Virtual Yard Sale on Dad Street Starts, Finally!

So, last month I posted about how I was going to have a Virtual Yard Sale. I told you I’d have my item(s) sold before November was out. According to iCal, November is out after today. Oops?? In fairness, I also honestly told you I’m a procrastinator and a damn good one, I might add!

Well, it’s clear I’m not getting anything sold by the end of today but I did get my first item posted!! Finally! The truth is, I have put off selling on eBay for fear it would just be too much work. This is coming from someone who knows his way around the internet! Wait, I have a blog that I built myself! LOL

Okay, so now I feel a little stupid being intimidated for selling on eBay when I’ve built this blog! Okay, so yes I am on the eBay Parent Panel but I’m a regular parent like the rest of you. I’m not an eBay Selling Expert and I won’t claim to be one! What I will do is show you what I did so you can give it a whirl yourself!

My Bugaboo stroller has been sitting in the trunk of our car for almost a year now, unused. We’ve wanted to sell it for sometime and I’m glad to say that as of last night it’s on auction. So here’s how I went about putting it on eBay:

I created an account on eBay which was super duper easy. eBay makes it very easy to show you how to navigate and with big, bright buttons like this it wasn’t hard to see where to go next!

One thing that I really loved was that eBay gave you the choice to actually search for your item. I typed in, “Bugaboo Cameleon” and it came up in a list of choices. Once I selected it, I was taken to another window where I would fill in all the details of my listing. One of the things that’s so daunting about having to list an item to sell (usually) is that you have to write up this whole big description for your product, BORING!

Well guess what? I didn’t have to do that!

eBay automagically put a description right in there! Of course, I had a choice to use it or not but how cool is that? It had all the specs and details of the stroller! Further down I was given another option to add my own details about the sale.

Next up was to add pictures. I had several options for adding pictures, including keeping the pictures on my own server which I obviously could have done. Instead I opted to keep the pictures on eBay’s servers. What does this mean? Basically I clicked on a button to upload pics, browsed to them on my hard drive and viola!

You could argue either way about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing but either way eBay has a ton of options! Even though there are so many options they do a great job of providing you with information. One thing that started to confuse me were the fees associated with selling. There were fees for starting prices, fees for reserves, fees for “Buy it Now” options, and many more fees. Now, let me point out that the fees are very nominal but you’ll want to read about what you think you’ll need and weed out the things you don’t need. Like I said, eBay does a good job about giving you the required resources to make your decision.

One of the biggest things I was concerned about was the shipping. Now normally if I had a smaller item it wouldn’t have been a big deal but I was selling a stroller and had some accessories. There were some tools that showed me what shipping costs would be based on package sizes and weights. Honestly, I just wound up estimating the weight so I could get the post up knowing I might just have to cover the cost of a few bucks if I was off. I didn’t really care too much since this was a higher priced item. Had I been selling something for $20 I probably would’ve spent more time nailing down the costs so I didn’t lose anything. Again, I’m guessing with smaller items this is much easier and less confusing.

All in all, it took me about 20 to 30 minutes to go through the form. Of course this was my very first time doing this and I know the next time I post something it will take minutes. In fact, eBay let’s you save your listings as templates so you can knock them out the more you do! All in all I’d say it was a much easier process than I had anticipated. I think this goes back to the saying, “Anticipation of fear is worse than the fear itself” or something like that. Anyway, the point being that eBay makes it super easy to post items and they have really thought of everything.

This is the first time I’ve ever listed and it is an expensive item so we’ll see how I do. Once my stroller sells I’ll give you more details about how I set my pricing, my reserve, and my “Buy it Now” pricing. I’m expecting this first run might not go as smooth but that’s okay, it’s a learning experience. At this point I’m actually less concerned with something going wrong and more concerned with getting addicted to selling stuff! You know what? That might not be a bad addiction to have!

Check out my listing here!

I am a member of the eBay Parent Panel which is a paid sponsorship between eBay and DadStreet. The views and opinions expressed on this site are mine and cannot be bought. However, I may want to buy yours if I run out of my own.