Websites such as eBay, Half.com, Amazon.com, Etsy, and even Craigslist have seen the rise of the part-time seller: someone who sells stuff in their spare time to make a little extra cash, but doesn’t run it as a serious business.
If you are a part-time seller, you may find yourself selling off items such as:
- Clothes and furniture you no longer want
- Collectibles you are no longer interested in
- Music and DVDs you have tired of
- Electronics that you don’t need anymore, usually because you’ve upgraded
- Jewelry you don’t like anymore (or perhaps it’s the person who gave it to you that you don’t like anymore)
Of course, some part-time sellers start selling off their stuff because they really need money for one reason or another. In that case, you’ll probably start selling off these items whether you truly don’t want them anymore or not, just to get some cash flowing in.
The biggest problem is that the market isn’t very good right now, and if you list an item on most of these sites, you’ll have to wait for it to sell. This can take some time if you want top dollar for your stuff, though it will sell much faster if you are willing to price it competitively (read: lower than most similar items are priced).
For instance you can get cash for gold by selling it online. However, some jewelry isn’t worth very much, and most likely it’ll take a while to sell, so you’ll be best off if you sell it as scrap gold at a pawn shop.
Many third-party seller sites are beginning to recognize that part-time sellers are the lifeblood of their business. For instance, eBay has instituted a new fees policy where you get five free insertion fees every month. This is obviously geared toward the small, part-time sellers — they are trying to encourage people who just like to sell off their unwanted stuff to sell it all on eBay. It’s a smart move, since the fees have been prohibitively high for those types of sellers, who usually can make much more by selling an item for free on Craigslist.
All I can say is, it’s about time they recognized the phenomenon of the part-time seller!
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