#1 How To Avoid Awkwardly Asking Someone To Take Their Shoes Off At Your Door.. Sold!
u/Lyle_the_Crocodile, one of the moderators of the subreddit, said "people will sell almost anything, weird stuff from prosthetics to coffins, or stuff that's broken/worn out and they just don't want to throw it away."
"It can be overwhelming, looking at a local marketplace like Facebook Marketplace or Offerup, but I see it as a net positive," u/Lyle_the_Crocodile told Bored Panda. "If someone, somewhere wants your old prosthetic leg, it's better to sell it to them (or give it away), rather than having it end up in a dump. The clutter and chaos of the modern online marketplaces is a reflection of modern consumerism and waste, so it's hard to look at some of it, but it's important. A landfill full of prosthetic body parts is just as full as a landfill full of car tires and electronics."
Personally, the moderator thinks the most popular listings online feature something boring that people are upgrading, like phones or furniture. "There are a ton of people that... shall we say... underestimate or understate the wear and tear on a couch, for instance, and think that a couch that's torn up by a dog, or just decades of normal use, is still worth over $100."
However, u/Lyle_the_Crocodile thinks that there are a lot of joke listings as well. They said the mod team tries to not allow such content on the subreddit because they don't want it filled with "Among Us Shaped Chicken Nugget" posts, but they're not always successful. "If you click through Facebook Marketplace listings and view the sellers' profiles, it often becomes clear that they're posting it to be silly with their friends. I'd estimate that approximately 5% of all Gen Z guys, for example, have posted some variation of "For sale - THESE HANDS" (an invitation to fight, not an ad for manual labor, like my millennial brain initially thought)."
"On the other hand, a lot of the weird listings are real," the moderator highlighted. "I posted an ad on Facebook Marketplace for some medical training mannequins once, and FB alerted me every single time someone shared the post on their wall. Some of us sellers just want to reduce waste and make money, while making the world a more bizarre and happy place. In the case of the medical mannequins, I sold one to a commercial real estate agent that wanted to put it in surprising places in the buildings he was selling, with a hidden camera to catch the reaction of people when they see it. I sold several to a couple that was turning their pole dancing studio into a haunted house. Trust me, there are plenty of weird buyers to make it worth it for us weird sellers to keep doing what we're doing."
With 166K members, the community of r/WTFgaragesale is not very close-knit in any way. "It's more of a passive way to enjoy the absurdity inherent in the modern peer-to-peer e-commerce landscape," the moderator said. "Sometimes the threads are full of puns, other times disbelief and unanswerable questions about what kind of person sells x, y, or z, and every once in a while the thread will be just people defending the seller and telling the OP that the item in question isn't THAT weird."
If, however, you have things you no longer use but they are in good condition and you think they have value, chances are, you can actually sell them online.
Various collectibles, exercise equipment, furniture, electronics that aren't too old yet, and luxury items are a good place to start.
Check Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Craigslist for your items. If you see plenty of them, that's a sign that there is a market for them.
If you want to really make sure, save all the listings you see on the earlier mentioned websites. Then come back a few days later and see if the listings are still active. Great items sell rather quickly and listings get closed. You won't have trouble selling those items and can probably increase your asking price a bit.
When choosing a platform for selling your stuff, think about reliability, relevance, customer experience, and costs. You also need to keep in mind the type of item you're selling, for example, handmade items will likely do better on Etsy than on Craigslist.
On every platform, you will have to create an account and build out your product listing. Get the best photos that you can and write a compelling description — these things have a huge impact on how many potential buyers reach out to you.
Once you're done, publish the listing but it's a good idea to double-check it and make sure everything is correct.
#10 Woman Makes Her Regretful Husband Model Her Handmade Ponchos. Hilarious
For hot items, you might start getting inquiries within the next few hours. The bulk of people will probably reach out in 24-48 hours. Make sure to respond to them as quickly as possible and close a deal.
But if you're on a platform that does the selling for you (like Amazon), there's nothing else you need to do. Just sit back and wait.
