How to Sell Unsold eBay Merchandise

If you are in the business of selling on eBay there will be times when you buy merchandise to sell but when the auction ends the item is unsold. If you aren't careful, all of this unsold merchandise can build up. Not only will you run out of space for storing it, but merchandise sitting on a shelf is spent money that is never recovered.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Re-list the item at a lower price. If it sells the second time through, eBay will credit you back the second listing fee. Sometimes you might find that if you start the auction with a lower bid, it will end up getting bid up higher than your original start price anyway. If this doesn't happen and it sells for a lower price, at least you will have recovered some of the money you spent.
2. Hold the merchandise for a different season. Say for example the item that didn't sell is a warm comforter for a bed and the first time you tried to sell it in August. Holding that merchandise until December might lead to much better sales results.
3. List the merchandise on a free auction site. Although they do not get the traffic that eBay gets, there are other online auction sites that do not charge you for listing items, they only charge if the item sells. Moving unsold eBay merchandise to one of the free auction sites gives you another chance to sell it without putting more money into it.
4. Have a garage sale once or twice a year to clean out your unsold eBay merchandise. Garage sales will not usually bring the prices that eBay will bring, but they will clear off your shelves and help you to recover some of your money.
5. Set up a table at a flea market. Flea markets can be a wonderful place for selling unsold eBay merchandise and sometimes you might find you can get more for an item at a flea market than the eBay market is paying.
6. Box up your unsold eBay merchandise and consign it at a local auction house. If the quality of the items you are trying to sell is not the highest, seek out an auction house that sells box lots. They will sell your merchandise for you and give you a percentage of the profits.

Tips & Warnings

• Be careful how many times you re-list an item for sale on eBay. The insertion fee credit is only given if the item sells on the first re-list. If you do not keep track of the eBay listing fees that you put into each item, the fees could add up to more than what the item is worth.