by Chris Allen

Created on: March 23, 2010

With the present economy everyone is thinking up of new ways just to get a few extra bucks here and there in order to pay bills, buy food, or just to do or purchase something nice. One way that you can do this is to sell any old instruments that you may have laying around the house that no one ever uses. Selling these items is very simple to do and you just need to follow a few simple steps.

First, make sure that the instrument, or instruments if you have more than one, is in good shape. If it is scuffed up a bit, or dingy looking, be sure to polish and clean it up a bit to give it more of a shine. If you have any accessories, cases, or instructional booklets add those into the bargain, seeing how you wont be needing those either anymore and buyers are likely going to be new users.

Second, find a clear and nice looking place in your house to set up the instrument so that you can take several pictures of it.  Be sure to take at least three of the whole instrument, one of the model number, if applicable, one of the accessories you are going to sell with the instrument including the case. If your instrument case is black, like many are, be sure to take the pictures away from a black or very dark background.

Third, look around the internet on E-bay, Amazon, and Craig’s List to see how much your particular instrument and model are selling for both new and used and come up with a competitive price that is both worthwhile for yourself and an attractive price to any prospective customer. To come up with a price try putting yourself in the buyers shoes and think about what would make a good deal to yourself.

Do not expect to sell your instrument on the first day, if you do that is great but its going to be fairly rare.  Also expect people to want to negotiate on your price for the instrument in question. When deciding on what website you are going to post your ad on, take into consideration that both Amazon and E-Bay will charge a commission for selling on their servers while Craig’s List does not.  Craig’s List will be your best bet for selling since you are only going to get hits from local people, do not sell to anyone offering to buy it from an area not within driving distance and only accept cash for your items.

Hopefully these handful of steps will help you to sell any instrument in question over the internet and make a fair amount of money while you are at it.

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