http://www.ClutterDiet.com Get organized with home organizing tips from professional organizers at The Clutter Diet. Auctioneers certainly have a way with words. But you don’t have to be a fast talker to sell the items you no longer want. In today’s video Lorie Marrero is spilling the beans on strategies to sell like a pro on Craig’s List. Following these tips will make organizing your home and clearing out your belongings more productive and less stressful. She’s talked the talk so now you can walk the walk. These Clutter Video Tips are posted frequently here on our clutterdiet organizing channel. You can search Twitter for #ClutterVideoTip also to find comments on our organizing tips. Lorie Marrero is the creator of ClutterDiet.com and the author of The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life. Lorie also serves as the national spokesperson for Goodwill Industries International and ambassador of the Donate Movement.
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Hi I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and online program, I’m sitting here at this desk that I have decided to sell on Craigslist and I want to share my guidelines for using Craigslist. It’s a wonderful tool, but you do need to know what you’re doing.
The first thing is to create a new email account or identify an email account that you don’t use very often to compartmentalize your transactions on Craigslist and protect your privacy. When you create a listing there is a feature for an anonymous email that is a reply feature for the potential buyers. Definitely use that feature, but then if you receive a response and you reply back, that will come from your email account. Keep that in mind. Also, create an account on Craigslist. There are some great benefits for that like managing your listings.
Start with pricing. Compare by searching to see what other people are selling similar items for. Maybe price on the high side since people shopping on Craigslist may want to bargain, leave room for that.
Post lots of pictures. Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes always. Think about what it feels like to look for something- you want to have all the information about it before you go see the item. Several well-lit pictures that are staged without personal items in the setting. Provide pictures of details that the buyer might be interested in- drawer hardware, or any damage. Not only because you’re an honest person, but because that helps the buyer make their decision and understand the pricing better. You also want to provide the dimensions- very important to decide how it fits in their space.
Use a free app called Skitch. You can draw right on there all the dimensions. Write a great description, think about why you’re selling this and how it feels when you’re looking at an item to buy. Answer the question of why you are selling it. If the item is too large to fit in your new house, that’s a great thing to know, so that means, “Hey, this is a perfectly good thing; that makes sense why they’re selling it.”
Tell them your payment terms. I recommend cash only. Maybe Paypal if it’s a large amount. Also specify, depending on the item, if you have a smoke-free home or if you have pets; this may be relevant to particularly upholstered furniture. Tell people if they need to provide their own pick-up options as far as. Tell them when you’re best available for meetings and phone calls. And when people respond ask them to provide their phone number in the response so that you can reach out to them at your convenience and that makes the transactions happen more quickly.
Remember that Craigslist searches will look in the description text for the search as well as in the title. So if there are any phrases that are relevant to this item that people might be searching that you can’t fit into the title, make sure you write that text in that description really thoroughly to cover all those possible searches.
Also, list any other available items that you’re selling at the same time on Craigslist at the bottom of the listing. It’s almost like a virtual garage sale. And definitely include your neighborhood in the location information if you can because that helps people understand.
When people do respond, respond back quickly. Meet safely with people. If you can, meet elsewhere. You don’t always need to meet at your house- if you do, have someone there with you. Be as safe as possible. If it feels strange or it feels too good to be true, don’t do it.
Confirm all of your meetings. Don’t waist your time or anyone else’s.
If you want more help getting organized, we can help you with our program online. Find out more about that at clutterdiet.com/learnmore.
See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.