Todd Sigety, an antiques appraiser in Alexandria, Va., recently got a call from a woman who wanted him to look through the contents of a storage unit that belonged to her late aunt. “She didn’t think there was anything worth keeping but wanted to make sure before she threw stuff out,” he says. Sure enough, there wasn’t much of value—except for one painting. After a little research Sigety realized it was the work of a well-known South American artist; Christie’s will auction it this fall. The presale estimated value: $30,000 to $50,000. Of course, you may not have a masterwork, or even a minor work, hiding in a storage unit.

But your basement and attic may be bursting with possessions you no longer want, and you might be surprised by the amount you can pocket if you know the best ways to sell your stuff. “I find people can easily make $1,000 to $2,000 when they sell their unwanted stuff,” says Carolyn Schneider, author of “The Ultimate Consignment & Thrift Store Guide” (iUniverse, 2012). You’ll be helping both the environment—your things won’t end up in a landfill—and your bottom line. You’ll make the most money by matching your goods with the best places to sell them, whether it’s an auction house, a consignment store, a website, or a yard sale. Just keep in mind that the IRS may want a cut of your profits. It taxes the proceeds from the sale of collectibles as capital gains, generally at a rate of 28 percent. Under IRS regulations, collectibles include works of art, rugs, antiques, metals (such as gold, silver, and platinum bullion), gems, stamps, and coins.

Your profit or loss is the difference between the basis, usually your purchase price, and the sale price. If you end up selling your goods at a yard sale, however, it will likely be for much less than you paid for them, so you probably won’t owe any. You might want to get a written opinion from a professional appraiser if you think something you’d like to sell might be worth a good deal of money—say, $1,000 or more. The results will tell how much a buyer might pay and what and how much insurance you should have to cover it. But written appraisals can be expensive. Most professionals will charge $100 to $300 or more an hour to look over your goods, do some research, and write up a detailed valuation.

Retail Reseller News issue 1. Lightspeed (Montreal, QC, Canada) has added ties to the Property Management System (PMS) for its cloud-based iOS POS. Rihanna Rehab Free Mp4 Download.

If you’d like a ballpark figure, you can ask an appraiser whether he or she can look the item over and give you a rough idea of what it might be worth. Expect to pay for at least an hour of his or her time. The American Society of Appraisers, the Appraisers Association of America, and the International Society of Appraisers can help you find local, qualified professionals through a ZIP-code search on their websites. Negotiate fees. In general, you’ll pay a sales commission equal to 20 to 50 percent of the sale price.

If your sale totals less than $300, you’re more likely to pay that 50 percent; more expensive items are charged lower commissions. But fees are negotiable and often depend on how much an auctioneer wants to sell your goods.

If he won’t budge on commission, he might be willing to pay to pack and ship your items to the auction house at no additional charge. You should get a contract that lists all of your costs, including fees. Ask shopkeepers how much money you might make. Most consignment shop owners see sellers by appointment only, so call first. Show them your goods or photos of them. They will suggest a selling price; usually, a store’s cut is 50 percent.

Ask whether your item’s price will be reduced if it doesn’t sell within a certain time frame. Most shops will generally return unsold items after 90 days or may donate unsold items to a charity and give you a receipt. Shops should give you a written contract that spells out who is responsible for lost or stolen goods, the payment schedule, and what happens if your goods don’t sell. Check website terms carefully. Before you deal with any website, see what kind of traffic it gets, what it will charge you for its services—including the percentage of the sale it will keep—whether your items can be shipped to it and returned free if they don’t sell, and who pays credit-card and PayPal processing fees. Linda’s Stuff, for example, is hosted on eBay, so an international clientele will see your merchandise.

It gives consigners 80 percent on designer goods sales of more than $5,000, 75 percent of sales greater than $1,000, and 62 percent for any lesser amount. The site will pick up your stuff free, but you’ll have to pay to have unsold items returned to you (or it will donate the items and send you a receipt).

If it determines your goods are not authentic (or they can’t be authenticated), it will charge you $20, plus return shipping. But Linda Lightman, the site’s founder, says her company absorbs all PayPal and eBay fees. Maximize your return Don’t price anything. Wow Wurth Keygen Download For Mac. Figuring out what to charge is the most time-consuming and stressful part of garage sales, says Hammond.

