Selling on Craigslist

So you have a couple items you'd like to get more than garage sale prices for, well read on.

Anyone can slap an ad on an online classifieds web site and hope it sells. After reading these tips I'll teach you how to drastically increase your chances with selling your new or older stuff. The best part is, these tips are Free.

These tips can be applied to most online classifieds but Craigslist is popular and free so lets focus on this online classifieds for this article.

The first thing you'll need to do is find out the value. You can spend hours on search engines looking up prices but here's a faster way. You hate or love this web site but Ebay is a great resource when it comes to finding prices on used items. It doesn't cost anything to have an account on Ebay so go and sign up. Are you signed into Ebay? If so follow along. Enter the name, description or keywords like model number of your item into the search field and click Search.

What you'll end up with are running bids on items. You can get somewhat of an idea from these numbers but what we need are what these items sold for. On the left column under Preferences look for "Completed Listings" and left click the box next to it. Now the listings will show what these items sold for giving you a good idea on how to price your stuff.

Now that you know the value of your treasures lets move onto your pictures. How do I say this, Always include photos with your classified ad. Most people are visual meaning they think with their eyes. Want to grab someone's emotional side and draw them into a sale, use pictures!

A few words on photos.
If you don't have a camera the next best thing is to use an image from the manufacturer. Try to use a picture with dimensions of at least 300 pixels by 225 pixels. Any picture is better than no picture.

When taking pictures make sure you have adequate lighting.
If you tilt your camera so you can take a portrait shot remember to rotate the image 90 degrees so the photo isn't sideways. A simple way to rotate your photos is to use your Windows Image Viewer that came with your computer. To use the picture viewer just right click on an image and click "Preview". On the bottom of your image you'll see some buttons ( see image below ). Just hover your mouse pointer over the buttons till you find the buttons to rotate 90 degrees left or right. 

Here's another tip, to rotate the picture clockwise hold down your Ctrl key and press the K button, to rotate counterclockwise hold down the Ctrl key and press the L button.  Easy isn't it.

Now it's time to resize your images. What I find that works well is to resize your photos to 640px by 480px. You don't want your images too small where people can't see what it is or too large where it takes too long to load the images. One cool software tool you can use to resize, crop, add borders etc is called FastStone Photo Resizer. It's a time saver to use when you need to edit many photos.

So now you know what to charge for your items and have your pictures ready, what's next?
Craigslist allows you the option to upload four pictures that Craigs List will resize to 300px by 225px. Thats fine but we want our Craigslist ad to stand out above the other ads. One way to do this is by having larger images and more than 4 pictures. What we'll need is a place to host your images for free. There's many free image hosting web sites to choose from out there but I find that Photobucket works well for classified ad photos. Just upload your pictures to your favorite image hosting web site and then we're ready to put everything together for your classified ad.

Now it's time to list your stuff so you can make some money!
Sign into Craigslist and select the category that best describes your item.
For the Description, put the name of your item and a few other keywords to grab the attention of your potential buyers.
Here's a few examples of descriptions not to use:
bike for sale
2000 ford car
kids toys

Here's a better way to describe your items:
2009 Suzuki Hayabusa GSX1300R - Very FAST
2000 Ford Mustang Convertible
Disney Themed Stuffed Animals - Like New

Next add your price.
If you want someone to make you an offer leave the price field blank.
I've seen ads that have a $1.00 listed for the price. If your really selling your item for a dollar that's fine but don't list your item for a dollar then in your ad say you want another price. Listing items this way is unethical. Think of it this way, a store lists  an item in the paper for $20.00. You go to this store thinking the price is $20.00 but it's really $80.00. This is called False Advertising.

Now it's time for your description.
If your not sure about some of the features your item has you can get ideas by looking up your item on search engines or see how other people describe your item on Ebay. Be as descriptive as possible.

Now it's time to add your pictures.
Go to your favorite image hosting provider where you uploaded your pictures and copy the html link (Photobucket example pic shown here ) just highlight the link so the text turns blue, rightclick and click copy. Now paste this link below your description text ( shortcut to paste is to hold down the Ctrl button then press the V button ). To add another image just press your Enter key to go to your next text line and paste another image html link.

By the way, see that Nintendo 64 gaming system to the right, I bought that at a yard sale

HTML is allowed in Craigslist ads.
To learn about the different html tags that can be used in your ad just

Click Here and learn about Craigslist HTML Tags

Add a link to your Video
If your selling something like a car what better way to get your potential buyer to fall in love with your item than showing a video of your item.
I won't go into details here but an easy way to do this is first, film your item, transfer the video from your video recorder to your computer, upload it to sites like YouTube, copy the html url for the video and paste the url in your item description.

Well your just about done.
On the bottom of the Craigslist page click the Continue button. If your happy with your ad click continue or if you need to edit your ad click the Edit button. All that's left is to enter the security code in the box and click the continue button. If you need help here's what Craigslist suggests:

Please enter the words you see in the box, in order and separated by a space. Doing so helps prevent automated programs from abusing this service.

If you are not sure what the words are, either enter your best guess or click the reload button next to the distorted words.

Visually impaired users can click the audio button to hear a set of words that can be entered instead of the visual challenge.

That's it, you just posted an ad thats sure to attract more buyers and you'll have a better chance at selling your unused items. Happy selling :)

A note on using online photo hosting verses using Craigslist photo hosting.
If you need to relist your ad and you use the Craigslist photo upload, you'll loose your photos and will need to upload your pictures again.
When using an online photo host, the image url is in your description so you just relist your ad and your done.

Some online image hosting sites will keep your photos till you delete them, others will delete the images after a set amount of time.

Final thoughts
Watch out for scammers.
Craigslist is for Local buyers and sellers, there's no need to respond to people that want you to ship your item to them.

If your interested in reaching more potential buyers and your fine with shipping your item you could give Bonanzle a try. The fees are way cheaper than Ebay and the members are friendly.

Well that's about it. Hope my little tutorial helps the next time your ready to sell your unused stuff.

Don't forget to visit our Yard Sale Strategies Forum.