Sell the Stuff You Never Use, Without Lying About It

There's a coat hanging off the handlebars of the exercise bike, and the coat has been there since February.

You'd sell the bike, the old phone in the drawer, the pram and the jacket you wore once, if someone else would price them and write the adverts. Ideally they'd also handle the fourteen messages asking "is this still available?"

AI does the pricing and the adverts well, and the replies well enough. But I wouldn't let AI post for you or talk to buyers on its own. At the end of all this, a stranger comes to your door with cash, and that part needs a person.

Pick a few items and a free afternoon, and start with the bike.

Photograph the flaws

Use daylight and a plain background, and take four angles. Take a close-up of everything wrong, such as the scuff, the missing screw or the crack in the screen, and photograph the label with the model name too.

Then tell the AI what the photo can't show. Does the item turn on, will the battery last, and is there a smell?

Where's the item from, and how old is it? The AI can't test any of that, and it can't tell whether a thing is genuine either. You can, by trying the item.

Left to itself, the AI describes what it sees, and what it sees is usually kinder than the truth. "Small scratch on the left side, otherwise works perfectly" sells faster, and it also means nobody ends up standing in your hallway arguing.

Price it from what sold

Before you upload the photos and notes, turn on web search, which is the setting that lets the AI look things up online.

These are items I want to sell second-hand in the UK. For each one, identify it as precisely as you can from the photos and label. Then search for what the same or similar items have actually sold for recently. Use eBay sold listings, not asking prices. Give me a realistic price range, the price I should list at to sell within two weeks, and a link to the evidence. If you can't find sold examples, say so rather than guessing.

Asking prices are fantasy, while sold prices are the real market.

Sometimes the AI can't find sold examples, and then you should treat its number as a guess. List the item high with "open to offers", and let the buyers tell you.

The AI can get things wrong, too, and the "vintage" lamp might be from Argos in 2019. Some things are worth real money, like the bike, a camera or a designer bag. For those, look at one sold listing yourself before you trust the price range.

If the item sells for under a tenner, take it to a charity shop. That's a fine outcome.

Write the advert with the scratch in it

Write a listing for each item. Include a title with the make and model. Write a short description in plain English that mentions every flaw I told you about. Add what's included, the size or measurements, collection from [your area], and the price. No marketing language, no "stunning", no "must see". Write it the way a sensible person would describe it to a neighbour.

Read each advert and add what the AI missed, such as "from a smoke-free home" or "the dog's never been near it". Cut anything that sounds like a sales pitch.

Post it yourself

Use Marketplace, Vinted, eBay or Gumtree, whichever you prefer. Some AI tools will offer to post for you through your web browser, but I'd skip that.

Posting is ten minutes of copying and pasting, and doing it yourself means you've read every advert with your name on it.

Answer buyers in your own words

Most messages are the same five. Is it available, will you take less, can you deliver, and what's your lowest? Then there's the silence after you say yes. Ask the AI once for a short, polite reply to each, in your words, and save the replies.

Paste the replies in yourself rather than letting the AI reply for you, because buyers can tell. And the person messaging at 11pm, asking you to post the item to a "cousin", deserves your own eyes.

Hand it over in person

Make it collection only. Take cash, or a bank transfer you've watched arrive before they leave. If the item is big, have someone else in the house when the buyer comes.

A buyer who wants to pay with a link, a QR code or an app you've never heard of isn't a real buyer. AI is good at keeping up with the latest selling scams, so ask it for a reminder.

Judging the person on your doorstep is your job alone.

And the coat goes back on its hook.