
How to get rid of old stuff, sell it for more, and use Amazon as cheap storage - benguild
http://benguild.com/2013/10/20/store-sell-old-stuff-with-amazon/
======
8ig8
I wish I could ship everything in my attic to Amazon and they would
photograph, catalog and store the stuff privately.

Then for some kind of low annual fee I could ship things in and out as needed.

This service would include pre-scheduled shipments of holiday decoration.

The problem I have is that I forget what is in my attic. On a few occasions
I've purchased something only to find out I already own one. It was just
buried in the attic and I forgot about it. If I try to buy something on
Amazon, this service would remind me that I already own it and ship it to me.

Besides the attic stuff, I also have small random, rarely-used things that I
know I'll need in the future, but don't know where to store them so I'll find
them in the future.

Someone once suggested that I just keep a running list of items near the attic
door. I tried it, but didn't keep up with it.

It would be nice to set some kind of expiration of my stuff as well. If I
don't request an item from Amazon Attic in 18 months, it can be sold. Maybe
that's a way to offset my fees.

Another idea... This could have a social aspect (what doesn't these days!?). I
could give select friends access to my personal Amazon Attic catalog and they
can borrow something, again for a low shipping fee. Amazon will send them a
friendly email to return it and then charge them eventually if they don't.

(YC, here I come.)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Something my daughter taught me which was really really cool was to take
digital pictures of storage areas. Basically open up the drawer, make nearly
everything visible, take a picture then add it to Evernote (or some git repo,
or some well known folder). Then when you are wondering what you have/where it
is you can scan through the pictures. It is remarkably effective.

~~~
thomasfl
Simple, but clever idea. I keep telling my wife our house is for people to
live in, not a warehouse for her books, memorabilia and kids toys. I'll try
anything to keep our house livable.

~~~
kleiba
_not a warehouse for her books, memorabilia and kids toys_

Isn't that what "living" means?

~~~
phaemon
Acquiring material possessions and forming emotional attachments to them? No,
that is not what living means.

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murtza
Interesting idea. I looked up Amazon's storage fees [1]: $0.45 per cubic foot
per month from January to September; $0.60 per cubic foot per month from
October to December.

If you are using this as a long-term storage solution you have to be careful
because Amazon charges, "A semi-annual Long-Term Storage Fee of $22.50 per
cubic foot will be applied to any Units that have been stored in an Amazon
fulfillment center for one year or longer...Each seller may maintain a single
Unit of each ASIN in its inventory, which will be exempted from the semi-
annual Long-Term Storage Fee."

[1]:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200627230)

~~~
brucehart
For comparison's sake, I recently rented a 10x10x10 ft. storage unit for
$90/mo. or $0.09 per cubic foot per month.

~~~
dangerlibrary
Of course, you get access to a much larger group of potential buyers than a
storage unit. ;)

~~~
giarc
You don't count the guys of Storage Wars as potential buyers?

~~~
pearjuice
>When rent is not paid on a storage locker for three months in California, the
contents can be sold by an auctioneer as a single lot of items in the form of
a cash-only auction[0]

No, as you will gain nothing from it.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_Wars)

~~~
alanctgardner2
You get three months of rent. The trick is to have nothing of value in the
locker, I suppose.

~~~
easytiger
Can you get access to it after 2.9 months?

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binarysolo
Just remember guys: useful for small footprint, high value line items that are
mass-produced. (Conversely, not so useful for old items with low resale like
clothes, or craft one-off items, or big things like furniture.)

When your object of question hits a low-enough dollar value that your
opportunity cost for making a buck off it exceeds your time value, why not
donate it to a Goodwill instead. :)

~~~
ghaff
Yeah, at one point I did a modest eBay selling campaign of stuff I owned that
wasn't exactly high value but was easy to photograph and describe and had some
value. I doubt I made minimum wage. I keep selling on eBay as an option for
the odd item here and there but it's hard for me to see it being worth my
effort for the general case. I suppose I could investigate a local eBay
packager (or whatever the term is) but, as you say, for most stuff I just give
it to a local charity and take a few bucks off my taxes.

~~~
sliverstorm
I typically use craigslist for that sort of thing. Compared to the cut eBay
takes, I can get the same money while offering a smoking price, which
motivates the buyer to do all the legwork. I get a phonecall Thursday
afternoon, they show up at my door twenty minutes later, and they are gone in
five minutes.

Only works for certain items though.

~~~
aestra
What type of items have you had success doing this with?

~~~
sliverstorm
Usually electronics. It doesn't work for super niche appeal items like a
special textbook or replacement parts.

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CalRobert
Unfortunately Amazon flagged my account as fraudulent, I can only assume
because a previous tenant in my apartment evidently ripped people off. We
received their mail for some time and most if it seemed shady. It's been a
year but I cannot sell. There is no appeal, and no recourse. I've had an
account with Amazon for more than half my life (something like 12 years) but
no dice.

Too bad, because this sounds handy. Kind of wish they had even a halfway
decent competitor, though.

