Sell That Stuff

You keep making all this stuff and it keeps piling up in the dining room and all your family has more than they want, but you just have to keep making it because it’s what you do and who you are. What do you do now?

Here’s one answer. Put it up on line and sell it. I tried it and it works. You will be constantly amazed at what people are willing to purchase from you (no offense to either party) and if you work at it some, you will be able to sell more than you can make. 

For instance, I am shipping today a bag full of cedar shavings swept from the floor of my shop from a bowl off my lathe, (a beautiful Oneway 1640 from the High by the way), to a lady from Illinois who uses them to make little cloth cedar pillows to put in stinky tennis shoes. She is paying $30 plus shipping for two quart bags of shavings I was going to sweep into the dust collector and use for mulch. She turns around and sells the bags for $15 per set and both of us giggle on the way to the bank.

There are several choices on line for selling, but my choice is a site called “Etsy”. www.etsy.com) pronounced like Betsy. They only allow handcrafted and vintage items and it is really simple to use. First you have to pick a name nobody else is using; “www.thewoodshop.etsy.com” is taken by the way. (See me sneak that one in. Look at my new shop sign from Highland.) If it is clear, then just walk through the steps and put your stuff up there. Get a digital camera and upload some good pictures, decide on a price, write up a description using words like “found lumber’, “recycled”, and “green” , check your shipping costs and go for it. It costs something like twenty cents per item to list it and then something like 2% commission when it sells.

Set up a PayPal account, which is really simple to do and people will pay you through PayPal before you ship. On top of that PayPal will print out a shipping label with two clicks and take the postage out of your PayPal account leaving you with the net. Call the Post Office and they will pick up the box off your back door steps. How cool is that?

I average a sale a month and there are things on my site which over 300 people have looked at, including people from England, France and Afghanistan. My record so far is a large salad bowl for $ 105 to a lady in California who gave it as a wedding present. Go for it!! Get that stuff out of the house!! Make some more!! Buy more tools from Highland!!