Finding eBay Treasures at Garage Sales: Myth or Reality?

Once upon a time, would-be eBay Power Sellers moved on from selling their own unwanted items to sourcing their inventory from yard sales, thrift shops and estate sales. Stories of the eBay seller who bought a $5 dining table at a garage sale and then subsequently selling it on eBay for ten, fifteen, even a hundred times that much still occasionally make the rounds, inspiring others to try and do the same.

But is it still possible? Can you still find that elusive big payoff at any of the hundreds of yard sales that dot the North Texas landscape every spring, summer and fall?

Sort of. You can make the rounds of every yard sale in your city or beyond and probably find something you can sell for a profit on eBay, whether it’s a used bike, camera gear, exercise equipment, computer games or software, or gently used (or never used) toys.

Unfortunately for the eager eBay seller, though, folks have become savvy about the relative ease of selling things on eBay and other online auction sites. They have any number of other options — both on- and offline, including brick-and-mortar consignment stores as well as online auction services such as Easysale — by which they can get rid of their unwanted or unused items themselves.

Yes, you can still find the odd treasure or two, but to become a successful eBay seller of used merchandise, you must:

• Be vigilant about the resources you spend, and remember that resources refer to more than just the money you fork over to the folks who held the yard sale or the clerk at Goodwill.  Keep meticulous records that track your time researching local yard and estate sales, traveling, cleaning, and listing your purchases on eBay. Let’s say you find a beautiful Nambe metal bowl for only $10. If you sell it for $20, did you make a profit? Well, technically you did, but consider how much gas you spent getting to that yard sale, the time you actually spent there as well as the time you spent getting it ready for listing, i.e., polishing it, photographing it, writing persuasive copy, and monitoring the auction. Then you have to box it, drive to the post office to have it delivered and then maintain correspondence with the buyer to make sure that it arrives safely. After all of that, your profits may really be more like $5, if not less.

• Know your merchandise. Know your Louis XVI from your Louis XIV. Know which baseball cards are valuable, and which are literally a dime a dozen.  If you have specialty knowledge in a particular type of item — whether it’s antiquarian books or vintage soda bottles or classic camera bodies — focus exclusively on that category to make the most bang for your buck.

• Love the thrill of the hunt for its own sake. Not every find will be a treasure. Some will inevitably fail to sell, while others will sell for more than you anticipated. If you don’t sell something, you can always keep it for yourself, store it for a possible future sale or resell it through other outlets.

Of course, if you really do just want to sell stuff gathering dust around your house but don’t have the desire to become an eBay Power Seller, you can always bring them to us at Easysale. We’re one of the most experienced eBay Trading Assistants and Registered eBay Drop-off Locations in the country and have sold literally tens of thousands of items. We do all the grunt work so that you don’t have to. All you really have to is sit back and watch the buyers come to your listing. That’s gotta be more fun than spending your Saturday mornings scouring Dallas suburbs for yard sales.

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