EBay auctions accept bids only for a specific amount of time. In a traditional non-eBay auction, bidders frantically place competing bids. When bidding slows to nothing, the auctioneer pounds the gavel and the item is sold. On eBay, auctions are open to bids for exactly 1, 3, 5, 7, or 10 days. When time is up, the high bidder wins, even if. Edgeview 2 46 – cutting edge image viewer.
As a gadget guy there always seems to be a pile of stuff that I look at and say, 'I need to sell that stuff on eBay.' However, if you’ve ever listed something on eBay you know how tedious the process can be. I feel that my auctions bring in top dollar and the best response because of the time I put into creating the listing. I try to take several good pictures. I try to be very thorough with the description and up until now I’ve taken the time to use Adobe GoLive to generate the HTML to spruce it up a bit. I also try to always include all the original items such as the box and user guides. So sometimes (read: most times) it’s just a chore getting everything ready to go.
I came across GarageSale after talking with some friends in my Mac Users Group. After I downloaded the trial and saw what it could do, I bought it on the spot. I almost forgot I had it. Last night I wanted to put one of my old iPhones up for sale on eBay and I decided that it was time to take GarageSale for a spin.
GarageSale is template driven. You have a wide range of templates to pick from. The templates are already HTML formatted and you can preview your listing in them. GarageSale is an approved eBay app. So it takes complete advantage of all the eBay listing features. What makes this app so easy and fun is that it’s 'Mac like' (sorry, there isn’t a PC version). It integrates beautifully with the iLife apps with a built-in Media Browser as well as support for drag and drop.
I took pictures of my iPhone with my Nikon D300 in RAW. I processed them using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and exported JPEGs to a folder. Then I was able to just drag them from the folder right into my GarageSale page using the built-in drop zones.
Using GarageSale I was able to specify:
Once I was done with specifying what I wanted, I just hit the Start Auction button and my images were FTP’d to my server (an option) and my listing was posted right on eBay. GarageSale also tracks your items right in the same app. So no need to constantly go to the website.
If you’re a Mac user that regularly sales on eBay, you can’t go wrong with GarageSale. After using it last night I feel that it was definitely worth the $34.99 ($59.99 Family License) admission price. Maybe now I can get to that pile I’ve been meaning to get to.
Hey, if you’re looking to buy my iPhone 16GB, you better hurry. The beauty of this GarageSale generated auction has already gotten a lot of attention and bidders on eBay. Check out the auction here.
Once again I got to do a fun field study of garage sale vs. eBay selling. We worked like dogs for 3 1⁄2 days to do the garage sale. We also worked about 15 hours to list 100 things on eBay during that same 3 1⁄2 day period. The results will be posted at the end of this article. What is your guess as to the winner?
You know that I am NOT a big proponent of garage sales. However, there are some times in your life when a garage sale makes sense. Not a lot of times, but some times. For my sister, a garage sale on July 2nd made sense. We will also be holding garage (actually yard sales) on August 6th and August 20th on King Street in Bellingham, Washington. We will have many more items, furniture and as you know what I always say, “No one can know everything.” So you can pick up some great deals and make money selling on-line.
And in my experience, yard sales are a blast when you get family and friends involved! Here are me, my brother, my sister and our really good friends Susan and Teresa Thornberg who lived across the street from us while growing up.
When you go through your items and decide what to sell at a garage sale or on-line, I have some tips for you. After you have figured out what should be garage sale vs. eBay, I have some great garage sale tips for you.
If you have something that is in great condition, all the pieces are there, and it is a name brand, I highly suggest doing your research. My favorite tools are Terapeak, eBay, PriceMiner and WorthPoint.
Here is an example of a brand new item with tags that I researched on Terapeak and decided it would be much more advantageous to list on eBay than put out at a garage sale, hoping to get $5 or $10. As you can see from the sales results, we did much better with it on eBay than at a yard sale.
When I was sorting items, this picture frame seemed to speak to me. Don’t really know what that means other than I had a gut feeling about it. It felt heavy, very much a quality item and it was signed from 1995. I am so glad I chose to put it on eBay instead of selling it at a garage sale for $1 to $2. Sometimes you have to trust your instincts. Actually, most of the time you need to trust your instincts!
One of the items that I had to decide whether to sell at online auction or at the garage sale was this extremely intricate racecar set. It was in impeccable condition and was super cool! I did my research and realized it was a $230 item when sold brand new on the Internet.
However, I knew that it would probably take me 1-2 hours to pack it safely for shipment. I decided to put it out at the garage sale for $75 with a make offer sign. Well, it didn’t sell at the sale. Darn it! I listed it on eBay and it sold for more than that (we even added a video to the listing) so please check it out.
However, it did take me an hour to pack it. In retrospect, I should have put it out at the garage sale for $50 and also added the Or Best Offer to the price tag. It would have saved me an hour (at least) of heartache and listing time .
For my sister’s sale we borrowed tables from everyone we knew. Thank you to Jen & Jeff, my dad, my mom, Kay, John & Audrey, and numerous other friends. The more tables you have, the better your items look. No one wants to be digging on the ground at a garage sale for items. Especially as it rains almost every other day in Bellingham. You should also use a clothing rolling rack if you have one or can borrow one. Your items must be presented professionally.
Please also note that our items were placed by category. We had a table of collectors’ plates, a table of clothing, a table of lamp parts, a table of books, a clothing area etc. etc.
My nephew Zach (Kiki’s 5 year old) is so darn smart. He actually freaks me out. He can read better than I can! In any event, he was helping me price and he loved the “make offer” tags. My mom had bought about 10 of those pre-priced sticker sets (great tip here as they save a lot of time).
Here is a photo of my pricing table taken when my 5-year-old nephew Zach absconded with my camera. Notice the pre-priced stickers, the diet coke can and the Beanie Baby (that isn’t worth anything )
We did put a price tag on every single item, but did make a sign for our blanket pricing of clothing, books etc. This saves time also. Please read below about our price sign and twirlers.
However, we did put two “Make offer” stickers on two pieces of expensive furniture. It really helped us in the long run. It is almost like throwing an item on eBay and waiting to see what the market will bear or will bid it up to.
My sister had three expensive display cabinets she wanted to sell. We knew that her lawyer’s bookcase was worth about $750 so we put that price on it. The other two display cabinets we weren’t sure. I thought they were also worth about $750 each. I was wrong. Really, does that ever happen? Apparently it does!
Well, with the “make offer” stickers we didn’t make fools out of ourselves (a good thing). Three local antique dealers looked at the two cabinets and all three said that each cabinet was worth about $250. So, we finally put a price of $300 on each one. We actually were able to sell one of them to a former customer of Leaf’s antiques for $250 and my sister and I were so happy it was going to a great home.
Signs were posted all over my sister’s sale with these blanket prices (saved us from pricing every single item individually):
Here is a photo of the backside of one of the big signs.
Then please make sure that you post a great ad on craisglist (it is free), also post a short newspaper ad in your local paper with a “Please see craisglist ad for more info” (this does cost money) and post signs all over your neighborhood with arrows pointing in the right direction.
Finally, twirlers are an awesome idea! We found that around noon time our traffic stopped. We got all the kids (age 11 and older) that were there helping to make more signs and go to the busiest closest intersections and twirl their signs. Cracked me up but really drove traffic!
Here is a photo of our twirlers.
Happy Garage Selling & eBaying!
Lynn
www.thequeenofauctions.com
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