PERSONAL FINANCE:The answer to the too-much-stuff/no-cash equation is to sell off your surplus possessions. The internet makes it simple to make easy money from your cast-offs
THERE’S A SCENE in Sex and the City in which Carrie is forced, seemingly for the first time, to consider the extent of her spending. Her Manhattan apartment is being sold and she doesn’t have the $30,000 deposit. Her friend, Miranda, helpfully asks how many pairs of designer shoes she owns and deduces that her shoe collection is worth in the region of $30,000. Carrie is, of course, outraged, but the realisation doesn’t help – in the late 1990s, selling one’s goods wasn’t the done thing. Nor was it as easily done as it is today, with the aid of online selling.
The truth is, like Carrie, many of us are holding a relative fortune hostage in our wardrobes – clothes and accessories that may be worth selling on to contribute to the cost of daily living. The most straightforward way of off-loading items is through eBay, the online auction and shopping website which allows you to upload photographs and descriptions of your items, begin an auction and be paid through PayPal for your goods.
It all sounds very simple: sell item, dispatch item, rinse and repeat. But there are a lot more things to consider, and the post office – oft-neglected between January and November – will become your second home.
Start by sorting out what you want to get rid of and, crucially, what’s worth selling. As a general rule of thumb, bargain-basement items won’t sell and will cost you more in time and effort to get rid of online. Donate them to charity if they’re in good nick and perhaps take a moment to think about the disposability of cheap fashion.
You need to think strategically about what will produce the best result.
Classic items such as leather jackets, handbags and shoes, and designer labels such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Dior will almost always sell, while items that are on-trend have quite a brief window. Shearling, for example, will yield good results for another three months at most, at which point we’ll move on to jostling for lace.
Regardless of the condition of an item or how “fancy” you think it is, nothing will sell if you can’t see it. Pictures are the most important aspects of selling on eBay. If your item is well-photographed and eye-catching, you have a good chance of making a sale. For accessories and leather, try to photograph them against a neutral background (a white wall) in natural light and from all sides.
For handbags, take a shot of the interior; with shoes, a shot of the sole will illustrate how worn (or not) they are. The more angles you can show, the easier it is for a potential buyer to see what they’re dealing with.
This doesn’t mean you should upload 20 shots of your item; you pay 15 cent for each photograph you upload – after your first, which is free – so try to be economical. No item should be listed with more than four or five photographs.
Private sellers selling in an auction-style format won’t be charged insertion fees if their item starts at between 1 cent and €1.49, meaning you can upload one photograph of your item and a description for free. Fees vary above that, but the maximum is €3 for an item that starts at €150 – and unless you’re selling a Chanel 2.55 handbag, you’re unlikely to come in at this level.
EBay does charge a fee at the close of the sale, usually a small percentage of your final selling price which is taken out of your PayPal account.
You’re more likely to get the maximum amount of interest if bids for your item start quite low. Start at €5 or so unless it’s really valuable, in which case listing it too cheaply may give the impression it is a fake, or not as good as it appears in photographs.
Even if you list an item starting at €5, you can put a reserve price so that it won’t sell until it reaches a certain level. A recent error in judgment saw me dispatch a leather jacket which cost €115 and had never been worn to Russia to a buyer who paid €22 for it. The postage cost €16.
You shouldn’t shy away from being honest about how much you are willing to accept for an item. There’s nothing worse than packaging up a bag you didn’t really love while knowing it’s going to someone who only saw fit to pay €6 for it.
Postage and packaging is another hairy issue that you should try to figure out sooner rather than later. As a general rule of thumb I charge €5 for Irish postage and €10 for overseas. For very light items, I might charge €3 and €7, respectively. Similarly, heavy items such as a leather jacket could go for €7.50 and €15. These prices are advertised on your item from the get-go, so when your buyer pays, PP is included.
If you post the item and it ends up being significantly less than they paid in postage, you might want to consider refunding the buyer – or a handy trick is to send something by registered post to bulk up postage charges. You’ve been paid for it anyway, and it saves you the hassle of refunding them.
Auctions can last anywhere between three and 30 days but I usually go on for 10 days to give potential buyers some good thinking time, while also allowing for a relatively quick financial boost. If you plan it so your auction closes on a weekend you’re also more likely to boost bidders in the last three days and you have the week ahead to post your items.
Something to bear in mind is that, as a new eBay seller, PayPal will hold any money you are paid until the buyer has given good feedback. That means that, until your buyer has the item and is satisfied with their purchase, your money is in a kind of cyperspace limbo. It’s a clever tactic, as it means you are more likely to post your items as soon as you can – the temptation to put it on the long finger might otherwise be too much.
So what are the sure things? Anything designer – and this means anything. A Gucci bag, for example, purchased at a market in Milan in 2009 for €10, netted me a cool €210 on eBay from a Parisian gentleman. Make sure you put the designer’s name in the main description but don’t try to sell fakes.
Ebay is very strict on counterfeiting and if it is suspected that you’re selling bogus bling, your item will be removed and you may be blacklisted.
Leather goods – shoes, handbags, wallets and gloves – are all good bets as long as they’re in good condition. And here’s where it really helps to photograph them properly.
If you can, enlist the help of a friend and rely on their judgment – especially if you have a photographer friend. With clothes, photograph them on real people against a neutral background – and make them look good. Pair a dress with jewellery, a belt, tights and so on.
Think of a spread in a fashion magazine; fashion online has become so popular that it’s worth trying to compete with the best of them in order to catch someone’s eye.
Most importantly, don’t do it all at once – if you have 30 items, divide them into batches of five or six. Posting 10 items at a time is a laborious task to say the least. Keep buyers sweet by keeping in contact. If you’re delayed in posting by a day, let them know; if they’re unhappy with an item, your best bet is to offer them a full refund and the price of postage and packaging back to you.
On eBay, reputation is everything and it’s rarely worth running the risk of getting negative feedback.
Although it is straightforward, selling on eBay is not a walk in the park – but if you have items that you think will make you back your time and effort in cold, hard cash, it’s definitely worth setting aside some time to sell online.
Many of us are holding a relative fortune hostage in our wardrobes – clothes and accessories that may be worth selling on to contribute to the cost of daily living
Alternative ways to ditch your surplus goodies
CHARITABLE DONATIONS
The easiest and probably most popular way of decluttering is donating to charity shops – and there’s a lot to be said for it. Your clothing gets sold to someone who will love it and the money benefits charity. Then again, it doesn’t benefit you and you have to have the wherewithal to lug it all there.
SWAP SHOPS
These are popping up all over the country – stores that will allow you to bring in your unwanted items and exchange them for tokens which you can then redeem in the same store, against someone else’s unwanted items. The upside is that it’s easy and there’s no postage involved. Plus, there’s a common saying that mentions something about trash and treasure . . . The downside, of course, is that you don’t turn your clobber into cash and you may not be pleased with the value they assign your treasured XWorx trousers.
CLOTHES SWAPPING PARTIES
This may sound very Tupperware-party-of-the-1980s, but possibly the most fun way of ridding yourself of excess goods is to invite all of your friends over, demand that they bring their excess goods, have a few drinks and swap’s your uncle. Beware, though: one too many margaritas and swapping your Gucci for Lauren’s Levi’s suddenly becomes a step too far. Just pledge not to lose any friends over it and enjoy yourself.
