others have used.

Use the same strategy for the description, look at what others have written for similar items. Be careful to not copy the exact wording in the description because this may technically be a violation of copyrights--just paraphrase.

You're allowed to post one photo for free with your auction. Take advantage of this! Also, for only an additional 25 cents you can have your photo shown in the line-item listing--I do this every time.

Another important decision is setting the minimum bid price. "Your auction will start at this price: generally, it is the lowest price at which you are willing to sell. Setting the minimum bid too high may discourage bidding!"

If nobody bids to your minimum price then you don't have to sell the item.

Finish completing the posting information. For a basic posting the default settings are probably going to be correct. There are many sections of this form so READ everything very carefully.

After you have correctly completed the form you'll be quoted the price for listing your auction. Be sure that the price makes sense. For listing a $10 item the cost is approximately $1.25. Be sure to print this page for your records.

Good luck and please let me know how your items are selling!

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