~~~
logn
Keep in mind that addresses get normalized and also it's ultimately down to
the mail carrier to deliver something. So you might be able to alter the
mailing address to have it recognized as something different to Amazon but
still practically the same for carriers. Or maybe ask your landlord to re-
number your unit or let you use the leasing office as your address.

~~~
celeryreally
I would be very suprised if Amazon didn't have a very sophisticated address
normalisation process (in Australia, there are several pieces of software that
can process generic user provided addresses, and return a specific delivery ID
["DPID"] that ties to an explicit delivery location).

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kerpal
I never actually tried their warehouse fulfillment service but I swear by
Amazon for selling used gadgets. Amazon gets a lot of traffic from consumers
making it a great way to sell something quickly. I remember listing an used
Android phone that was maybe two year old technology at that point. I went to
list it and within a few hours someone snagged it at like $90. The only other
route I've ever tried is Craigslist, which has worked out pretty well too.
Asking for the same price you can usually have someone pick up the item
locally and get every cent you are asking for if you're reasonable. I always
price things about 20% more than I think I will sell through CL.

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vinhboy
One thing that should be emphasized for anyone who has not use FBA before: The
cost of shipping something to an amazon warehouse is REALLY cheap if you use
their provided shipping service. I would say it's about 1/3 of the actual cost
of shipping it yourself.

~~~
hamburglar
Makes one wonder if you could ship things to other people cheaply by selling
them to yourself through FBA with the other person's address as the shipping
destination.

~~~
laxatives
If you try this out, please share how it works out. I remember interning there
I had access to very cheap shipping (~30% FedEx/UPS rates). This seems like a
neat way to get access to the same benefit.

~~~
hamburglar
Mostly joking, so someone else will need to try it out. :) My guess is that if
it worked well enough for people to start abusing it, they'd close the
loophole. As another poster points out, you still need to pay their
transaction fee, so the shipping savings has to more than offset that in order
for the trick to even be worthwhile.

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simonw
How do books work? Can you just bung a bunch of old textbooks in a box and
ship it to them? Do you have to package them separately at all, or put
stickers on them, or do you literally just stick them in a box?

Are there any mobile apps for scanning barcodes on books and automatically
building your Amazon catalog?

~~~
Jacqued
I tried to do it and, in France at least, you have to package stuff yourself.
Which is THE hassle in selling things online. Having to package stuff is
precisely why i just throw it away, I mean why bother losing 1h of my time
buying a package and sending it for some menial money value.

You're better off selling them for pretty much nothing to a local bookstore
with a Used section, i think. Quicker, less hassle, and well it can help the
bookstore too...

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stretchwithme
Best thing is to not let things sit around after you stop using them. The
chances that someone else can use them just keeps dropping.

And you can't use the space it takes up, which is probably the most expensive
thing about old stuff. If you pay $2000 a month for 1000 square feet, every
square foot costs you $24 bucks a year. An old PC taking up 3 square feet for
5 years costs you $360.

And, sure, it probably was going to be empty space. But we do need empty
space, just as we need white space. All the clutter has a psychic cost.

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tnuc
An article that is short on details and has no fewer that 8(eight) affiliate
links to Amazon.

I am lost for words.

~~~
stefap2
The whole article sounds like an advert. TGTBT

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kreek
This article got one thing wrong; "eBay's fees can be kind of a rip off"
should be "eBay's fees ARE a huge rip off". That combined with the removal of
negative feedback for buyers is why you should try Amazon rather than sell as
an individual on eBay.

~~~
voltagex_
But only if you're in the US right? I'm sick of eBay too, but they bought the
"Australian" Gumtree trading site as well so there's really no alternatives.

~~~
droidist2
True, somehow sellers in China can get by selling items to the US for less
than a buck on eBay, shipping included. I never understood how this worked.
Just mailing the same little item within the US would be like 2 bucks, plus
eBay fees.

~~~
pjc50
The postage thing was explained a while ago somewhere, possibly HN: there's no
"settlement" between international postage services in the normal sense, and
there's a HK postal service that will ship to the US for pennies. Once it
arrives in the US postal service, it's their cost to deliver it.

~~~
droidist2
Ahh, that explains it. Thanks.

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chavesn
The OP suggested that it's a bad option for phones. But Amazon offers
something else for higher-end items that worked great for me,"Amazon Trade-in"
([http://www.amazon.com/Trade-In/](http://www.amazon.com/Trade-In/)).

You start by finding your product in the store, and they give you prices for
different condition levels. You pick a level, checkout, ship your items for
free, and await receipt and review. If accepted as the condition you picked,
you get an Amazon gift card for the amount. They might even upgrade your items
to a higher condition.

If not accepted, your items are returned, free of charge. The only risk is the
waste of time.

