Garage Sale Tips For Savvy Buyers

By Joe Waynick

Here are a few garage sale tips for those who need extra income. Garage sales are a great way to make money buying used books to sell online for a profit. You can get started in this business with very little cash and a minimal investment of your time and energy.

Finding a great garage sale is easy and only takes a few minutes. A good place to look for garage sales is in your local paper, as many people holding one will take out garage sale ads. They may even list the types of items they have for sale, although this is hit or miss.

Garage Sale Listings

There are many great online resources for local garage sale listings such as Craig's List and other free websites that provide quick and easy garage sale tips. Some even allow you to subscribe to garage sale listings in your area. In as little as ten minutes you can build an impressive list of local garage sales to check out.

Some people don't advertise their garage sales online and merely hold them for friends and neighbors. Going for a drive through your neighborhood is a great way to discover these events.

Buyer Beware

Be careful about what you buy, even if the books are cheap.

If you find textbooks, make sure they’re fairly recent editions because students need current, up-to-date information. The newer the textbook, the more money it's worth.

If you find novels, hardcovers are generally worth more than soft covers, but tread carefully with fiction.

Unless fiction has a very high Amazon sales ranking (better than 50,000) AND you have a bulk distribution channel such as a brick-and-mortar bookstore or you sell through "Fulfillment By Amazon," fiction doesn’t usually payoff.

Keep an eye out for that rare old book that could be worth hundreds of dollars. You’ll read some garage sale tips that tell you to indiscriminately buy everything in sight, but this is a fast way to lose money.

You’ll end up with a massive pile of books that you can't sell. Decide what kinds of books you want beforehand, and vow to stick to your plan before you venture out to find garage sales.

Cashing In

After you've bought the books you want, it's time to turn them into cash. There are many great websites that allow you to sell books for no start-up costs. Among the leading websites are Amazon.com, eBay.com, and Half.com.

All of these websites will allow you to list your books for free, and will only take a small percentage of the sale as a commission.

These sites are a great option because if you fail to make the sale, you're not out any money.

Using these websites is one of my best garage sale tips because they genuinely allow your book selling business to operate almost risk free.

Once you've found a few sales to attend, make a garage sale checklist to ensure you don’t forget important information and/or equipments such as phone numbers, maps, your scanner, food and water, etc.

This will keep you focused and results-driven, and will help you maximize your profits from selling used books.

Good hunting!

There are many great books chock full of ideas about how to profit from selling used books online. To find them just click the “GO” link next to the Search box below and you’ll be shown hundreds of titles like the sample books you see pictured:

Joe Waynick is author of several eCommerce books covering the bookselling and publishing industry. His books are available on Amazon.com.You can also follow him on Twitter @JoeWaynick.

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