Online Garage Sale

I am not going to ask for you to send me money or buy anything. I am not a Guru, Net zillion aire or the Guy that wants you to send him money for an e-book that you won't use in the first place. I am here to hopefully answer some questions you may have about starting your own selling web site. The tips I give you are the ones that I have found works best for me. You may find different ways that work for you. If so feel free to share them down below in the comment area. I am always looking for new and better ways of doing things. I think everyone is.

The place to start is finding yourself a free web site that is seller friendly. There are several out there that are free. They have free hosting and tools to help you build your site. The site that I decided to go with was http://ecrater.com The reasons I chose them over the others are simple. They are very seller friendly. There are no fancy bells and whistles to get in your way. The site is very easy to use and upload items to. A very big added bonus for me was the fact that after about 4 days that start sending your listings to Google Base. If you have done any online selling then you know how much that can help you out.

Now it's time to come up with the next Million dollar name. OK so there isn't that much pressure on you to name your site. However it is very important to remember that other people will have to be able to remember it to use it. I try to adhere to the "KISS" theory..."Keep It Simple Stupid" Catchy never hurts, but if your customers have to write it down to remember it you will lose customers. When using free web sites you have to add their url in there also so choosing a name takes some thought. Mine I feel is simple It is http://E-Garage-sale.ecrater.com Nothing to hard about that. But you can see where the web hosts url is in the addy. Just Remember "KISS" and you should be fine. If you try to get to fancy you may be over thinking things. Don't try something like "The best website in the world for eating worms" by the time the host URL is in there the buyer would need a whole notebook to write it down on.

The age old adage "One Mans Junk Is a another Mans Treasure" Applies here more so then in most places. I love the hunt. Going to Garage sales, thrift stores and Estate sales. You never know what you can find. A good rule of thumb while doing this sort of shopping is this. Don't buy anything that you wouldn't mind keeping. While you are out on the hunt you will find things that you think might or might not sell. If it costs more than what you would be willing to throw out your car window while driving...don't buy it or you will wind up with a room full of maybes. Shop smart and shop cheap. There is a world of goods out there just waiting to be resold. The trick is buy cheap and sell cheap.If there is a Good Will in your area be sure to check there, they always have great stuff at a cheap price if you are willing to dig for it. In some areas there are also Salvation Army stores, These can also be a great source of your supply. And don't forget the little Mom and Pop shops, allot of times they will mark stuff down just to get it out of the door.

Most people don't give this aspect allot of thought until they have boxes of stuff laying around. The easiest way I found to deal with this is a dresser I picked up at..you guessed it..a Garage sale. It has 5 drawers in it and is upright. In the bottom drawer I keep my shipping stuff, tape gun, bubble wrap,bubble mailers and a few collapsed boxes. In the top drawer I put the new items that I buy to store before listing them. The other three I use to keep things after they are listed. You will find the best way that works for you. I don't buy anything that will take up much room because I don't have much room. But the little things like Jewelry and Disney stuff is easy to manage. You will find what you like to buy and sell in no time. And Remember, for bubble wrap and shipping stuff the Dollar Stores are your friend. Plus you can get free boxes from the Post Office.

This is the area that allot of people dread the most. However if you do it right it's not that big of a deal. The trick that I use is no trick at all. I use USPS and PayPal. I figure what the weight of the item will be and find the shipping cost before I even list it. I choose the farthest point in the US I can ship the item and use that in the USPS chart to come up with cost. It is never very far off one way or the other after the sale. You must be very careful here, people have it in their heads about what they think it should cost to ship something. If it is much more than that they won't buy the item.  You can see the cost charts at http://www.USPS.com The reason I love PayPal so much is simple. You can print shipping labels online through them as well as invoices. Its a one stop shop. Plus with my PayPal debit card I can always go to the post office if I need to and still use my Paypal account. Easy as Pie..."KISS" again.