Home Stuff

Not all garages have been cleared of junk. Weekend garage sales are still popular places to find items to sell. Sales in higher income areas tend to net more quality items like designer clothes, high end furniture, and antiques. However, don’t neglect an average Joe garage sale; one never knows what unique items will be unearthed regardless of the neighborhood. Go to these sales toward the end of the day. Homeowners will be more inclined to sell you merchandise at rock bottom prices rather than having to pack up unsold items.

Look through your own garage and closets to find items to sell online. You may be harboring old clothes, books, Cds, and toys that will bring in a few bucks online. Offer to rid your friends and family of their unwanted junk by selling on consignment. You sell their stuff and keep %25 of the profits. Local retailers may also agree to let you sell their overstocks and returned merchandise on consignment as well.

Buy Online, Sell Online

Finding stuff to sell online is as easy as buying it from the same online source. eBay is an excellent place to find everything from antiques to huge lots of merchandise that you can buy and resell at a profit.

Locate other online sources by using search terms such as wholesale liquidators, closeout dealers, and drop-ship services. These same sources can also be found in print media including the Yellow Pages and classified ads in newspapers, trade magazines, and free weeklies.

Auction Action

Unclaimed, slightly damaged, and repossessed merchandise can be purchased at freight claims and government auctions. Check the Yellow Pages for contact information and newspaper classified section for upcoming sales.

There’s a storage unit operation on every corner these days. The storage company auctions off the contents of unpaid rental units. Although the contents are sold sight unseen, there’s probably enough sale worthy items inside to let you break even.

Estate auctions are another great source for finding stuff to sell online. Like garage sales, high income estates yield the greatest finds, but gems can be found regardless of the estate’s net worth. These sales are advertised in the newspaper.

Drop Shipping

Drop shipping is an easy, hands off way to sell online. You send the order to the manufacturer or distributor and they ship the product to the customer. No inventory or shipping hassles to worry about.

Local Events

Bazaars, flea markets, and festivals are good sources for everything from unique handmade crafts to valuable collectibles. Like garage sales, stop by near closing time for deep discounted deals.

Check with the local convention and visitors’ bureau to find out about upcoming trade shows that are open to the public. You’ll be able to buy from manufacturers and sale reps selling the latest products on the market.

Offshore Action

Asia is a good source for finding stuff to sell online. However, the red tape and cost of contacting sources there can be a hassle. Your best bet is to hook up with a manufacturer’s rep who has overseas connections. There’s enough available home grown sources for locating products to sell to make this option unnecessary.

To get started you will need to sign up with the site by setting up an account, Amazon have a monthly subscription fee of $39.99 per month, plus referral fees all of these fees are very low cost. Once you have your account set up you can upload your products picture and description, set the price for your product or items and Amazon will have them shown to their million of customers. When someone purchases one of your products or items, Amazon will send you an email alert informing you of the purchase. You will then package the product or item and ship it to the customer; once that’s done Amazon will transfer the money for your purchase to your account.

Another auction site to check out is Bid On USA, but unlike Amazon who charge a monthly subscription fee. Bid On USA offer free membership, you just have to set up an account with them, upload your product picture and descriptions, set your pricing for the item or product and start selling them to the public. They charge no listing fees which will allow you to list your products or items at a much lower price than what you would with Amazon, and that in turn allows you to sell your product or item at a lower price. Therefore, allowing you to get more sales because we all know that everyone love low prices and sales.

Online auction sites have become very popular in the Internet world, and can be an exciting online business. Auctions sites have hundreds of categories allowing you a very wide variety of areas to list your products and items in. Products and items can be listed for bidding or they can be listed for buy now. By having your products bided on you may end up getting more or you may end up getting less than what you want for the product selling.

Finally, you must build a solid reputation for your auction business, by making sure you ship your products or items promptly, being ready to address any questions or concerns your customers may have about the product or items their interested in purchasing, and always try to resolve any complaints quickly so that you can retain a positive reputation. Although you may be working your business from home, it’s still a business and you must be professional in you dealings with your customers. By establishing a trustful reputation more people will feel that it’s safe to buy your products and your customer base will start to grow, and so will your income.

In my last article I began a process of introducing you to the questions you needed to ask before you started selling online. In this article we get down and dirty and actually begin creating something that will allow you to have your first products up for sale in a matter of just a few days.

Don’t worry, we aren’t doing any too complicated or difficult, in fact this is going to be one of the easiest ways to sell online that you will ever find. There are two ways to run your own shop online, you can either buy software like Actinic and have it hosted on your own piece of virtual real-estate (your web address in other words) or, you can use a fully hosted service. Having tried many different methods over the years, I have come to the conclusion that most small businesses are better off using a fully hosted service.

Of course, there are monthly fees associated with this method, but when you take out the hassle factor plus up-front costs it is very cost effective and is normally a much quicker route to market than building something from scratch. So, we are going to look at just one of the UK based online shopping carts – Shop Creator – and you don’t need to worry about it being good enough, as it is used by companies and organisations like BHS, the Science Museum and the RSPB. Even better, is the fact that they have various levels of service and the most basic means that you only have to pay them when you have made a sale and as your site grows there is the ability to change the package you use.

So, let’s get started by popping along to ShopCreator.com. When you get there click on the red button in the top right portion of the site that says ‘Sign Up For A Free Shop Now’. Fill in your details and when you have clicked on the ‘Create Online Store’ button, you will be sent an email asking you to click on a link that confirms your email address is genuine. Once you have done this, you’ll receive your username and password for your new online store.

When you login to your new shop, you will be presented with the home page and if you scroll down, you will see that there are a number of actions you need to complete, as you do each one you can tick to show that it has been completed. Next to each one is a handy little video link which will show you exactly how to do what you are required to do for that action.

Before you get started adding products though, it would be wise to have your product images available. Product images need to be saved in a jpeg format and should be smaller than about 25KB. Try to save them as a consistent size as this will help the final layout to look more professional when you come to publish your new shop, a good size to use is between 300 and 400 pixels wide for the main image, and 100 pixels wide or high for the thumbnails (the smaller pictures that are used in the categories).

One of the things I really like about Shop Creator is that it is so easy to use, you can go back and amend things until they are right and you don’t have to pay for anything until you are ready to start trading online. Just one suggestion though, don’t worry too much about the final look and feel of the site, as it will be work just fine until you feel ready to start creating it’s own unique personality.

In my next article, I’ll be taking a look at how you can allow your customers to pay for your products and services online, with freely available and easy to use services that work seamlessly with the Shop Creator system.