22 June 2018

How much are your unwanted items really worth?

| Amelia Stephenson
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Unwanted items

It’s easier than you think to find out how much your unwanted items are worth.

When the time comes to declutter your home, you’ll no doubt be thinking of selling some of your household items. But how do you know how much your items are really worth?

There’s a lot of guesswork when it comes to setting a realistic price when you don’t have any expert knowledge about their true value, so it’s not surprising that most do-it-yourself sellers get their pricing strategies completely wrong.

To find out where most sellers go wrong when pricing their items and how to work out the right price when selling, I spoke to Angus Bowers, an expert evaluator at Canberra’s own auction site, ALLBIDS.

Overpricing items

Because sellers often have some level of emotional attachment to their items, it’s not uncommon for them to assume they’re worth a lot more than they really are and set the price too high, turning off potential buyers.

While on the rare occasion a premium price tag could result in a successful sale, the majority of the time it will generate little to no interest from prospective buyers, or you’ll end up having to invest a lot of your time fielding enquiries from people pitching for a much lower price.

Underpricing items

On the other hand, underpricing items is another way do-it-yourself sellers often go wrong, because they don’t know how rare or in-demand the item is.

Whether you’re dealing with furniture, antiques, art or other collectables, collectors who have an eye for good value will swoop on any items they know they can make a profit from if they resell it with a higher price tag. Without having a good understanding of the real value of an item, it’s easy for sellers to hand off their items for a fraction of what they could have got for them.

Setting the right price

The best way to get your pricing strategy right is to seek advice from an industry expert.

While most people probably think seeking expert advice is going to be a costly and time-consuming process, that’s not the case at all. At ALLBIDS, we have a team of staff on hand who can give you a realistic idea of the amount you can expect for your items.

We can research your product for you and provide an indicative price based on the most recent comparable sales from the ALLBIDS website, or if it’s a rare item, from elsewhere in Australia or even globally.

From there, we can even take care of every element of the sale of your item, writing accurate product descriptions and taking high-quality photos to make it look as appealing as possible, before advertising it on our auction platform which reaches over 300,000 users each month.

We’ll make sure your item is advertised with sufficient time to attract as many potential buyers as possible and we can even facilitate buyer inspections in the lead up to the sale, essentially creating perfect market conditions for your item to sell for the best price.

It’s easy to seek our expert advice—just give us a call, email a photo of the item, or drop by our Fyshwick showroom with your item to get the ball rolling. Alternatively, if you have a household full of items, we can even come to you to make the whole process much simpler!

This is a sponsored article, though all opinions are the author’s own. For more information on paid content, see our sponsored content policy.

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