A great way to de-clutter and make a little extra cash, helpful in this economy, is to sell unwanted items.  There are many options out there, but the three biggest players in the game are eBay, Amazon and Craigslist. For all three places, you basically list the item at the price you want to sell it for, and then wait for someone to decide that they want to buy it at your price. However, all sites have their advantages and disadvantages so lets go over the highlights of each.

Amazon

I’ll be honest my experience with Amazon, at least from a selling standpoint is limited but I’ll give the gist.  With Amazon, you basically just type in the model number of whatever you’re trying to sell (or the ISBN number if it’s a book), include a description, set the price you want to sell it for, and wait. You won’t see any eBay style auctions on Amazon. A nice time saver with Amazon is that you don’t have to take a picture of the item, and you don’t need much in the way of technical skills either.

Cost

Basic membership is free, an upgrade costs $40 monthly. The $40 upgrade will allow you to sell an item that isn’t already listed on the site which in most cases is irrelevant. But if you do have a rare item to sell, you may need to look into the upgrade option. A nice feature is that you only pay a listing fee if the item sells.

Getting Paid

When an item does sell, you are alerted by email that it is time to ship it to your customer. Compared to eBay you will be waiting a little longer for your money because Amazon usually institutes at least a two week hold on your money.

Pricing

You can see what all other sellers have priced their items at, but you can’t see stats for how many or how quickly their items selling.

Item Condition

Amazon seems better suited for items that are closer to “brand new” condition than eBay as their clientele is usually looking for new items in the first place.

eBay

I have a ton of experience selling on eBay. Here are some of the more important points that I think may be helpful to you:

Process

You need to start by taking a few pictures of each item that you want to sell and you’ll want to take good pictures because it’s the number one selling point.  Then you need to come up with a catchy title that is descriptive and then you need a brief but detailed description.  Another tip is to offer free shipping, in my experience forgoing $5 in shipping costs can mean $10+ in bids. You will need a PayPal account in order to sell, if you want to get paid at least.

Cost

There is a fee for listing each item on eBay, whether it sells or not. eBay also takes a commission from each sale, which is based on the cost of the item. PayPal also takes their cut.  It may sound like nickle and diming but the end costs are similar to Amazon.

Pricing

With eBay you can Search Completed Listings, and awesome eBay advantage as you can instantly tell how well a particular item is selling, and at what price.

Craigslist

Selling on Craigslist can be an experience to say the least.

The Process

You’ll probably want some pictures of what your selling along with a title and a quick description.  Craigslist sales should always be local, never ship via Craigslist becuase you’ll never see any money.  Being that Craigslist is local you’ll have to deal with meeting up with people, arranging a cash exchange, etc…  Bring a friend and make the swap someplace open and public.

Cost

It’s 100% free, making it the cheapest of the available options.

Pricing

It’s completely up to you.  Take offers, set a hard price, give a price but allow the option for offers, you decide which can be a blessing or a curse.

Tracking

Everything happens via email which can be time consuming and confusing if offers are coming in from all sides.

My Choice

eBay is my top choice.  I always get top dollar on eBay.  In my experience photos are what sell so you’ll want to set up a decent little home photo studio and a good camera makes a huge difference, people want to see what they are bidding on from all sides and angles.  If it looks good they’ll pay more.  Craigslist is my second choice and I use it often for larger, un-shippable items.  Craigslist can be a strange place, getting an offer for oral sex when trying to sell a bicycle for example is just one of Craigslists pitfalls and meeting up for the goods/money exchange is always iffy and awkward.