Turning Junk to Easy Money, Tips on How to Sell Used Items at OLX

Update:

Olx is now called Carousell

***********

What to do with your old stuff piling up in your storage, year after year? Sell it! just like what I did.

During the time that I was working, I accumulated a lot of  good quality furniture, appliances, clothes and shoes. After years of use and abuse, or simply because, I got bored with it,  they were relegated to the storage, for future use or to be given away to relatives and friends. My storage is a vacant third room in our house which is, now full of junk. If  we have relatives spending an overnight in our house, they slept on couches or we share them our room, that's when I thought of finally clearing up the room. Upon seeing all my old stuff in the room, I began asking myself, why did I buy so many things? what will I do with them? My nephew suggested that I post and sell it at OLX.( I guess everyone knows what OLX is). I've seen their commercial and I was thinking who would want to buy my old stuff? Is there a market for this?. I've never done any online shopping, much more sell items online to strangers (yes,  I have trust issues especially to people I don't know!). Then, my nephew suggested that he will create an account for me,  he took photos of my stuff and posted it. I did all the descriptions since it was my stuff and he helped me with the pricing. I thought we'd be selling it for only a couple of pesos since these are old and used, but when he  mentioned "thousand pesos" for one item, I asked him " Are you sure someone will buy this?  I was so skeptical that it will sell. A few minutes after he hit the button "Submit", I already got multiple texts inquiring about the items we posted, in a matter of 15 minutes (a lot of haggling  happened) I sold my first item at OLX. 

Of course, not everyone, can sell their items that fast, (I'm just lucky!) but with good presentation (your photos), realistic pricing and a lot of patience, I'm sure it will sell in time. Here's what I learned and a few tips on how to make a sell at OLX.

1. POST GOOD/CLEAR ORIGINAL PHOTOS  

Make sure that all the photos that you will be using  are good quality  images (not necessarily HD), I've seen some photos posted at OLX that are blurred, not original (meaning they just got photo from the Internet) and not appealing. You should make a good impression so that buyers gravitate towards your ad, even though there are multiple sellers with the same item or category, if your photo stands out,  chances are, they will choose you. Post as many photos per item, so that buyers will have an idea how your product looks like. It should not look good only in photos but also when you show it to them personally. That makes it sell.

2. DESCRIBE YOUR PRODUCT WELL

Give a detailed specifications of what you're selling, (i.e.where is it made, what's the measurement) give information that will help the buyer better understand your product. 

3. GIVE REALISTIC PRICING

A product/item will sell on its own, if it's well presented and the quality is really good even though it's priced high. One item that I posted at OLX was priced almost the same amount as the original price, but because the item that I was selling was of high quality and almost good as new, it was immediately sold.  The buyer knew that it was good bargain since he will be paying more if he buys a new one. I guess he's  in the business of buy and sell and he knew that he could still get a substantial profit from selling it.

4. MAKE TIME TO REPLY TO ALL QUERIES OF YOUR PROSPECTIVE BUYERS

When I was looking for a real estate, I sent texts messages to multiple sellers at OLX inquiring about the property. Only 2 out of 10 were able to reply, and it took them three days before responding and I totally forgot, what am I inquiring about. As a seller, as much as possible I try to answer every inquiries, from there, I could sense if the buyer is really interested.

4. KNOW YOUR BUYERS

For the past months that I've been selling at OLX, I discovered that there are three types of buyers: 

a. Serious Buyers - these are the buyers who would ask questions about your product, they want to know the history and why are you selling it. They provide you their personal info (name and address) when you ask for it. They haggle for the price and not ask you what's your last price on their initial conversation with you. They immediately set-up a date, time & place for your meet-up or if he/she is going to view it at your house. They constantly remind you of your meeting date.

b. Reseller - usually their initial message to you is "what's your last price?" (although not everyone). If you gave them a small discount, they will not reply to you at all or they would tell you that they are only willing to pay this amount (almost half of the selling price). They would enumerate all sorts of negative things to tell about your product like, "oh! the item you're selling is already old, I'm only paying you this amount" even though I've mentioned that I only had it for two years and the photo showed a very well maintained and almost good as new item. They will do everything that will make you  lower your price to their liking since they knew that your item has a market and can sell very well at a much higher price.

c. Poser -  I almost fell victim for this type of  buyer during  my first few weeks of  selling at OLX (oh, I forgot, it happened to me again a few weeks ago). You would think that they are serious buyers because more or less they talk or send messages to you like any serious buyers. I've noticed that they would ask for your exact address even before they ask questions about the item you're selling. As per advice of my husband, I don't give away the number of my house, I just tell them the street and a landmark, surprisingly, serious buyers, were able to locate me even though I only gave out those information. One time, a buyer asked me for my location, I replied giving that info plus I've mentioned that my place is a block away from the police precinct (which is true), guess what? I never got a response. Recently, a buyer whom I thought was a serious one, made me wait for two hours for nothing.  They were going to pick up an item from my house and she kept on sending text messages to me, to wait for them since they are still getting a gate pass so that they can bring the item to their condo unit. She set-up the date and time for that meet-up but never showed up and did not offer any excuse, just like that.  From then on, I became very cautious when dealing with buyers.

One important tip: Always have someone with you when meeting with potential buyers, tag along a relative or a friend. Although they are buyers, they are still considered  strangers since you don't know them personally. If they requested a meet-up, suggest a crowded place, like a mall, as a meeting place. I've heard stories about people missing or worse, dead, after meeting a buyer. I'm not trying to scare you, but for me, it's better to be safe than sorry.

It's been four months now since I've started selling at OLX. Every week, I find items to sell from cleaning our storage. I'm now on the last few items, hopefully, I'd be able to sell everything. In a couple of months, we will be moving to a much smaller place and there will be no room for junk. I guess the only item that we will be bringing is our newly bought bed and some lighting and the rest will be all new. I cannot divulge to you how much I earned from selling my old stuff, but I'm pretty sure that it's enough to buy us a furniture for the living or  dining room or  appliances for my new kitchen. After everything is sold, my account will be temporarily idle, who knows, a few months or a year from now, some of my existing personal items will make its way again to the storage (oops, I don't have one!), I mean, straight to OLX.

Start cleaning your storage or better yet, the whole house. Even if you don't find much to sell, your mom will be very happy that finally, you cleaned your room,  who knows, she might give you that gadget or shoes that you've been dreaming of.  So, why wait?, Create your account now and start earning money from your own junk!