VERY OT - Best way to sell books, DVDs, etc

ecb · 01-29-2008, 07:01 PM

I am pairing WAY BACK on my life
Just took 4 FULL bags of trash to the Dump, and 2 bags to Good Will. this cost 2 1/2 hours with a professional cleaning lady, but its got half the livingroom done

newamy · 01-30-2008, 12:21 AM

I find that it depends on what I'm selling for the best venue. For general stuff a garage sale is great- particularly if you have enough to make it worth your time, are well prepared, have a good location and you just want to get rid of pure volume and things are not very high priced.

Recently I've been selling dolls on e-bay. This has proved to be a good venue for this because peopl are also looking for dolls on e-bay. So I think e-bay is particularly good for specialty or unique items.

Craig's list can really vary. My husband has had excellent luck with small electronics and various "guy" items on Craig's list. I tried posting dolls their since it was free and had no luck. My husband gave away our kids out grown swing set for free on Craig's list. The benefit of offering it for free was the people who got it took it apart and hauled it off, we did nothing.

Anyway, good luck.

miccisue · 01-30-2008, 12:38 AM

What kinds of books are they? I know Alibris.com handles books for resale, but most of theirs are ones that are out of print...but you could check with them. Half.com might be a good one, too - it's part of ebay, but is more specifically geared toward books and DVDs.
I need to go through my stash of books and get rid of the ones I wasn't crazy about (my problem is that if I read a book and like it, I'll read it over and over....but I still need to buy new books too, so I end up with my own library. LOL!!!) and box them up and give them to my local public library. Every summer they have a "Friends of the Library" used book sale to raise funds. I don't get any $$$, but they do so it's for a worthy cause. (Personally, I wouldn't mind getting some bucks for mine, but I simply don't have time to organize a yard sale - heck, I can't even find time to get the darn things sorted out enough to put them on someone else's yard sale!)
There, I was of absolutely no help at all. LOL!!!!!!!!

feministmama · 01-30-2008, 12:42 AM

For books to sell on line I like half dot com (if it's a rare book then I've gone with eBay) but I do much better irl at Powells. Yes I live 10 minutes away from Powells. They have a great used book deal where you bring them a bunch of books and they give cash, right there!!

For heavy things like furniture we use Craigslist. Furniture goes quickly that way.

For music we have a local music store called Music Millennium that like Powells you can bring them used stuff and they give you cash for it. Otherwise I just half dot com.

Clothes are hard. I tired selling things like my kids old tap shoes that are barely used (kids grow out of stuff like this before they wear them down) for cheap (these things are expensive new) but no one bought them. But crap like Gameboys go quick. All that through craigslist.

So you never know. You just gotta take a risk sometimes.

bethany · 01-31-2008, 02:06 AM

Twice a year, our neighborhood has garage sales (huge neighborhood) and I make at least $400 each time. We sold about $150 worth of DVDs at $3 a piece (no boxes for them). Kids clothes go pretty well, adult clothes not so much, toys and baby "stuff" amazingly well. I bought a high chair for $5! Used it for both girls, sold it for $10 with 2 pads for it 2 years later...Changing table too, cherry wood, for $5...

SteveDallas · 01-31-2008, 05:04 AM

I have sold some on half.com before. It wasn't bad. Amazon was OK too. I've not sure about DVDs etc., but ebay is really not good for books unless maybe something rare/collectible.

If you are more interested in getting rid of them than making money off them, see if there's a Freecycle group on your area (see http://www.freecycle.org). I dumped several grocery bags of books that way.