As I discussed in a previous post, I decided in October 2018 to sell every non-essential item I owned that I thought would net at least $5 for me, as a way of defraying the costs of my round-the-world mid-life crisis travel tour. Here are my reviews of the various platforms I used to sell my stuff secondhand. Note that (sadly) I did not receive compensation from any of the below service providers.

Bulletin Boards

In this case, I’m talking about actual, physical, old-school bulletin boards. My former place of employment still has them, where people like me print out a photo and some information about an item we’d like to sell and attach it to the board with thumbtacks. The advantage of this approach is that you reach people who aren’t online, or at least who aren’t using the same online platforms you are. The disadvantage is that if you want to remove or edit your ad, you have to physically go to the location of the bulletin board and either remove the posting or cross out and write in your edits. A physical bulletin board also only reaches people who walk by it. The advantage of the bulletin boards that I posted to is that pretty much only people with security clearances saw my ads. That provided a layer of trust and security that I didn’t have, say, selling to randos on craigslist.

The Internet

• Speaking of which, I actually am a big fan of craigslist. Despite the horror stories you hear, I’ve never had a bad experience selling stuff here. The disadvantage, theoretically, of craigslist is that it’s totally anonymous if you want it to be. There’s no vetting at all of the sellers, buyers, or goods and services advertised, and as such it’s usually only safe to conduct transactions in cash. The advantage is that it’s a platform that everybody’s heard of and used, and it’s simple to post an ad. What I found during my downsizing process is that craigslist is the best platform to sell utilitarian items (furniture, tools, etc.) and heavy, unwieldy items (again, such as furniture). Buyers usually only look at their local craigslist ads, and if it’s a large or bulky item that I, as the seller, don’t want to deal with the expense and hassle of shipping, usually there’s a local person with a pickup truck, SUV, or rented truck willing to take whatever it is off my hands.

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  After my TV, my bike is the item I sold that I miss the most ($85, 4 March 2018).

• eBay, I discovered, is best for selling collectible items that are relatively small and light (i.e. can be shipped cheaply). Although I’ve been buying items off eBay for years, I never sold anything there until this past fall. It was surprisingly easy to get started. Like craigslist, you can browse eBay for items similar to what you’re selling, to get an idea of what price your item will sell for. Unlike craigslist, buyers and sellers rate each other with each transaction, and thus you end up with a self-vetting pool of users that others can vouch for. Also unlike craigslist, with eBay you’re selling to a nationwide audience. There are 350,000 people already selling table lamps there, so don’t bother unless it’s an antique. But eBay’s great for selling collectible items that, say, only a few geeks value and appreciate. There might not be any people in your local area who want these types of things, but there are always buyers on eBay, and they’re often willing to pay a premium. As an introvert, I also like the anonymity of selling on eBay. You can usually advertise, sell, and receive payment for your items without ever having contact with the buyer. Unfortunately, eBay charges fees — 10% of the sale price, plus an additional 3-4% for the use of Paypal to receive payment. Also, the seller is responsible for shipping the item, and Amazon and other e-commerce sites have so conditioned buyers to expect instantaneous shipping and near-instantaneous delivery that if you don’t ship within several hours of purchase, your buyers will very irritatingly start nagging you about the ship date.

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  I did very well selling my old Dungeons & Dragons books, such as this 2nd edition Mystara Karameikos boxed set, on eBay ($44.12, 30 November 2017)

• Online bulletin boards. Here, I again turned to the office for help. In addition to physical bulletin boards, my agency has online bulletin boards where people can post items for sale. Sort of like craigslist, except in my case everyone I was selling to had a Top Secret security clearance. From this bunch, I was willing to accept personal checks as payment.

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  I was willing to accept a $200 personal check for my sleeper sofa with matching armchair and ottoman (2 March 2018)

• Specialty websites. So many people give away books for free that it’s not worth selling them individually. Likewise, CDs have been made obsolete by digital music such as MP4s, but they’re not old enough yet to have attained the vintage cachet that vinyl records enjoy, so they similarly didn’t meet my $5 threshold for individual sales. I used the websites Textbooks.com and SecondSpin.com (for books and CDs/DVDs respectively) to sell these types of items. Just be forewarned that your books and CDs aren’t worth nearly what you think they are (or what you originally paid for them back in the ’90s), and these websites were not willing to pay anything at all for a lot of the items I owned.

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  Textbooks.com offered me $0 for this beautiful atlas, so I ended up giving it away to the Salvation Army for free ($0, 26 March 2018).

Smartphone apps. There are a bunch out there. I tried LetGo and OfferUp. They both have a very similar interface. You take a picture of your item with your phone, upload it to the app with a little bit of additional information, and then prospective buyers can message you with counter-offers, pick-up logistics, etc. The apps don’t have their own payment platform, so the actual transactions happen in-person and in cash. As with craigslist, the apps target a local buyer base, but like eBay, buyers and sellers rate each other with each transaction, so the community of users is self-vetting. These apps turned out to be a very useful way to sell household items in a hurry, despite the large number of messages I got from people who initially seemed interested but then never followed through. The main disadvantage of the apps is that right now there’s no one big one, no Amazon or Facebook or Tinder, that predominates, so you either have to settle for just a subset of potential buyers or, like me, you have to post the same ad to multiple apps simultaneously. Also, notifications for these apps aren’t very customizable. I wanted notifications (lights, sounds, whatever) on my phone when something happened related to one of my sales, but didn’t want to receive any emails. Unfortunately, both apps offered basically all or nothing — either get an email and a phone notification every time you post an ad, every time you receive a message, and after each sale nagging you to rate the buyer, or see nothing at all unless you open up the app. As I said, LetGo and OfferUp have nearly identical features, but I found that the latter had a larger user base in my area (Washington, D.C.) and consequently was the more useful of the two.