Category: Business & Finance

Most people think you need a fancy side-hustle — dropshipping, coding a SaaS, building a massive personal brand — to make money online. My dad spent over twenty years turning other people’s junk into profit on eBay, and the items gathering dust in your garage right now could be an untapped revenue stream. You don’t need much specialized equipment to get started; you probably already own most of it.

Below is the exact system I use, broken down step by step. It’s built for complete beginners who have never listed anything on eBay before.

1. Decide What Goes

Anything you haven’t used in six months — or that you could easily replace — should go.

Walk through your house and look at everything that’s collecting dust. If it’s taking up space and you haven’t touched it in six months to a few years, it probably isn’t worth keeping. Ultimately it’s your call, but if you’re on the fence, let it go.

Two questions help me decide:

• How easy would this be to replace if I later found out I wanted it back?
• Do I only use this seasonally or rarely — and could I rent it instead of owning it?

I like to make an actual physical pile in a spot I walk past often. It’s a visual reminder that I’ve got work to do.

2. Set Your $20 Threshold

If a comparable item regularly sells for less than $20, I don’t list it.

Once you’ve got your pile, set a price floor. A good rule of thumb: what would you want to be paid for an hour of work? By the time you research, photograph, list, package, and ship an item, you’ve usually spent about an hour on it. For me, that number is $20 — if similar items aren’t selling for at least that much, it’s not worth my time.

How to check: Go to eBay’s advanced search, select “sold items,” and search for what you’re trying to sell. You’ll see everything that’s sold in the last 90 days matching your search. If comparable items are going for $20 or more, it’s worth listing.

3. Bundle When It Makes Sense

Sometimes individual items don’t clear the $20 bar, but bundled together they do. I once inherited a ridiculous number of ties — a few were worth $20+ on their own, but most weren’t. So I sold the rest in bundles of 10, 20, 50, even 100. On eBay, the keyword for this is “lot.”

4. Capture Good Photos with Zero Gear

You don’t need a fancy camera setup — just two things:

• A lens-cleaning cloth, so your phone camera isn’t shooting through smudges.
• A neutral background. I use an oversized black yoga mat in my garage, with the garage door open for indirect natural light.

Photograph the item from every side. If there’s a brand name or text on it, get a clear, readable close-up of that too.

5. Calculate Shipping Up Front

I calculate shipping right after taking photos, rather than waiting until later.

Here’s my process:

1. Find a box the item fits in.
2. Weigh the box, then add 8 oz–1 lb to account for packaging material.
3. Measure the height, length, and width.
4. Plug those numbers into eBay’s shipping calculator.

I always calculate for the longest possible distance — since I’m in Oregon, I use an Oregon ZIP code as the origin and a New York ZIP code as the destination. The calculator will show rates for different services. USPS is usually cheapest for smaller items; FedEx often wins for larger or oddly shaped items.

Whatever the cheapest option costs, I round up to the nearest $2 or $5 interval. So if shipping comes out to $10, I list it as $12. If an item needs to ship FedEx, I make a note of that too — it affects the listing description later (no PO boxes, etc.).

6. Get the Images onto Your Computer

I use Google Photos, since it automatically syncs with my phone. I just log into the Google Photos website on my computer and download the pictures from there — grouped by item, so each item’s photos stay together in their own folder.

7. Write the Listing (Keep It Simple)

You’ve already done most of the legwork. Remember that eBay “sold items” search from Step 2? Find a sold listing that closely matches your item, and look for the “Sell one like this” button. Click it, and you’ll have a template ready to go.

From there:

• Tweak the title if your item has notable differences.
• Avoid ALL CAPS in titles — it reads as obnoxious.
• Drag in your photos, leading with the one that best shows the item as a whole.
• For the description, start by pasting in the title, then add any details the photos might not fully capture (a scratched screen, for example). Even if it’s visible in photos, I like to call it out directly — at minimum, I’ll add “item is as pictured.”
• Note shipping terms clearly: “Buyer pays $X shipping, US sales only.” For large items shipping FedEx, I also add “No Alaska, Hawaii, or PO boxes” — those destinations cost significantly more and FedEx won’t deliver to PO boxes anyway.

8. Schedule Listings for Maximum Visibility

I’m on the West Coast, so I schedule listings to end during buyers’ evening hours nationwide. I start my earliest listings at 4 PM PST (7 PM EST) and stagger new ones every 15 minutes until 6 PM PST (9 PM EST). That way, no matter where a buyer lives, listings tend to close around the time they’re off work.

9. Choose Auction or Buy-It-Now

For a first listing, I always start with an auction. Here’s why: if I have something hard to find and price it at a flat $50, the first buyer willing to pay gets it for $50 — even if others would’ve paid $100 or $120. An auction lets demand set the price instead.

If it doesn’t sell after the auction, I switch to Buy-It-Now at that same price, give it a few weeks, and if it still doesn’t move, I gradually lower the price until it sells.

10. Fulfillment: Ship Fast, Pack Securely

Once an item sells and payment clears, it’s go-time:

1. Use a heat gun to remove any old labels or stickers from the box.
2. Print the listing’s first page (photo + title) as a makeshift packing slip.
3. Fill the box with packing material so nothing rattles around — saved Amazon packaging works great here.
4. Tape the box shut, covering the top seam and the side seams for extra security.
5. Weigh the sealed box and write the rounded-up weight on the side (e.g., 1 lb 6.8 oz becomes “1 lb 7 oz”).
6. Add the box’s rounded-up dimensions.
7. If you’re shipping multiple items that day, jot a quick 1–5 word description on the box so you don’t mix up orders.
8. Enter the final weight and measurements to generate and print your shipping label.
9. Trim the label neatly, tape it over the weight/dimensions notes, and drop it off at the post office or FedEx.

11. Under-Promise, Over-Deliver

eBay’s default handling time is three business days. I leave that setting as-is, but I actually ship out the next business day whenever I can. Buyers love getting things sooner than expected.

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TL;DR — Your One-Week Starter Plan

1. Walk your house and pull out stuff you don’t want or use.
2. Search each item in eBay’s Sold Listings and note the median price.
3. Keep only items selling for $20+; bundle low-value multiples into “lots.”
4. Photograph with your phone, natural light, and a neutral background.
5. Weigh and measure, calculate worst-case shipping, round up, and list as “buyer pays shipping.”
6. Sync photos to Google Photos, then download them into folders by item.
7. Copy a proven title and description, then edit for your specific item.
8. Schedule listings from 4–6 PM PST, staggered every 15 minutes.
9. Start with a 7-day auction; switch to Buy-It-Now if it doesn’t sell.
10. Ship the next business day when you can — people love getting things early.

Give this a try and let me know how it works for you — and what you’d do differently.

Happy hunting, and happy selling!