How To Increase Your Chances Of Selling Your Items Online
EPISODE 12
by Dianne Jimenez
This article takes 26 minutes to read
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Hey! Welcome back to another episode of Parenting Guide: Organizing Habits Made Easy podcast. I’m your host Dianne Jimenez.
So this episode is an oldie but still a goodie. What do I mean by that?
This episode is taken from a FB Live I did on my Facebook Page, back in October 2020. 7 months after the pandemic hit. By this time, we’ve all been pretty much stuck at home and keeping to ourselves. Lots of things were shut down and there was no kind of gathering whatsoever.
And because of us all being homebound for months, people were well into reorganizing, decluttering and renovating their homes. They still are today, even with life getting back to some kind of normal, 2 years later. And, I don’t think it’ll stop anytime soon. This pandemic has taught us a lot, changed us in more ways than we ever could imagine and among many things, it also got us to look at our space a little differently.
So when I created that video back in 2020, “How To Increase Your Chances Of Selling Your Items Online ”, it was to encourage people to DO SOMETHING with their items they just decluttered and not just let it sit at the curb, or in some corner of the house waiting for the next time they can go out and drop it off at a donation center. I think at the time, I can’t even remember now, IF the donation centers WERE taking anything.
Anyway, I wanted to encourage people to get their things moving and out of their house, and make some money while doing that. With times being so uncertain, it was a way to get people excited and in control of their lives. Plus, who doesn’t like to make a little money now and again?
Add to that, the space you’re creating in your home brings so much clarity in your mind, lifts the weight off your shoulders that you literally feel lighter and it also feels like you’re breathing a little better. Kind of like a breath of fresh air now that there’s more room for air to circulate!
So I grabbed the audio version of this video and edited it way down to the bare minimum, all-you-need-to know details to help you increase your chances of selling your items online.
Now, just a little warning, the audio will sound as though I’m in a big room. Because I am. I was filming from my kitchen so there’ll be some kind of echo. But don’t let that deter you from listening to this episode, the steps are very relevant, still today. And, this is way before getting fancy with a mic. I was all about videos and YouTube and using the mic from my phone or my laptop so it’s not 100% amazing audio-wise, like you’re hearing now!. But it’s enough where you can grab what I’m teaching here and run with it. I hope you are successful!
Also, because it’s a FB live, you will hear the rustling of papers in the background. So I do apologize for that in advance.
But before I get started, if you know someone who’s decluttering or has done so already but doesn’t know what to do with their things,or it’s all just sitting there, send them a link to this episode. It might just help them get their stuff moving, out of their house and more money in their pockets! My mission is to help as many parents out there get their home and life organized – 1 space at a time. So I appreciate you sharing this episode or ANY episode you find helpful, inspiring and enlightening. And if you want to leave a beautiful review from wherever you’re listening to this podcast, I’d be forever grateful to you and just might give you a shoutout on a future episode!
Alright, without further ado, here it is: Enjoy friend!
—
Thank you so much for joining me. My name is Diane from 1Tidy Place.
I’m a professional home organizer here in Montreal, and I do virtual organizing. So if you don’t know what that is, just head to my website. DianeJimenez.com/services. All the details are written there. Okay. So before I start our jam-packed Facebook live today, which is about ‘How To Increase Your Chances Of Selling Your Items Online’.
Make sure you guys have a pen and paper to jot the information down, because I’m going to give you details of how we do it and what has resulted from how I’ve posted online.
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Make sure you guys have a pen and paper to jot the information down, because I’m going to give you details of how we do it and what has resulted from how I’ve posted online.
So how do we sell our items successfully online and increase our chances of selling our stuff online? So I’m just going to give you a little backstory.
So I’m talking about before we renovated, my kids were all under five and we decided to move out. I don’t know if you guys know or caught the video, but there is an episode of how we moved out in one year and downsized twice. Check that out. If you’re interested, I can put the details on the description. (#10: HOW WE BALANCED 3 MOVES AND A DOWNSIZE IN 1 YEAR
So basically during that time, we left our home, packed everything out and ended up living at my mom’s place first. And then when she downsized, we moved and ended up living at my in-law’s place. During that time, we knew that we weren’t having any more kids. So we had a lot of kids’ items and a lot of things that we were no longer using after packing things.
We noticed that we didn’t need certain sets, tea sets and clothes or whatnot. So we decided, well, I decided:
You know, what? If we can do this…Instead of letting things go and just bring them to the curb and the white man picks it up, we’re going to try and sell these items online.
