Cleaning Up: Profiting from Selling My Life on eBay

February 21st, 2009

In 2003 I was broke, bogged down with junk, and eager to travel. The solution was clear: sell my life on eBay. I put everything I owned into mammoth piles spread over three rooms and began selling. A few months later I was thousands richer, liberated of worthless stuff, and could fit the remnants of those piles into a few bankers boxes. The project was a smashing success because I eschewed common mistakes and stuck to a few simple rules.

Credentials: I’m an eBay veteran. I’ve been a member since ‘99 (a decade as of writing), have 100% positive feedback (not just 99.9%), and worked for one of the eBay’s largest and most professional PowerSellers as a staff auction writer. So I can unabashedly say I’m experienced. I’ve never been too interested in the bells and whistles that get unveiled every few months on eBay. I’m more interested in the fundamentals of honest, effective selling.

The Strategy

Make Four Piles: Having giant messy mounds around your living space forces you to deal with the stuff rather than just further ignore it. So I suggest you take everything you don’t regularly use and form the following piles:

1. Sell: Rarities, nostalgia and kitsch sell. Search in eBay’s completed items to see what similar items sold for. If it’s not worth selling, put it in the give away or throw away piles.
2. Give away: Things that aren’t worth selling but that someone may find useful: be it friends, family, colleagues, or charity.
3. Trash: The stuff that can’t sell, can’t be given away, and won’t ever be useful again.
4. Memories: Thing you want to keep as sentimental tokens of the past. Most of this stuff should really wind up in the trash after photographing.

You’ll notice there is no “Keep” pile. If you don’t use an item regularly, you don’t need it. Remember, you can always get a replacement.

The Rules

Photograph Copiously: Take pictures of everything in your four piles. It’s often good to have a record of the things you owned and it appeases our pack-rat instincts. In this sense we can keep the memories of the items, without having them consume any physical space.

Remember, memories belong in your head, not your attic. In my opinion a digital photo is enough to rekindle that memory. If you really miss playing hands-on with that He-Man figurine so much, you can buy another one, but you won’t. After selling the contents of my life I can assure you I haven’t rebought a single item I sold. Once your memories pile is photographed, reconsider selling, giving, or trashing them as well.

When listing items for sale, one or two photos with your cameraphone won’t cut it. Nor do stock images of your item. Go the brightest part of the house, turn on all the lights and take dozens of photos of every item from every angle, including macro - or close-up shots - of any scratches or abrasions. Much like location is everything in real estate, photographs are everything in eBay sales.

EBay knows the importance of photos and encourages their use. Their “Picture Pack” is a great deal and offers up to 12 images on your auction whilst giving the user the ability to magnify. I use this every single time I sell on eBay.

Honesty Sells: If you say “absolutely mint”, and the item has clearly been used, you’re setting an expectation you’re not trustworthy enough to do business with. EBay shoppers respect a phrase like “minor scratch on back near label” because it shows honesty; if you’re going out of your way to mention a minor scratch, chances are there aren’t any major problems with the item.

Don’t Rip People Off on Shipping/Handling: Further to the theme of honesty, don’t inflate S&H to make an underhanded buck. Everyone knows this trick, and everyone looks for it. When a potential buyer notices your inflated shipping costs (and they will), their confidence in you goes down and they move onto another seller.

Write Like a Human Being, Not a Spammer: Ebay has a rule against posting the same item over and over again, but it is easily circumvented. As a result buyers have to sort through pages of indistinguishable spam from seedy sellers. To stand out from those, write like a regular person. Don’t overcapitalize. Don’t say "!!!WOW!!! L@@K!!! MINT CONDITION SUPER NES SYSTEM!!!" when you can say "SNES in used but excellent condition". If your auction looks like an ad from a discount mattress store, you’re doing the wrong thing. I never use graphics, templates or typography to stand out, just the eBay default settings. In an ironic way, looking demure in a sea of attention-seekers makes you stand out the most.

Spend Writing Time Wisely: If you did indeed pile up all your stuff as I suggested, you probably have an overwhelming number of items to sell. It’s important to use your limited time wisely. I used to write eBay auctions on salary, eight hours a day, so my professional suggestion is that you start with the items that will sell for the most and work towards the least valuable ones. As you approach the less valuable items you’ll reach a point where it’s no longer worth your time to write the listings, and the remaining “sell” items get moved to the “give away” or “trash” pile.

If you are listing a technical item, don’t bother describing the specs in detail. Everone knows how to Google. Just outline the details specific to your item. Usually this means how it was used, any damages or marks, and why you are selling it.

Finally, know what’s worth selling, and what its worth selling for. Remember when buyers search for your item, it appears alongside many others so undercutting on price is a sound strategy. Often this results in a bidding war, which works to your benefit. When working for the aforementioned PowerSeller, we often listed $1000 items for $1 and watched as competitive bidders raised the price to $1100.

The End

So there you have it, what I learned from working for an eBay PowerSeller, mixed in with a bit of sales philosophy, and a decluttering strategy. As with anything in life, it helps to go into this project with enthusiasm. You’ll get out of it what you put in. Follow these rules and you’ll keep the process simple and profit more than you would otherwise. Good luck!