How to price estate sale items for resale online
Pricing is where most of the money in resale is won or lost. Price too high and an item sits for months. Price too low and you've given away the margin that pays for your time. This is a method you can repeat for every item, whether it's a $15 mug or a $900 sideboard.
Start with sold prices, not asking prices
The most useful number is what buyers recently paid for the same thing. On eBay, search for the item and tick "Sold items" in the filters. Prices shown in green are completed sales.
Ignore active listings at first. Anyone can ask any price. A row of unsold listings at $200 next to sold ones at $60 tells you the item is worth about $60.
Look at several sales, not one. The middle of the range is a better guide than the single highest sale, which may have been a different variant or a lucky auction.
Match the comparison to your item
- Same maker, pattern and size. A 4-quart bowl is a different price from a 1.5-quart bowl in the same pattern
- Same condition. Chips, cracks, fading, missing parts and repairs all lower the price, sometimes by half or more
- Complete or not. Lids, keys, boxes, manuals and matching pieces add value. A set often sells for more than its pieces would separately, and sometimes for less
- Working or untested. "Tested and working" sells for more than "untested" for anything with a plug
Work back from fees and shipping
The sale price isn't what you keep. Before you settle on a price, work out what's left after the marketplace's fees and the cost of getting the item to the buyer.
At the time of writing, eBay's final value fee is roughly 13 to 15% of the total the buyer pays in most categories, plus a small per-order fee. Etsy's fees are listed in our guide to its vintage rule. Rates change, so check each marketplace's fee page.
| Example: a lamp that sells for $65 | |
|---|---|
| Sale price | $65.00 |
| Buyer pays shipping | $18.00 |
| Marketplace fee (about 13.6% of $83, plus $0.40) | −$11.69 |
| Shipping label and packing materials | −$20.00 |
| What you paid for it | −$8.00 |
| Profit | $43.31 |
Run the same sum for a $15 item and you'll see why low-priced pieces are often better sold in groups or left at the sale.
When there are no comparable sales
Unusual pieces may have no recent sales to compare.
- Widen the search. Look at the same maker's other pieces, or similar items from the same era and material
- Check auction house results for higher-value items. Many publish past sale prices
- Price at the high end of your estimate and accept offers. The offers you receive tell you what the market thinks
- For anything that might be valuable, such as signed art, fine jewelry, sterling or early furniture, get an appraisal before you list
Price for how fast you need to sell
The same item has more than one right price. If you need the space this month, price near the low end of sold prices. If you can wait for the right buyer, price near the high end and allow offers.
How often an item sells matters as much as the price. If twenty sold last month, a fair price will move it in days. If two sold last year, expect to wait however you price it.
Have a markdown plan
Decide in advance when you'll lower a price, so stale listings don't pile up. A common approach:
- After 30 days with no interest, check sold prices again and drop the price by 10 to 15%
- After 60 days, send offers to watchers, or drop it again
- After 90 days, group it with similar items, move it to another marketplace, or donate it
Know your cost
You can't tell whether a price is good without knowing what the item cost you. If you bought a whole lot, such as a box, a room or a clean-out, spread what you paid across the items in it. Splitting by each item's asking price is fairer than splitting equally, because the $300 chair carries more of the cost than the $10 ashtray.
Track it somewhere. At the end of a lot you want to know what you paid, what you've sold, what you're still holding and whether the lot made money.
Where LegacyList fits
LegacyList suggests a starting price for each item from your photos. It's an estimate to check against sold prices, not an appraisal. It also groups items into lots, spreads a lot's cost across its items by asking price, and shows profit per item and per lot as things sell.