And my whole goal was to just get rid of it.
I didn’t want to come back with those items and unpack them and put them back here in our home. There would be no place and we wouldn’t have a use for it. So we posted on VarageSale and Kijiji. So the big ticket items like our washer and dryer were sold on Kijiji and my husband did all that. It was awesome. So she sold those for, I think it was under $900.
And,all in all our sales, I think they were around the $2,000 mark. Imagine: we didn’t have $2,000 before the move, and now we have $2,000. And that helped pay for other things that needed here: for the house and the renovation. So it was great!
Now we didn’t only stop selling items, like old things. We also sold doors. Because of we’re renovating and we heard that doors and certain items in the house were hot ticket items. We were just selling them at dirt cheap prices. So our doors were being sold at $15, a pop. We had Oak doors. I think my husband took care of that and sold it for, I don’t know, $160, I’m not sure, but we had three Oak doors that were like French, a window pane, and they’re like from the sixties, like really beautiful.
We sold our island or island was made up of four or six, Ikea cabinets with a butcher block on top. I put it on for $300. And someone negotiated down to 285. We said ‘Sure, take it’. And that was gone. We ended up selling our crib set, our stroller, our, what do you call the blitz thing for the baby to make purée? We sold those things. We sold the bassinets, we sold clothes… I was selling them in the bin.
So I’m going to show you how, the steps that I take when I’m selling something. I know it’s very daunting and I’m hearing a lot of people are doing it right now. They’re getting into selling their items. The kids are growing…And they’re in school right now so parents have a little bit more time to tackle this project of upselling old items.
All right!
- TAKE A PICTURE
Step number one, whenever you’re selling something, you know what they say? ‘A picture is worth a thousand words.’ You got to take a picture of your item and I’m not just talking about a close-up shot. So for instance, let’s say we’re selling this mug. The best way is to make sure that your picture is clear, visible in the frame. It’s not blurry, so hence clear. And that it’s showing the item in its best possible light.
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Background
So try to avoid putting this mug in the background that’s very busy. If you have, to take a picture of the item on the floor, and do it from top-view. What I also noticed is that if you have lights and you’re doing it from top-view, sometimes you’ll get your shadow on the camera. So you want to make sure that your hand or your foot or something is out of there.
Editing
Another thing is if you’re going to do against the wall, or if it’s a bigger item, like a bed or a bed set (we sold our bed set too), you want to make sure the place is clean. So people have seen this from back in the day. If you can take a picture of it and there’s a mirror there and you see your reflection and you don’t know this, make sure you are decent. Okay? Or crop it out of the picture if you see it, but make sure you edit and look at your pictures before you post it up online. Because It can be disastrous. Your picture will go viral for the wrong reasons, okay? So please post the item exactly…so it shows the best light without a lot of distraction.
Lighting
Speaking of light, you want to take your pictures with natural light, the most natural light possible. Now, if you’re doing this at night, I get it. So make sure your room is well lit and then you’re taking your picture with the best light possible and with the least shadow possible. Okay? Because you don’t want to give false information because the shadow is creating something bigger than it is, okay?
Multiple images
So pictures are a good thing. Another idea on pictures: Don’t just take one angle. Maybe take a picture of the other side, underneath it if there’s something special about that item: If it’s China or if it’s Limoges, I don’t know what. But a certain detail that you want to make sure that the potential buyer sees. You want to take a picture of that.
Now I know in VarageSale you can post several pictures there as well as on Kijiji, you can post several pictures of the same item.
- DESCRIBE AND DETAILS
Next step number two. Describe and details. What am I talking about? When I was doing this online, taking care of all of this, I figured the more details I put in, the least amount of communication and blah blah is happening back and forth on the backend, on the messaging part. Because I don’t know if you know this, for you newbies out there who’ve never sold anything, when you do put your item online and someone says ‘Hey, I’m interested’, you end up having a separate conversation on the side, on instant messaging of whatever that app provides. There’s an instant messaging conversation that you have and the less you do (conversation), sometimes it’s better.
So put as much detail as you can. So I’m going to go through the list of details that I have, with you.
Measure it
First things, first measurements. Huge. If you’re selling a big item, a sofa, a desk, a chair you want to put the height, the width, the depth of this item.
