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You know about Craigslist, but have you ever tried to make a living from Craigslist? Most people sell stuff that they have sitting around. This is a great way to get started with Craigslist and get used to the selling process.
If you are ready to try making a living from Craigslist you need to determine what you know a lot about. For instance, maybe you have knowledge of old furniture, video game systems, how much parts from junk cars go for. Think about what you know and what you can sell. Just about anything can be sold.
Get to know the market
Once you have one or two things, you will want to see what is selling in your area. Check the prices and see if there is much room for a profit. Remember that you need to get the item cheap enough to give you room to negotiate a sale price. The one thing missing with Craigslist is knowing what things really sell for and if they sell at all. Listings can be removed and you don’t know if it is because it sold or not.
If it seems like an item wouldn’t have much room for profit, don’t give up on it. Say you want to resell toys for toddlers. If you find that you can only make $10 off one of them, you may not want to go that route. When you think about the time you need to invest for that money it might not make sense. If it takes you 3 hours to get the item and sell it, you might as well get a part-time minimum wage job.
But if you can get really low prices on many of them you could save them and sell them in a bundle. You will likely need to sell them at a bundle price, but you will only need to make one listing and only meet with one buyer, which will save you a bunch of hours. That will make it more worth the effort.
Getting the items you sell
You don’t need to stick with only one or two types of things. You can sell anything that you know enough about to buy it at the right price to make a profit.
Now you need to get the items to sell. There are a few ways to go about this.
- You can sell what you already have at home.
- You can sell what you buy on clearance either online or from a store.
- Get discounted items from thrift stores, yard sales or estates sales.
- Buy from auctions. There are many kinds, but storage auctions may work well for selling on Craigslist.
- Garbage picking. Look for large items like furniture and appliances the night before the garbage is picked up.
- Free things you can get from family, friends, freecycle.com or the free section of Craigslist.
It doesn’t matter how you get the items that you sell. Once you do have them you need to get them ready to sell.
Now it’s time to sell
If you have anything that you used, you will need to clean it, fix anything that you can, unless you are selling them as broken, and then take pictures. If it is a new item you will just need to take your pictures.
Taking pictures is one of the most important steps since most people who are looking to buy want to see what the item looks like first. Even if I am selling something that is broken I still show them pictures. Be sure that you get the item from every angle, any damage spots, tags or manufacturers markings. You need to be sure that you are getting everything you can so that people don’t waste your time with questions.
Give them the details
When it comes to the posting you want to give as much information as possible. Any listing that doesn’t say enough will be overlooked and will not get as many offers right away. Remember the idea is to sell these items fast. The faster you sell the more you can get to resell. The things you want to add are color, size (actual measurements) and model numbers, etc.
When you write your description don’t use all caps. I see this all the time and I know that some people will not respond for that reason alone. Also, don’t put your address in the posting even if the buyer will be coming to your house. Once you know the person will be buying then and only then should you give out your address.
Keep it safe
Safety is the most important aspect of selling with craigslist. You need to remember that not everyone out there has good intentions. So you want to be sure that you:
- Only have them come to your house if you absolutely can’t take the item somewhere to meet them
- Don’t give out your phone number in the posting. This goes along with the address. People can figure out who and where you are. You could use Google Voice instead of your real number.
- Never use your own email. Always use the default email with craigslist
- Meet in a public place that is well lit and if possible near a police station.
You also need to be sure that while you are safe so is your money. What I mean is, you don’t want to lose money when you are trying to make money. You can get a pen that will check if the bills are real. They are cheap to get and if you tell someone up front that you check the bills they either, won’t try to screw you, will cancel the purchase or won’t show.
Other things to remember along these lines are to add to your posting that you will not use PayPal and will not ship anything. These are surefire ways someone is trying to scam you. Let them know up front that you won’t fall for that.
Don’t let a buyer try to pressure you. If someone agrees to a price and then when they get there they try to low ball you tell them to either pay the agreed upon price or don’t buy it. Most will see that they can’t get one over on you and pay.
My last tip is to price every item higher than you really want to get. Buyers on Craigslist expect to negotiate and boy do they like to do it. Leave some room for it. You don’t want to start too low and find you can’t make money.
Good luck and profitable Craigslist adventures.
