Ebay to clean house out?

[Orchidflower]

In line with the thread on having a rummage sale, am in an area that Craigslist just has not caught on yet; so, am wondering if it worth the time to sell tons of items on ebay? Has anyone here tried it? Was it worth all the time it took to write up, sell, pack up and all the other little things you have to do for ebay selling?
Asking because a very disciplined gay couple I know didn't do well on ebay at all, and sell all their antiques at a coop consignment shop. They didn't think ebay was worth their time. But that is just one opinion I got.
(If not, we're just going to take what we want out of the house and have one heck of a big estate sale, I guess.)
Worth the time to ebay or not? Anyone?

 

[saluki9]

I have sold a bunch of stuff on e-bay. In order to have your items found on e-bay, they need to be something people search for (DUH! I know). Therefor, unless it's a specific item that is in high demand, I limit e-bay sales to brand name items.

 

[maddythebeagle]

I have sold on some free auctions like yahoo (now defunct) as a hobby for about a year...the fleabay fees plus paypal fees would kill it for the items that I was selling...

 

[Moemg]

I sell on Ebay & amazon . I've had good luck but I keep my prices low .Ebay is great for small items .I've sold dolls,hummels ,sprinkler parts ,books ,dvd's ,my mother of the bride dress ( got just under full price for that ) and anything else in my house I want to get rid of .For small items it's fine but for furniture and things I'd sell local.

 

[VoyT]

Depends on your timeline. You might need to devote a few months to it.
I did farily well selling small stuff on eBay from my mom's estate ... collectibles, (anything with advertising ... lighters seemed to go well) So did dishes and crafting stuff.
I suggest doing a search of sold items for the kinds of things you'd like to sell -- that might give you a better idea if it's worth your time.
For big stuff, I'm not sure I'd bother. Fees and shipping would be a killer. One option, call an auction house and see if they'd be willing to hold an on-site auction. We did that with my aunt's estate, though we also sold the house and car at auction that day, too.
Just a thought, if you have regular household items (sheets, towels, pots & pans) a shelter that helps homeless families, or victims of domestic violence may be able to use them. And the local animal shelter may be in need of towels that are in good shape.

 

[Martha]

Some things I have not been able to sell on our local Craigslist but was able to sell by listing on the Mpls/St. Paul craigslist. (My bat house stagnated for two months with no calls on the local list, but sold within a day when I put it on the big city list). The cities are 150 miles away, but we go down there a lot and a lot of people come up here in the summer. So if you have a large city within 3 hours you might try listing on the Craigslist for that area.

 

[Orchidflower]

An on-site auction sounds like a great idea to investigate. One I hadn't even thought of either.
This is truly a worrisome thing as my elderly parent has acquired numerous expensive items over the years, and I hate to just give them away nor do I want to drag them with me. What to do?? What to do Bothers me alot.

 

[Martha]

Here auctions are rare to non-existent, but people do hire companies to do "estate sales," which are glorified rummage sales where someone else does all the work. The people seem pretty good at pricing things appropriately.

 

[CuppaJoe]

I’ve done OK on Amazon.com selling books, cassettes, videos and DVDs; no photos required. But its just a "coffee break" project so I don’t factor in time. I made a nice profit on an out-of-print cassette and doubled my money on a scarce video. Other than that there is no real money in it for an individual. I’m putting off listing another batch until after vacation; you really do need to check e-mail frequently for those exciting "sold, ship now" messages.

 

[Orchidflower]

I wasn't aware Amazon.com even sold things. Boy! am I ever out of it. Thanks!

 

[FinanceDude]

An on-site auction sounds like a great idea to investigate. One I hadn't even thought of either.
This is truly a worrisome thing as my elderly parent has acquired numerous expensive items over the years, and I hate to just give them away nor do I want to drag them with me. What to do?? What to do Bothers me alot.

An aunctioneer will sell things at a wholesale price, and then charge you 15% on top of that. Makes a lot of sense, since "auctioneer" is one of the top jobs that creates millionaires in the USA..........

 

[johnyaya]

My DW handles all our eBay-ing. I've been cleaning out our office closet, and just in the past week we've made about $750 selling off old computer parts, electronic doodads I probably never needed to begin with, computer games I'll never play again, etc.

More free closet space, extra cash, and less clutter to move when I can finally RE; it's a win all around.

 

[pedorrero]

I'm an avid Ebay-er, mainly to buy and sell higher value items (stereo equipment.) But I'm also an occasional seller, and sometimes for cheaper items. For instance, I recently unloaded an old Satellite radio unit (I'd upgraded) and it went for about $15. I cleared about $14 on a piece of junk that otherwise would have been a dust collector. I try to save boxes on many purchases...it makes selling and shipping easier.

Obviously advice will vary. Try to get a realistic idea of the value of your items, and the effort required to sell them. Estates, etc. get appraised by expert(s). Sometimes values can be deceiving. That cob-webby old "electronic box" might be worth a small fortune if it has vacuum tubes and the name McIntosh on it. Ditto for more "normal" antiques.

-- Pedorrero, owner of 3 amplifiers, 2 pre-amps, 3 PC's and many other things he doesn't need!

 

[theoldwizard]

About 2 years ago, a good friend of mine was told by his DW to "Get rid of those old computer magazines in the basement !" He did, on eBay, selling a bunch of old PC Magazine and Popular Electronics in groups of 1 year. He cleared several hundred $$$ !!

Then he sold a bunch of old sales catalogs and brochures from the now defunct Digital Equipment Corporation. Not quite the gold mine as the magazines, but he made $10-20 on each. Pretty good considering these were all freebies from 15 years ago !

So far no taker on his old Popular Science Magazines

Sigh. Me ? I just threw away those same magazines and catalogs about a year earlier

 

[Gworker]

I'm a little late on this post, but I'm new to the board. I used an auction company to sell my parents house and it's contents after my mom died. My wife and I could have made a killing on ebay if we took the time to list some of the contents but it would have taken two years to sell it all and we didn't have anywhere to put everything. The auction company said they would take care of the contents only if they could also handle to auction of the house. That was fine with my brother and I because we both lived out of state and the house was full of stuff.
The auction company charged us a per person hourly rate to get the house and it's contents ready for auction. After they took out their fee and the hourly rate to clean up and ready the house we didn't make any money off the contents. The house was auctioned the same day and I think we made more auctioning it then letting a realtor handle it.