If you can put the weight of something, obviously a bed, you don’t need to do that. But if it’s something where someone needs to stand on it, like a workout bench and you’re selling it. If someone is, you know, over the weight limit of this…Let’s say the bench has a specification on it and it says no bigger than let’s say, I dunno, 500 pounds, you have to put that detail there. Because you never know what that next person is going to do with that. If they’re going to stack up a whole, God knows what, and it goes up to like 600 pounds or a thousand pounds… you know, and they come back to you saying, ‘Hey, you sold me a faulty item’. You want to avoid that potential problem. Okay. So if you can, put the weight and the measurements, it’s super important. Okay?
Material
Next texture and fabric. This is great for clothes, coats, and jackets. Is it real? Is it fake? Is it faux-fur? You know, also there is weight too if it’s, if you have down or if it’s versus something that’s super heavy. But if you can describe that, that would be great.
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Special features
You know, on some of the pictures too, you can take a close shot if there’s some details on it like of a material that you want to highlight. Put that on a picture also. Another description you want to put, is it new or is it used? Very important! If you have something that’s new, specify: ‘Tags are still on it’, ‘The packaging is still available’ or it’s ‘Still inside its packaging’. People love that when you know, when it’s not new and you’re getting it for dirt cheap. Hey, a bargain is a bargain. Amazing.
Those are little tips and tricks that can increase your chances of selling your items.
Quality and Condition
You know, if it used, you need to say, has it been one once or twice, or, you know, if it’s been one like forever, but it still looks good? You got to talk about the condition of the item. Is it the quality? So is it in ‘excellent condition’, ‘like-new’ or ‘fair condition’? So sometimes people might want more details on that, but you know, you do a judgment call on yourself. But that particular detail is what will prompt people to ask you more questions and they might want to see more pics.
So do the best you can in describing what the item is, but be honest about it. Okay? Be honest, you know, you might think, oh, this is great. And you’re thinking, oh, it looks like new, but in reality, you really have to pull your emotions out of it and see: does it really look new? Would you buy this and say, ‘Hey, yeah, this is new’?
So these are questions you want to ask yourself. Like if you’re selling shoes, for instance. People will want to see the shoe, obviously from front to side, the other side, and super important is taking the picture of the shoe with the soul facing up and down. So, if you do say ‘New’ well, hey, this doesn’t look new.
All right. So you don’t want to be wishy-washy and contradicting yourself with your description and the pictures. Pictures have to match the description as much as possible.
Packaging
Now when it comes to packaging. So this is great. If you have this online, you take a picture of the item in the package, they got the item and you take a picture of the item individually.
Where did this item come from?
What am I talking about? Is your home a pet-free and, or a smoke-free home? Now I always put this because I don’t know who is allergic to what or who prefers or not, to have it smelling like something. Okay? Some people are very, very sensitive to that and it will deter them from purchasing your item because that specific detail isn’t there.
Maybe they have kids or older adults in the house and they’re highly allergic to pet dander or cigarette smoke,or whatever smoke. Okay? So you might want to put that detail in.
All right. Moving on!
Damages
A detail that you do want to post. Okay? Especially if your item was used, you want to specify that there is some damage, some defects, some scratches, some nicks, and I do take pictures of them.
And sometimes you’ll see this too online. Someone will take a picture of a table and they’ll show the nicks and scratches, just post that there and put the detail to : ‘used with some nicks scratches’. And this can affect your price, obviously. So if you bought something for say 50 bucks, well, this is not $50.
Okay? Common sense.
- Price
What’s the price?
When I first started this, I was always like: “uhhh!”, I’m squeamish about this. I don’t know. What should I do? What’s the best thing to do?
It all depends on your goal.
Do you want to make? Or do you want to get rid of it? You gotta let that sink in a little bit in your head.
Yeah. We all want to make money. I do. Okay? But you gotta get real. You gotta be real. And oftentimes when we’re going for “making money”, the sale is a little bit slower. So your item is not moving as fast as you want it and it’s still in your home.
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If you just want to get rid of it, sometimes the sale is fast. It’s quick.
I’ve had, I’ve posted something, I think this is early COVID and it was also during the time where everybody was stuck at home. I was selling some gym equipment. So I had a chin-up bar. I sold it at what? I think 20 bucks or $15 I don’t know. I just wanted to get rid of it. I had eight people in line asking if they could buy it. And then I think within a day, it was sold. Someone picked it up and it was sold. Anyways, I’ll get to that later on.
