How Do You Sell Items?

Spacedeck

Spacedeck

Spacedeck

Soldato
Joined
14 Sep 2007
Posts
3,816
Location
West Yorkshire, England
So, to most people this may seem very obvious. To me, it doesn't. It's never been something I've done before.

So how do you do sell things? What is the entire process like?

Gather pricing for items.
Sell on eBay, GumTree or MM.
Post items via RM/courier.
Profit?

So firstly, how would you value products?

I have things that I generally never use, this could save room while making a small profit margin.

Type of items I would be looking to sell; guitar + amp, snowboard (never used), PS3 + games, xBox 360 + Games, set of golf clubs and probably some other stuff.

I don't know how confident I would be in knowing what packaging to use or how much of it. How you'd handle finding out delivery costs or even posting anything at a RM post office. I've only ever posted one thing in my life, that was a game I donated to a website, so no sale was made. I stuck this in a single jiffybag and had the post office help me send it.

Any advice? Surely I can't be the only one to feel this way?
:rolleyes:
 
Try the bay/PP so if you get ripped off you can chargeback. Do a couple of searches and get a rough idea what people are willing to pay, I doubt you will make much of a profit, maybe some pizza money.
 
Take an average from completed auction listings on eBay for a price (make sure you order the results by End date: Recent first, not lowest price!). On Gumtree you can knock 30% off this and still not sell it :p.

As a general rule, letters and parcels up to 45x35x16CM and under 2KG send at the post office, anything else look on websites like ParcelMonkey etc to book it in with a courier.

The guitar might be a difficult one as most places will not insure them unless in a hard case. Look on Facebook for a local selling page.
 
Efour said:
None of us are shops....

Also Jesus wept
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Maybe so, but many people seem to sell things here.

Dis86 said:
Handling stolen goods is a crime!
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Yeah, thanks for the trust :D

jsmoke said:
I doubt you will make much of a profit, maybe some pizza money.
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Like what? All items was purchased some years back but is the small margin due to price of shipping?

bobbyspangles said:
The guitar might be a difficult one as most places will not insure them unless in a hard case. Look on Facebook for a local selling page.
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I do have a padded case for it, it just isn't a hard case.

Thanks for the replies so far!
 
For packaging you should save any Jiffy bags and double-walled boxes you get with purchases, otherwise you will have to buy new which can be expensive and quite hard to find locally. You're best bet for small bubble bags for DVDs, CDs, games etc will be Poundland where you can get 5 for a £1.

Wrap any heavy/large items you have in bubble wrap, then in to a suitably sized strong box with lots of screwed up newspaper. As long as the box is a strong one and once packaged you can't hear any rattles or movement when you shake it, then you're probably good!
 
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If the PS3/360 games was sold separately or someone wanted only a few of them. How do you ship them in bundles? I'm guessing a bunch of them would be too big for a single jiffybag?
 
They come in different sizes... I saw a woman in the post office yesterday with a jiffy bag I could have mailed myself in.

Failing that send them in a box.

It's more hassle but generally you're better off selling games individually rather than bulk or with a console. That's how people get bargains.
 
Spacedeck said:
If the PS3/360 games was sold separately or someone wanted only a few of them. How do you ship them in bundles? I'm guessing a bunch of them would be too big for a single jiffybag?
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2 or 3 will fit in an A4 jiffybag iirc.

for 4 or 5, stack them on top of each other, cut a bit of thick cardboard from a box to wrap around front and sides, then wrap with brown parcel paper and parcel tape.

edit: If you have a correct size box, then all well and good, but you can almost guarantee you don't have the correct size when you need it. The fold thick cardboard around works for almost any size, and you can always wrap in bubble wrap first for more delicate items.
 
Don't sell anything on the net that you cant afford to get rid of for free, **** happens and if you sell enough, it will happen to you.

If you want prices, search the things on ebay and sell for the price of the item a handful of hours before bid ends, then sell it elsewhere (Ebay is OP).

AVforums and MM is what i use but facebook is good to find local only buyers, usually get cars there.
 
Spacedeck said:
So how do you do sell things?
I've only ever posted one thing in my life
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OP, I do have to ask... Are you fairly young and have never done such things, or fairly rich and never needed to?

Spacedeck said:
Like what? All items was purchased some years back but is the small margin due to price of shipping?
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If something is old and second-hand, it is usually not worth as much as when it was new and unused. Simple as.
Only time it's worth more is if it's a rare item, generally.

Either way, profit only occurs when you sell something for more than you paid to buy it.
 
ttaskmaster said:
OP, I do have to ask... Are you fairly young and have never done such things, or fairly rich and never needed to?


If something is old and second-hand, it is usually not worth as much as when it was new and unused. Simple as.
Only time it's worth more is if it's a rare item, generally.

Either way, profit only occurs when you sell something for more than you paid to buy it.
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I'm 25 and I have generally just bought things through life. Haven't tried selling anything before. Any old stuff would be thrown out but either they was broken or simply nothing like I've listed in the OP.

I think profit is the wrong word. I know fully well that the money I've spent on these items, won't be recovered. That doesn't really bother me. It's more about getting rid of things I never even pick up and saving some much needed room.if I can get a little something for them, happy days.
 
Start at 99p, or at 25% of new price if unsure about that, describe well and accurately, include plenty of pictures, things find their own value.

Find postal costs from RM website.
 
Ive got a 1080 to sell. Like **** is it going on ebay. Tried the water with gumtree and got nothing but broken english responses asking me to deliver or post it all over the place. It will be worthless by the time I find a buyer :)
 
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