Selling to online shoppers

Pickerty lists the sale. You handle the rest by phone and text.

This article is for online-only sales. If customers are coming to an actual sale location to shop, you want Sale day: checking people in instead.

What Pickerty does, and where it stops

Pickerty advertises the sale. It shows your photos, your description, your date range and the rough location, and it puts the sale in front of shoppers.

That's the whole of it. Pickerty does not:

• take payment, or hold money on your behalf
• run a cart, a checkout, or a bidding system
• decide who gets an item, or tell anyone they've got it
• share your address automatically

All of that is your responsibility. A shopper sees something they want, gets in touch by phone or text, and from that moment on the two of you are dealing directly — the same as if they'd called you about a newspaper ad.

Being reachable is the whole job

Because every inquiry arrives as a call, text, or email, the sale runs at the speed you answer. A few things worth deciding before you publish:

• Put your number and/or email in the description, and say when you answer. "Text between 9 and 8" saves everyone a wasted call.
• Expect texts, not calls. Most people would rather send a photo back and ask "is this still available?" than talk.
• Keep a list. Once a few items are sold, the thing that goes wrong is selling the same lamp twice. Whatever you use — a notebook, a spreadsheet — write down what's gone.
• Mark things sold in your photos. You can flag an item as sold in the Images step, which puts a badge on it and drops it to the bottom of the gallery. It's the cheapest way to stop the same question arriving fifteen times. See Photos that showcase your sale.

Payment

You take payment yourself, however you normally take it — cash at pickup, a card reader, a payment app, a bank transfer. Say which ones you accept in the description.

Sharing the address

Shoppers only ever see your city, state, zip, and an approximate map. When somebody has actually bought something, send them the street address yourself, along with a time they can pick it up.

A couple of habits that save trouble:

• Send the address once payment is settled, not while you're still discussing it.
• Agree on a pickup window, and say what happens if they miss it.
• Say whether you can help load. A wardrobe and a tiny car is a conversation best had before someone drives over.

After the sale closes

When the closing date passes, the listing comes off. Anyone mid-conversation with you stays mid-conversation — Pickerty isn't in the middle of it, so nothing is cut off. If you want another go at the leftovers, create a new sale.