But depending on your pricing, it can either be slow or it can be a bit quicker. Okay? And if you want to go, really, if you don’t really know where to start or how to start. You can always compare retail prices, you know, just Google it up, what the price is, and then you make a judgment call on that.
Or, what I’ve done is come up with my own price. And the reason why I come up with my own price is because my goal is to get rid of it. I want all of this stuff out. If I made five bucks, it was five bucks that I didn’t have yesterday. But I have five bucks today and then five bucks and then five bucks and then $10 and $20. You know what I’m saying? So all of those little things, those little prices add up, that’s me. You are you, and you have to figure it out.
Now there’s a thing about pricing where you want to put this detail down. If you want minimal conversation, and this is me: I often put ‘Price is firm’ because sometimes I don’t want to talk about it. You know what, it’s 10 bucks or it’s $5. You’re really going to haggle me for a dollar, like come on, you know? But that’s me. So, if you don’t put anything there, like you don’t have to. It’s just that some people will try to negotiate. But you-do-you on whatever, if you want to introduce this detail at the bottom next to the price: ‘negotiable’ or ‘firm’.
Obviously it depends on the item. So if you’re selling a car or if you’re selling, like furniture, some big ticket items, you know, you may not want to be firm on a thousand dollars. It’s like our washer and dryer. I think we had put it up for, I don’t even know, I think we were like, ‘Hey, let’s just put it for a thousand dollars or 950 or something’ and then someone bought it for under, under 900. We went with the first person ‘cause we didn’t know when another person was going to ask about it.
So this is very tricky, but it depends on what your goal is. Alright? And oftentimes you have to ask yourself when it comes to pricing: Would you buy this at the price that you’re putting it at?
Let that sink in.
The second question, and this is huge: What’s the big picture goal? What’s the reason why you’re doing this? Right now, we’re in quarantine mode. Everybody’s home. We start looking around, we’re renovating, we’re doing different things. We’re organizing, we’re decluttering. So we were seeing a lot of accumulation in our house and we’re seeing the difference when the place is organized when we have exactly what we need.
All this excess needs to go. So that’s your big picture goal is that we’ll play around with the price and the descriptions and the pictures, et cetera. Okay? So ask yourself, would you buy this item at the price that you put and what is your big goal?. Seriously. All right. Now we’re almost done.
- PICK UP
You got to stay safe. It’s everywhere we need to stay safe. So you have two options here and at the time, before COVID started, so this is years ago, I would either do: pick up and meet up with the person or I’d have them pick it up at my house. But I always had safety top-of-mind.
A lot of times, a lot of these things will be happening during the day, which is ideal for me. And I would meet up at the Starbucks in the corner and I would even tell them: ‘oh, I’m picking up my kids’ (and I have to set up the date and time with that person privately and say), ‘oh, I can meet you at Starbucks between 4 and 4:15,I have to pick up my kids at 4:30’.
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So that they know, you have, you know, you’re responsible for young kids. You’re not going to stay there forever. So you’re creating some sort of urgency with them. And some, like, it builds a little bit more credibility on you; versus, “ yeah, around the corner, around the alley, in the back”.
You want to put those details there
If you’re meeting up with someone somewhere in a public place, let someone know. I would always, always, always, if someone, if I had a buyer with that, with that we scheduled that time and a place and a date, I would put it on my calendar on my phone and I would sync it up to my husband’s.
And even that I wouldn’t even put the details. Because sometimes on your profile you have a person’s name. So I would put the person’s name as well on it, or any kind of information about. And before I meet up with a person, I also look at their profile. If they are someone who buys often, someone who communicates often, especially in VarageSale, you can look at someone’s profile, you don’t see their face or anything, but you see their activity.
You can see how many praises they’ve had if they’ve worked with other people. So that kind of helps you ease your mind and your soul about meeting up in a public place. Now because of COVID and everything happened. I’ve been leaving things at the door and think, ‘you know what? If the person takes it, what more can I do?’
Or I’ll, meet them at the door and say, okay, I’ll be at my front door, you know? And we’ll see we’ll wave now. That’s if they’re meeting me at home, Again, if they’re meeting me at home, I’m making sure that someone’s at home with me. If no one can be at home with me, then the pickup is at the door. Okay.
Another detail, how the person can pick up. What I mean by this is if you have a couch or a big are more that you’re seeing. And someone says, ‘okay, I can come pick it up.’ You need to put the detail ‘pick up in Montreal’. And then another detail you want to put is ‘you need two people to pick this up’ because it’s happened.