Ask buyers for their best offer; they will often name a price that’s higher than the one you would have suggested. “I had a friend who wanted to get rid of a dining room table and chairs and was going to put a $150 price tag on it before I convinced her not to,” says Hammond. “A man at her sale told her he only had $400 on him for the set; she was so flustered she talked him down to $300.”. This decision tree will help you decide which venue makes the most sense, depending on the type of goods you plan to sell and their condition. First, you’ll want to determine whether you have any items that are valuable—say, worth $1,000 or more.

If you’re not sure, you can look for similar objects in reference books or on websites for collectors. For example, if you think a piece of furniture might be a somewhat valuable antique, check out “Antique Trader Antiques & Collectibles 2014 Price Guide” (Krause Publications, 2013).

You can also find a price guide to more than 900,000 antiques and collectibles at If you determine it might be a valuable object, it’s probably a good idea to have it appraised.

Before I show you how to sell with your content, let’s do something your competition is ignoring. Let me show you how to write so your content gets Devoured by Your Readers! Check out this page for example. Ignore the actual content for a minute and notice how it “feels” to your eyes. As you can see, it’s easy to read. It has short sentences.

And best of all It Has Short Paragraphs! And that’s really important because when your eye first “scans” the page, it calls up your brain an says, “Hey! This is easy to read!” And your brain, in turn, decides to check it out. Another cool thing about this article is that it’s telling two stories at once. These “Sub-Heads” Tell A Story Of Their Own! Scroll up to the top real quick and just read the subheads. You can get complete “picture” of what this is all about just by scanning them without actually reading the text.

It’s a technique called “dual readership path” and I learned it (and so much more) from Dan Kennedy. The reason it’s important is because Everybody Skims The Page Before Their Brain Commits To Reading It! That’s totally normal. And what’s main thing that jumps out at the “scanning brain”? That’s right. It’s the headline and the sub head. So what’s really going on is These Sub-Heads Are “Selling” The Brain On The Idea Of Reading The Whole Page!

Pretty cool, right? See how easy this is to read? And if you’re just scanning the page, you’ll still get an idea of what it’s about. And here’s another thing about this article. See the article isn’t really about “writing articles”. Instead, This Article Is Really About YOU!

And more specifically, it’s about you influencing more people by creating content that’s easy to consume. After all, if they don’t actually read what you’re putting out there, how can they learn about all the benefits you have to offer? So now that we’ve got them reading your stuff, let me show you 5 Ways To Influence Your Readers So You Can Make More Sales • First, make sure everything is about THE READER! Listen, as much as we want them to be fascinated by us, our story, and our “stuff”, the fact is they don’t care about that. They care about THEMSELVES so everything you write needs to always “tie in” to how it can help THEM. • Even more important than “THEM” is their RESULTS.

For example, if this article was all about ME and how great of a writer I am, you’d leave, right? And if I made it all about YOU and how YOU need to write good articles, you might read some of it but you’d ultimately leave because you know that already. But you’re still here and you’re still here for one reason: We’re talking about the RESULTS YOU WANT. In this case, we’re talking about how to influence people with content. Doing that leads to SALES, and sales lead to MONEY. And that’s probably why you’re here, right?

• Use the magic words, “so you can”. Everybody’s going to tell you that when it comes to talking about your products, you need to make it all about features and benefits. Don’t listen to them. If you want to actually sell, you need to explain how the benefit directly relates to the results your readers want to get. The “so you can” language pattern is perfect for this.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re selling a course on copywriting, and you’re including a swipe file. Now, the novice would say something like this: “The CopyWriter 2000 comes with a swipe file of winning ads!

These ads are some of the greatest ads ever written, and I’ve painstakingly gone through each ad and highlighted all the combinations of “power words” contained in each. This makes it easy for you to see exactly how power words and phrases are combined to make hard-hitting winners!

(Benefit.)“ Now. That’s FAIR but let’s use the magic words. Let’s re-write the last sentence. We’ll appeal to two of the prospect’s desired results: Better response and easier copywriting: “This makes it easy for you spot the power words and sales phrases so you can quickly plant them in any of your promos for a quick test to boost response.