Guide: Organizing an Online Garage Sale for eBay & Craigslist

Have you thought about having an online garage sale recently? Well if you have then you should know that there are certain things that you will need to do in order to get it going. In this article you will find a list of things you must do in order to have a successful online sale.

- Gather your inventory.
When you're gathering your inventory make sure to place it on a table or on the ground where you can see all of the items at all times. Make sure to keep your inventory in the same place until you ship it out.

- Categorize your inventory.
By categorize I mean, you should check out the categories that Ebay has and select what categories you want to list your items under.

- Chose prices.
This is very important. If you are not going to be auctioning off your products, its best for you to set your prices early on.

- Open an Ebay and a Craigslist account.
If you don't yet have a "Seller" account with Ebay.com then you will need to do that as soon as possible. You should also get a Craigslist.com account so that you can list your items there. Craigslist gets tons of traffic and its an awesome way to sell things as well.

- Open a PayPal account.
PayPal should be the only form of payment that you accept. This will ensure that you and your buyer are secure and that you receive payment prior to shipping the product. If you make a sale on Craigslist you will need to ship a "Request for payment" through PayPal to the customer.

- Take pictures.
Almost nobody will buy your products unless they see pictures. Make sure to take at least 3 clear pictures of each item that you're selling.

- Write descriptions.
Once you have done all of the above, the next thing you need to do is write descriptions of each product that you're selling. Make sure that include how old the product is, the approximate wear and tear of it, and a review of all of its features. If you're having trouble doing this, create a couple of questions, make it a template, and fill out those questions with the appropriate answers for each of the products you're going to list.

- Write your returns policy.
This is important. If you will not accept returns or make refunds, make sure to write a statement to place under each item description. If your customers don't see this, they will assume that you do accept returns and make refunds.

- Chose a shipping method and estimate shipping prices.
If you're going to be shipping through UPS, FedEx, or just regular mail go to their websites and find out the estimated charges. You should also make sure to include in your descriptions that these fees may vary according to zip codes.

- Calculate taxes.
If you are not sure how to do this, PayPal can help you out. Its important that you charge taxes on everything that you sell, otherwise you're going to be paying for that come tax time.

- Upload your items.
Now that you have prepared your online garage sale, its time to upload everything onto the internet. This is probably going to be the longest step, so you should set aside a couple of hours or a weekend to get this done.

- Promote.
Once you have uploaded all of your items you will need to promote them. Make a list of links to each items page and email them to your friends and family. You can also place those links in your online profile like MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, etc. to get more exposure.