Or I didn’t put those details. I can glad it was okay. And the woman was really cool about it. We were both able to take the shelf together and bring it in her car. Another detail that’s also important. I didn’t say is describe, or if you can, item fits in a car. Item needs event. Okay. Especially if it’s event or a truck, you need to specify that because if someone shows up with a little, uh, I don’t know what those small cars, a smart.
And they’re picking up like a shelf, but the thing is actually quite big. It’s kind of like not a good thing and it completely turns the whole deal of sour. So put as much details as you can, if they need someone to help them pick it up. And a thing of that, because it’s happened where a woman showed up to pick up the island and was with her 12 year old.
And I had, my husband was here to do the exchange and he was like, I don’t know what she was thinking, but she brought her 12 year old to pick up this. Thank God. He was there and she helped the woman out and everything was a okay. So make sure it’s safe and make sure your pickup that it’s, the conversation is confirmed of when, where and how.
Okay. Sometimes and use a little bonus. I would message the person again, maybe a day before saying, Hey, see, tomorrow at 10 o’clock at Starbucks, just a little quick one, and then they can respond back. And then the same day, sometimes I’ll be like an hour before, like. Just letting you know. Okay. Because you don’t want your time wasted and you want to make sure the sale goes.
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And if I’m like getting you overwhelmed with all this information, it’s normal. It’ll pass after you do this a couple of times. It’s like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is part of the dance, if you will. Okay. Uh, number five, the platforms where you can sell on. So, like I said, you can use now Facebook. It’s great. You have Facebook marketplace Kijiji is amazing, Craigslist and VarageSale
so these are the three that I’ve used or marketplace on Facebook, Kijiji, and VarageSale, Craigslist. I haven’t used before, but I’ve heard people use it and it’s successful. And on a lot of these platforms, you can bump up your item. So after a while you can bump it up. So that it’s top on the. Now Kijiji. I think that’s the only one where sometimes after a certain time, you will have to re upload all the information, all the details.
So that’s up to you. If you want to go in that specific platform and use. It’s great. That’s how we sold our washer and dryer and our doors, all the other stuff I sold through Varage sale and marketplace. So those were my three choices. And if you guys have other ones that work for you, please let us know below in the comments.
So other people can enjoy this whole selling online business and make some extra cash on the side. Okay. So who doesn’t like. Some cash on the side. Okay. So that is the conclusion of how do we increase your chances of selling your stuff online? It’s the steps that I took to help me successfully sell my thing.
So there you have it! The 5 steps on How to Increase Your Chances of Selling Your Items Online.
Here’s a quick recap for you:
- Pictures say 1000 words: Good lighting is key, don’t have a busy background so that the focus is on your item. Taking pictures of different sides of your item shows you’ve got nothing to hide and says a lot about you as a seller.
- Describe & Details: Including pertinent details to reduce the guess work and lots of back and forth not only saves you time in the long run but again, makes your item and you as a seller, stand out from the rest. You’re clear, look honest and legit.
- Is the Price right? A good guide is to ask yourself ‘how much would you pay for the item you’re selling – as is. Check the retail value if that helps but also, what IS your goal? Make money or get the stuff moving OUT of your house?
- Pick up : Always keep your safety THE top priority at all times. Can’t emphasize this enough. Touchless transactions are totally accepted these days but if you have to meet: let it be in a well-lit, public place or if at home, don’t be alone – have another adult with you, and keep the meeting brief.
- Different platforms to sell online: I normally use Facebook MarketPlace, VarageSale and Kijiji. Now wherever you’re from, there’s most probably a platform that works best for you. You just gotta do a little Google search for your area and maybe ask friends and family what they do. Please be aware that each platform has their own rules and regulations, so please read through these carefully. Don’t bring the chat onto your regular email or social media chats – the platforms also want to keep you safe, so use the chat in the app that you’re using.
Ok! That was another huge episode and an important one! I’d love to know your takeaway in all of this, I love to hear from you and all about your organizing journey! So drop me a DM or screenshot this episode with the takeaway that stuck out to you, in your Instagram Stories, and tag me @1TidyPlace on Instagram.
If you’re feeling extra generous, leave me a review on the platform that you’re listening from – I’d be FOREVER grateful to you. Ok Thank you so much for being here and always being SO awesome. I’ll see you back here again next week, alright? Take care friend! Bye!
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