Selling on Listia - A Beginners Guide to Successful Selling

If you like a good deal, or even better, a free deal... then Listia is the place for you. I think of Listia as an online yard sale. A place for people to sell the junk that they don't want. You know the old saying, 'One mans junk is another mans treasure'. In many ways its what Ebay used to be, before it became a huge commercialized online shopping mall.

First lets be very clear, Listia DOES NOT use money, they use points. The points are earned by you and then used to bid on other sellers auctions or buying items from the Listia Store. In a different post, I'll show some photos of cool things I've bought on Listia with the points I've earned from selling my junk. In this post, I'll give step by step advise on how, what, and when to list items, so that you earn the most coins possible. My advise comes from 'Trial and Error' on my listings, so you're going to be learning from my mistakes. So lets get started.....

Listing an Item to Sell in 3 EASY steps

1)Click on the banner ad and open an account. All you'll need is an email account

2) After completing your registration, go to the top right of the screen and press List Auction
3) You'll be taken to the listing page and asked to enter the listings info. Just fill in the blanks:

• Title (what are you selling)
• Choose category (choose from the drop down list)
• Photo (add at least one photo or as many as you like)
• Description (describe what you're selling, include imperfections if any)
• Delivery (how much to ship item. Free Shipping will attract more buyers. I'll explain more about shipping in the next section)
• Location (general location. example: your country, state or city. DO NOT put your address here)

You could press submit at this point, but I always choose the advanced options. So lets try that too, press the small button that says Show Advanced Features. Its to the left of the SUBMIT button. You'll find a few other items to fill in:

• Auto Relist (uncheck it for your first few auctions)
• Start Bid (I always start at minimum 100. Listia deducts points from your balance for start bids higher than 499)
• Get it Now (unusable by you till you have some positive feedback from buyers, basically its the same as the BUY NOW feature on Ebay)
• #of Days (pick from the list how many days you want your auction to run, choose 3 days for your first auction)
• Double check your entries and press Submit

What to Sell on Listia

Actually you can sell almost anything you want on Listia, with a few exceptions. Check out the Listia rules for specifics, but basically if its illegal to own, you can't sell it. I've seen people sell everything from a photo of themselves to high priced antiques, and everything in between. So use your imagination. One person, posted photos of their sketch art and sold it, another sold Box Tops for Eduction tops. Just browse around the listings and you'll see the HUGE variety of things being sold. Some is useless junk... but again.. one mans junk is another mans treasure. And since there is NO charge for listing things, you may want to try listing something that you know would NEVER sell on Ebay.

For the beginner whose never sold online before, I recommend keeping it small in the beginning. Try selling small thin items that can be sent in a standard envelope with just 1 stamp (I also recommend going to your local Dollar Store and buying a box of medium size greeting cards, not the individual cards, the box of 10 or 20 for a dollar, these come in handy if you need a slightly larger envelope). Things like trading cards, photos, stickers, craft embellishments, post cards, coins, thin charms, etc. If its thinner than a quarter, you can usually send it in an envelope for 1 forever stamp, depending on weight. 1 forever stamp covers 1 ounce, if you're unsure, put on a 2nd stamp or take it to the post office and let them weigh it. These items can be safely sent in an envelope, costing you nearly nothing to send. Which means you can offer FREE SHIPPING, which attracts more buyers.


Heres's a few shipping tips

• Make sure you have a proper size envelope for what you are sending
• If you charge for shipping, don't accept cash. Only accept payment by Paypal or money order. And DO NOT ship til payment is made
• Coins - When sending a coin, use scotch tape to secure it to the inside center of a greeting card. This will keep the coin from rolling around in the envelope as well as keep it off the bottom & top of envelope where the postal machine stamps its information during sorting.
• Trading Cards - fold up in a piece of letter paper and put in a standard envelope
• Stickers, Photos - Small stickers can be sent in a standard envelope. Sheets of stickers or Photos may need a greeting card size or business size envelope.
• When using a greeting card size envelope, use the greeting card too. So what if its a Christmas, Thank you or Wedding Invitation card, no ones gonna care. Putting things like photos or stickers inside a greeting card gives the envelope a bit of stability and another layer of protection against the dreaded USPS sorting machines.
• When you've made alot of excess points, start bidding on forever stamps from sellers who are auctioning them. You can often get a much better deal than if you bought them at the post office.
• Large Items - Items too big for a regular envelope can often be sent in padded envelopes. Items such as silver ware, hat pins, toys, etc. Keep in mind that if the total thickness of your envelope(with the items inside) is 1/4" thick or more, its going to be charged First Class Pkg rates. Padded envelopes are considered packages by the USPS. The current minimum for sending a First Class pkg is $2.07, tracking/delivery confirmation is I believe .80 cents extra. If your item is valuable, I recommend paying the extra for tracking/delivery confirmation, maybe even insure it. Its a judgement call on your part. You can save a little if you are able to buy/print your own labels online.
• First Class Mail - I recommend sending most larger than envelope or bulk items with First Class Package. The price is often lower up until I think 2 pounds, then Priority is cheaper over 2 pounds, your postal office can tell you after they weigh it.
• Priority Mail - Only use Priority Mail if you have a heavy item or lots of items going to same place. You can get a fixed price box at the post office which will let you send heavy items for a decent price. Priority is not for speed, It travels only about 1 or 2 days faster than First Class Mail.

Keep in mind this simple rule: If you sell it, you have to pay to send it.


When to List you item

If you list your item at noon, it will end at noon on the day it ends. Keep this in mind, cause some bidders wait til the last minute to even place a bid. I've gone entire auctions with zero bids and then the last hour all the bidders just swarmed on the auction.There's no real perfect time, its trial and error, depending on the items your selling. I sometimes scatter my auction times to see if one time works better than the other.
Well I hope this has helped you become a biit more comfortable with the idea of selling on Listia. If there's any other information you'd like included, feel free to drop me a note or post a comment.