Virtual Yard SaleSummer is yard sale season for buyers and sellers alike. For sellers, yard sales are a good chance to get rid of items purged by spring cleaning.

People have more free time to devote to hobbies during the summer, which makes them all the more likely to go searching for items.

Some thrifty folks also like to use summer yard sales as an opportunity to pre-buy Christmas presents.

Although summer yard sales are convenient for many reasons, they can also pose some problems. First, they can get hot and uncomfortable, especially if you live in an area with a harsh summer climate.

You might also need to worry about summer rain storms and other weather events that can be hard to plan for in advance. Even if the weather cooperates, you still need to worry about spending the time and effort necessary in setting up, maintaining, and tearing down the yard sale.

You’ll need to set up tables, price your inventory, and recruit at least one partner to help run the sale and keep an eye out for thieves. You’ll also have to worry about getting enough change at the start of the day, purchasing refreshments for yourself and any shoppers you might want to serve, and putting away everything that didn’t sell at the end of the day.

If all of that sounds like way too much work, don’t worry: There’s an easier way to sell off your belongings without all that hassle.

A virtual sale enables you to sell your items without dealing with people face-to-face. You can sell larger items individually and bundle the smaller items together into themed boxes to sell for a single price. This means that you don’t have to worry about handling large crowds of buyers or sitting out in the sun – you can just sell off items a few at a time.

An obvious choice for this method is Craigslist, which can get you into contact with buyers in your community. Some people also like to use eBay which doesn’t limit sales to local buyers.

There is, however, an even easier method of holding a virtual yard sale: Load the items into a storage unit and sell it off completely to the highest bidder. If your unwanted belongings are already in storage, you’re halfway there.

Using the free service at OnlineStorageAuctions.com, you can place the contents of your storage unit up for auction. You simply need to snap a few photographs and write a description of the unit’s contents, then post the auction to the site.

It will automatically be publicized to a number of places frequented by resale buyers and auction enthusiasts, enabling you to draw a large crowd of interested buyers. Best of all, once the auction is posted, you don’t need to do anything to maintain it.

You simply sit back and wait for the winning bidder to give you the money and clear away your items.

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