Trading assistant St. Louis MO

[mercedes_brooklyn]

I’m looking for a trading assistant to take items from home of deceased relative.

Need to connect ASAP, only in town January 16 & 17, 2024. 

Nothing of tremendous value: he never threw out anything from his childhood home, so it’s well-used objects of every category from the 1940s on. 

Items include:

sets of cut glass wineglasses, 20+ pristine men’s suits 1970s-90s, miscellaneous silver plate bowls, many boxes of well-used kitchen items - Pyrex,  aluminum cookie sheets etc from 1940s-90s., well-used hand tools, sets of furniture that was high quality in its time but not well maintained : mahogany bed, maple dining table, wrought iron glass topped table, all with chairs, etc. 

[ckimodog]

@mercedes_brooklyn 

You should advertise in the classifieds or on FB or CL, as this is a community discussion forum.  Unless you are willing to take responsibility for taxes, seller fees, returns, shipping, supplies & possible fraudulent transactions, not to mention paying out a hefty fee to that seller (about 50%), I doubt you 'll get any bites here on this forum.

Good luck to you regardless!

[mercedes_brooklyn]

Ok thank you. 

[soh.maryl]

There are many reasons that Trading Assistants are a thing of the past.  Here are a few of them: owners always think their items are more valuable than they are; the TA has to charge for his time spent listing etc; an eBay buyer can do a chargeback on his credit card for about 6 months afterward and most people don't want to wait that long for their money.

Your best bet, given that you have an entire estate to sell, is to contact an experienced estate selling company in your area.  You will have a contract that will specify what you want them to do.  They will usually retain the right to set prices and that's good because they have more realistic expectations of the value of items. You can specify what you want done with the goods that does not sell.  And I  would suggest that you get on this fast since you are only available locally for one more day.  

Second choice (and not so good) is to list every item on a venue like Facebook Marketplace.  Would assume you don't want to do that, since it involves your taking pictures and doing the actual listing etc.

My recommendation:  Go with a professional, an estate liquidation company.  

[mercedes_brooklyn]

Yes thank you. We did call one estate liquidator who is coming today but we imagine that they will say it’s not worth it. It is all very low value. I thought maybe a motivated person would want to sell, for instance, a ratzapper in an unopened original box for $3. I don’t care about the money, it’s just painful to think of it all going to the dump. I don’t have the time to pack it all up to donate it to the goodwill. Definitely don’t have time or interest in posting each item for sale myself. 

[susanb1872]

If the items are of such low value as you say and you don't have time to pack for Goodwill and you are trying to avoid throwing it away, then advertise on a "free stuff" site and people will come and take it away. You could set the stuff at the curb and put a "curb alert" for free stuff.

[soh.maryl]

Thanks for the reply.  Why do you think a liquidator will say "it's not worth it"?

Even if there is no one item of great value, seems like the sheer volume of items would make it attractive to that service.  

And you might be surprised at the value of vintage furniture, even if not in mint condition.  

But, maybe, just maybe, there might be someone who would handle all that packing up and hauling to Goodwill in return for being able to take what they want.  

Think about it.  There are options.  

If I lived in that area, I'd be  on this  in a heartbeat.  

[luckythewinner]

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@mercedes_brooklyn wrote:

sets of cut glass wineglasses, 20+ pristine men’s suits 1970s-90s, miscellaneous silver plate bowls, many boxes of well-used kitchen items - Pyrex,  aluminum cookie sheets etc from 1940s-90s., well-used hand tools, sets of furniture that was high quality in its time but not well maintained : mahogany bed, maple dining table, wrought iron glass topped table, all with chairs, etc. 

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If I were given any of the stuff you listed for free, I would not bother trying to sell it on eBay.

eBay is a terrible fit for items where the shipping costs more than the item - from the profit perspective, the fee perspective, and the risk of return perspective.