A yard sale on the web may be a good idea but to implement it would require tremendous effort and technical know-how on your part. If you cannot do it yourself, the mere setting up of the web site may cost you a fortune. As you said you have a lot of items, (one or two of a kind) and you have to show these items in picture at your web site. How are you going to do that?

1. Register your domain name. Domain registration can cost anywhere from $10/year to $35/year.

2. Set up your web site. Your site must be capable of e-commerce. Components of an e-commerce site are: shopping cart software, SSL security to allow for secured transactions, merchant account to process credit-card payment, a back-end software to take care of customer management. Prepare to shell out anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 to get all these. Shopping cart software alone costs anywhere from $250 to as much as $25,000. Good rates for your merchant account may be difficult to get if you are an online merchant (card not present transaction).

Below is an article on the components of an e-commerce operation: http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol13/components.htm 

3. Get a web host. You can get a hosting service to host your site and your software (shopping cart, etc.). Or you can join shopping networks like Yahoo Shopping which charges for $300 a month at the minimum plus other fees.

You also have to take pictures of each item you want to sell; and of course, the more professional looking, the better. A digital camera becomes a very essential equipment to cut short the process of taking and developing the pictures.

You will then transfer the pictures to your website, then provide descriptions and the condition of each item, then provide the measurements and exact weights of each for shipping purposes, then have your merchant account in order to accept payment by credit cards, get your secure server for your order forms, etc. Then you have to think of shipping and handling, and institute measures to handle returns.

There is also the risk of fraud on the Internet, where people falsify credit cards or steal other people's credit cards then buy items from you. Once the customer's bank is notified that the card was stolen, you will be asked to return the money (called a chargeback) even though the thief has run off with your items. Adding insult to injury, you will be charged by your bank a chargeback fee of about 15% of the purchase amount.

Whether you are starting a simple yard sale or a department store on the Web, your site will use the same e-commerce components. In the real world where you simply post a small notice in the electric post to announce your yard sale, you need to go through a lot of process to create, market and grow an online business. Just listing your site on the search engines now costs money. Yahoo now requires a payment of $299 just for your site to be considered for listing (it's not even guaranteed that they will list your site.)

I would recommend that you do the yard sale in your yard. Or try to learn how eBay works and sell your items on eBay instead of developing your own site.

Good luck and thank you for being part of Power HomeBiz Guides.

Response:

"Thank you so much for your very helpful info. I had no idea that all this stuff was involved in setting up a website, that's all you hear about these days. Well I guess I'll have to sell in my own yard or on ebay. Your help was a life saver it saved me for having to find out on my own that's why I always research first and talk to other people. Thanks, Phyllis"

About the PowerHomeBiz.com Guide: 

Nach Maravilla is the Publisher of Power Homebiz Guides. He has over thirty years experience in sales and marketing of various products, which covered as he jokingly describes, "from toothpicks to airplanes"  He also had extensive experience in International trading and he always excelled in special promotional ideas for  retail outlets. 

The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, not of PowerHomeBiz.com. Users should not treat the Guide's response as legal, accounting, or professional advice as all answers are intended to be general in nature. Such advice can only be properly given by qualified professionals who are fully aware of a user's specific geographical areas or circumstances, such as an attorney or accountant.