Looking to declutter your home and make some extra cash?
An online garage sale is a great way to sell your unwanted items quickly and easily, all from the comfort of your own home.
Whether you’re looking to downsize, upgrade, or just make room for new things, having an online garage sale is a great way to reach way more potential buyers than a traditional sale you hold in your driveway!
In this post, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know to set up and run a successful garage sale online.
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Why Choose an Online Garage Sale Over a Traditional One?
Sure, holding a sale in your yard, driveway, or garage has its own charm. You get to talk to your neighbors, see all kinds of interesting people, and negotiate with that one price-haggling guy/gal who argues about every item’s price.
But it’s a hassle! You know it!
Here’s why you might want to consider going digital:
Wider Reach
With a traditional garage sale, you are limited to only your local neighborhood. But with an online garage sale, you can sell to people from anywhere, increasing your chances of finding buyers for items that might not appeal to your immediate community.
Convenience
If you’ve ever held a yard sale, you know the hassle of setting things up, organizing, putting price stickers on every single item, hanging around waiting for people, clearing up afterward, and so on.
You avoid all that by holding an online garage sale!
Better Pricing
The more potential buyers you have, the more you can sell an item for. It’s as simple as that!
Plus, with an online sale, you have more time to negotiate!
Less Hassle
Traditional garage sales require a lot of preparation—advertising in local papers, putting up signs, and arranging everything for a physical event.
With an online garage sale, on the other hand, you can list your stuff with a few clicks!
Flexible Timing
You can run a traditional garage sale for only a day or two (usually the weekend). You can’t just extend your sale for days and weeks.
With an online garage sale, you can list your items for as long as you like.
What’s a Virtual Yard Sale?
It’s basically a yard/garage sale you hold online, but obviously, you won’t be selling stuff to people thousands of miles away; you just deal with local people.
Now, there are a few ways to do this, like holding a Facebook yard sale that I talked about a while back. But there is also another site that is strictly focused on making online garage sales as easy as possible.
The website is called VarageSale.com.
So, What is VarageSale?
VarageSale.com is simply an online marketplace where you can sell stuff that you would put into a garage sale, but do it from the convenience of your computer.
It was started in 2012 by someone who didn’t like the difficulties of existing online marketplaces and decided to simplify the process.
It is local, and it determines from your ZIP code where the nearest VarageSale community is based.
They say they have more than 300 communities set up at the moment. You use your Facebook account to register with VarageSale, which tends to discourage outright scammers from logging on.
They also have an app for both Android and iOS devices that makes it easy and quick to set up a virtual yard sale.
Get the app:
How to Hold an Online Garage Sale
The site (and by extension, the app) is very easy to use.
Once you’ve registered, you simply have to gather all the items that you no longer want and post them online. It may help to save time if you group similar items together and offer them as a lot, although you could probably make more money listing them one by one, provided they all sell individually.
When someone’s interested in something you’re selling, they will send you a private message, and you can negotiate.
The sale is strictly between you and the buyer, and VarageSale takes no further part in the transaction.
Once the sale is agreed upon, you have to arrange to meet, being cautious about your own safety.
Although the Facebook registration should discourage bad people, you still have to act responsibly. You might choose to meet in a public place, such as a Target or Walmart parking lot, and could even take along a friend.
You should also be cautious about accepting anything other than cash.
Benefits of Using VarageSale
There are several advantages to using VarageSale over other forms of online selling:
- They don’t charge any fees – most selling sites like eBay charge a percentage or a flat rate.
- Listing is generally much easier than on other selling sites. You simply take a picture of the goods and write a short description.
- It seems easier than selling on Facebook and keeps your selling separate from any social networking.
- Unlike Craigslist, you have at least some idea of who the people are, as they had to use their Facebook identities to register.
Final Thoughts
There aren’t many easier ways to sell unwanted items.
It’s amazing how much stuff you have that you never use, and if you look around your house with a critical eye, you’ll find uncluttering can be exhilarating as well as profitable.
A few years back, my GF and I held a garage sale where we sold our unused stuff (clothes, books, shoes, hand tools, etc.), and in one weekend we managed to earn a little over $1000.
Although it was well worth it, the hassle of setting things up and, after all that work, ending up with some garage sale leftovers at the end of the day is a little too much for some people. So, using a service like VarageSale to hold a virtual online yard sale is a great way to avoid the hassle and still make money.
