List on Ebay Free!

February is declutter the house month. Maybe not officially, but certainly at my house. Not only do we have too much stuff, but I think we could make a few pennies on things that we really do not need. Much of what I need to pare down is clothing in my overflowing closet of things I haven't worn in 5 years. I already wrote about the epic failure that was my first trip to a clothing thrift store. Apparently the teens don't want my stylin' 5 year old clothing. But whatever! I decided to sell on eBay instead.

After checking out eBay I learned that there are fees for selling, besides the 9% they charge on the final sales price of an item. If you want to put it at a buy it now price, there's a charge. If you want to set a minimum reserve, there's a charge. If you want to put up more than one picture, there's a charge. If you don't sell an item, you could still be out money.

There is one way to avoid all fees altogether - auction style listings for 99 cents or less. You also have to either post only one picture, or post the rest of your pics using html in the description of your item. (Here's some super easy instructions!) The only problem with this is that your item might sell for only 99 cents. That wasn't such a big problem for me, because most of the stuff I need to sell I would be happy to get anything for. But when I started putting my items up for sale, I discovered eBay is running a free promotional offer between now and February 8th! As long as you go with an auction style listing, you can start your minimum bidding at any price free!

It's already February 2nd, so if you want to take advantage of this offer you need to get on it now. I'm using it as motivation to really declutter. I had a few items pulled out for selling that I knew I wouldn't mind losing for 99 cents, but now I'm listing some of the things I'd like more for as well. I even have multiple bids on a couple of shirts I listed for only 99 cents! I'm amazed at how people seem to get in competition with an auction style listing.

We'll see in a couple of weeks how my bounty of clutter pays off, but I think I'm off to a good start. Now, to list some couches on Craigslist...