The best sites for selling your things
A tried and true way to make money is to sell things you already own. But the increasingly wide variety of sales platforms may leave you with questions about where to sell.
Here’s our guide.
Books (rare): Abe Books is a national retailer that specializes in rare books, classics, first editions and manuscripts signed by the author. It also sells vintage magazines, comic books and art.
If you have truly valuable and rare books, this is a great place to list them.
A 1965 paperback edition of the trilogy “The Lord of the Rings,” for instance, is listed on the site for $665. These books are well used, and only a collector would know that they shouldn’t be sold at a garage sale for 50 cents. But that’s the type of buyer that goes to Abe Books.
Selling fees can be stiff. To sell anything, you must pay at least a $25 membership fee. Sales are also subject to commissions and credit card processing fees.
Cars: Craigslist is swamped with fraudsters. It’s also rife with bargain hunters, who want everything for free or at a ludicrously low price. And yet, it remains a great place to sell a used car.
Determining the right price for a car is easy. Simply go to KBB.com and plug in your car’s year, make, model and condition. The site will provide a relatively narrow price range for selling to a dealership or to a private party. Using Craigslist in combination with KBB gives you the best of all worlds: pricing confidence and a vibrant local market teeming with buyers. KBB also makes “instant cash offers” for sellers willing to plug in their vehicle identification number. So you have an easy fallback.
Sellers should require cash-only purchases and meet in a public place — possibly your repair shop. Don’t let go of your keys without payment.
Apparel and accessories:
There are plenty of sites that offer to sell your fashion — from clothing and shoes to purses, belts, wallets and watches. However, the one that stands out is Poshmark. The site invites sellers to create a “closet” and connect it to your social media accounts. This allows you to advertise your inventory widely to followers who like your style.
Site fees are 20%. But Poshmark provides the shipping label, so the cost is not out of line.
Electronics:
Dozens of sites would like to entice you to sell them your old iPhone, Mac, Android phone or laptop. However, only one — Swappa — allows you to negotiate directly with buyers. By knocking out the middleman, the seller gets more. It does require a bit of time and effort, so if you value your time, use Swappa only for valuable items, such as late-model iPhones and Macs.
Good options when you want to sell quickly include TheWhizCells and MaxBack.
Furniture, expensive and big-ticket items:
Amazon and EBay draw hundreds of millions of shoppers each month, making them ideal sites to sell expensive products, such as perfume, designer makeup and big-ticket items.
EBay is particularly attractive since its fees are straightforward — 10% — and the site at least attempts to stamp out “seller extortion,” when buyers make false claims about products to get a discount or freebies.
Amazon’s fees are widely variable — anywhere from 8% to 45%, depending on what you’re selling.
Household items:
You can sell small items, such as coffee makers, paperbacks, videos and toys, at a garage sale. Or you can do the online equivalent and list it for sale on Nextdoor.
This social media site allows neighbors to communicate about lost dogs and crime, but it also lets you list for free personal items you’d like to sell.
Kristof is the editor of SideHusl.com, an independent website that reviews moneymaking opportunities in the gig economy.