A month ago, I traded in two nearly-3-year-old iPhone 4's. I listed them as
"Good". Both were accepted and one was upgraded to "Like New" for $20 more. I
got $380 total, which I was extremely happy with.

~~~
benguild
As I wrote on my blog's comments:

"True, but I've found that Amazon trade-in's prices are usually very
conservative. For such an old handset I'd have sent it to Amazon's warehouse
myself. For newer stuff that's falling in value, even though eBay's fees
amount to about 12% in the end for electronics (last time I checked)... you
can usually get the most for it there if you need it to sell by a given date
for the maximum return.

Also, I do want to point out that Amazon is essentially just doing what you'd
be doing here ... offering it for sale as a used item. You can do that
yourself and make more of a profit if you're setup this way."

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res0nat0r
One thing mentioned about the cables: Do you have to create entries online
under your FBA account for every item you ship, or can they figure that out
for you? I have tons of cables and other things I'd like to sell that is in
good condition, but me spending hours upon hours looking up every model of
cable / cheap item I have isn't worth my time.

~~~
mcpherrinm
I haven't done it personally, but I did intern under FBA and so I saw a lot of
the procedures and code that implements it.

I'm fairly sure you need to figure out the ASIN for each item you want to
sell, and label the product accordingly.

~~~
res0nat0r
Yup I thought so. I think that might be too much work for me to make it
worthwhile... :]

~~~
dmishe
It's fairly easy if you can find that product in amazon db, or have a barcode

~~~
res0nat0r
The items I have that barcodes I'm not worried about, it is the rats nest of
cables that I have really no idea what type they are that I'd like to offload
and make .50c just to get them out of my hair and not feel bad about throwing
them away.

~~~
logn
Find a local hackerspace. They'll probably take them and re-use them or
dispose/sell them for you.

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nikolak
So technically, I could buy items cheaply on ebay or similar sites, ship them
to amazon warehouse and sell it there for profit and also have them handle
pretty much everything from selling to customer support?

Or am I missing something and this wouldn't work?

~~~
mooreds
Technically, yes. You just have to know what to buy and how to price what you
are selling. ("Oh, is that all?" says the broker who makes a living doing
this. :) )

I had a friend who made decent money going to physical auctions and taking the
items he bought and putting them on ebay (this was about a decade ago).

Arbitrage is here to stay.

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edandersen
Here is the link to Amazon Fufillment without the referral tags:

[http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-
amazon/benefits.ht...](http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-
amazon/benefits.htm)

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MWil
This is hilarious to me because I sold three things today on Amazon and
thought on the drive back from UPS, this should be getting more press how easy
this is.

I sold a laptop though which is the only item I'm worried about being
returned. Luckily I listed it as not having a battery and not having a hdd so
it's already listed as not in working condition.

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hsitz
Thanks to benguild for the blog article. I had seen used books in Amazon price
lists as shipped by Amazon and qualifying for free supersaver shipping, but
I'd never gotten around to finding out how this "fulfillment by Amazon"
worked.

I looked at the info on Amazon's website and I still have a couple questions.

(1) Amazon charges a fee of something like $0.42 per pound when shipping. Is
this just for supersaver shipments? Or does it also apply when Amazon collects
from the customer for standard or expedited shipping?

(2) I see Amazon charges fees for storage and shipping, but I don't see where
they take any percentage of the sale. Am I missing something?

~~~
mrgordon
The seller fees are separate from the fulfillment fees and are typically
another ~15% of price + shipping.

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blueblob
Do they have heated garages for my car? :-)

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mikeweiss
From experience, if you want to sell something that is used and is in poor
condition, don't sell it on amazon... when people buy things used through
Amazon they expect it to be Like New, even if thats not what the description
says.

My simple tips for selling online: New/Like New -> Amazon Used/poor/missing
things -> Ebay

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lchitnis
Reposting on Facebook. This is great. I've always wanted to do this on Amazon
but found I had this great inertia in finding out just how to go about doing
it. It seemed like a big hassle, but it really isn't. This article simplified
it.

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thekevan
The top comment is someone wishing this was a totally different service which
ends up in people either mentioning other startups which do something like
that but not quite the same, or what it is like to store things in SF.

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Apocryphon
I love the idea and sentiment. The pale font of the page's text, less so.

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locacorten
Coding is dead.

When the top news on HN is how to make $5 selling used computer cables on
Amazon, you know coding is dead.

~~~
dminor
Pretty sure coding is alive and well - maybe HN just isn't the place to talk
about it anymore.

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csense
Interesting. They do need to advertise this better because I had no idea this
service existed.

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gesman
Amazon needs to open new fullfillment facility to handle stuff in my basement
+ garage :)

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mrtunes
Is there something like this for Canadians? I dont think we can use this
service.

------
argumentum
Amazon S3: Simple Stuff Storage

------
Grug
Bookmarked.

