I love selling things online. I sell on www.eBay.com, I sell for my career (www.StubHub.com among other Websites), and now I'm selling on www.Craigslist.com.
I go back & forth on what products are appropriate to sell online. Four years ago at a SWSX Interactive conference in Austin, TX, I recall being offended at a coworker's panel discussion on eBooks. To me, reading is a tangible sport. It's difficult to read a substantial amount of copy online, and you can't take your laptop into the bathtub with you.
Now, four years later, I like the idea of downloading various books into a PDA and reading the books from MUNI or from the couch. After working in Silicon Valley for 7 years, I now believe you can sell anything online. Someone, somewhere will buy it.
All that said, the garage sale may be an in-person phenomenon.
Craigslist & The Virtual Garage Sale
I've been using a digital camera to take pictures of every item in the house that we're selling. I then upload all the pictures ( painstaking amount of time), and write up the descriptions and prices. Then I post an ad with the URL to my photo album on CL every other day. Since Craigslist has anti-spam techniques in place, I have to switch the email address I'm using to post my ad every other time in order to trick their system into thinking it's a brand new poster. Thankfully, I have about 5 email addresses.
So far my garage sale has been of mixed success. I get emails from people asking to see pictures, asking about prices, and asking for descriptions of items. I just send them the URL of the photo album so they can see for themselves. If I've done a poor or lazy job at Online Merchandising, I should probably read my own articles on it:
http://juliebrown.typepad.com/editorialstrategy/2005/03/online_merchand.html
24/7 Selling
The good thing about online stores is you don't need to man the fort, so to speak. Your Website does all the work. If you spend the appropriate time taking good product shots (or hire a professional to take pictures), and you spend the time writing up a description that eliminates any questions, you should minimize the amount of customer service phone calls & emails.
I seriously thought about adding ecommerce capabilities to this Website (briefly), in order to make the selling process more efficient. The interested party proves their interest by actually using PayPal to buy my $100 computer. Then they come to the house and pick the item up. Great! No shipping costs, no waiting around all Sunday to see if someone *might* show up...it's all done.
This concept, however, does not appear to work for the Virtual Garage Sale.
Trust & Guarantees
www.Amazon.com and other top ecommerce sites work so well because of the inherent trust consumers have for these Websites. And, naturally, these well-publicized sites are able to offer excellent consumer protection and guarantees thanks to deals with affiliates and brand-name companies. If the item breaks, send it back to Amazon. Amazon refunds your money, or replaces the item at no cost to the customer.
Juliebrown.typepad.com unfortunately lacks this customer service model. I can't offer my potential customers the original user manual for the stereo, never mind a a 5-year guarantee. Because of the lack of trust, (If Julie says the stereo works, we should believe her?!), people need to see the products in person. They need to touch them, test it out, ask me questions in person to see my reaction and make judgments on how I treated the item in question.
But is it really the guarantee that prevents people from knowing they want my items off my Website? I'm not so sure. I sell used, un-guaranteed items all the time on eBay, and I have a high sell-thru rate and decent conversions on high competition items (such as "Theory" pants). So what's the difference between clothes on eBay (or anything on eBay) and the Virtual Garage Sale?
I think it's all about the adventure of a garage sale.
Adventure
Yard or garage sales are a family tradition for many, and from an early age, we remember traipsing around someones house, garage, or sidewalk sale. It is these memories, I believe, that interfere with our ability to consider Virtual Garage Sales.
The whole idea of a garage sale is the exploration & the adventure. It is, quite simply, seeing the stuff up-close, all together, in the expected cluttered & haphazard way. Garage sales allow us a glimpse into a strangers life. We can formulate thoughts & opinions on what they like to do, what their job might be, and what kind of a person they are based on their throwaway items.
My suspicion is that the main allure of a garage sale is not the "$10 table" or the "$5 looks-like-Tiffany's lamp." It is the voyeur in each of us whom is intrigued by the prospect of examining how someone else lives.
And this is why, despite my best attempts at arranging everything over the net and over the phone, people want to come to the house to touch and look at all my items. It doesn't matter how glossy and nice my pictures are, or if I email the exact measurements of the TV. People want to bring their measuring tape with them and see for themselves if an item will fit into their apartment.
In fact, my glossy pictures and sophisticated Website might be hurting my sales. I look like a professional seller (almost), and this makes me seem like a scammer. The trusted garage sale sellers are the innocent amatuers who bring their junk down in a box to a rickety table on the street, set up a chair and hang out all day.
The Virtual Garage Sale is a nice concept, but I would argue after this experiment, that simply putting all my items in front of the house and posting signs around the neighborhood would yield better & faster results.
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