By Toby Walne, Financial Mail on Sunday. The New Year marks an opportunity for a fresh start. It is time to clean out all the clutter tucked away inside wardrobes, under beds and in the attic and try to sell it for a profit. Toby Walne looks at how easy it is to turn some of this unloved junk into ready cash.

How to make money at a car boot fair revealed by expert - and money saving tips for buyers | Life | Life & Style | unyyozeqy.web.fc2.com

Despite his oily charm, Hochman provides a clear guide on how to sell your unwanted items through the biggest online retailer in the world. It is an outlet that is hard to ignore — accounting for 12 per cent of all UK online shopping and attracting million customers a week worldwide.

Signing up to sell is easy. You can use an existing account with Amazon that already has your credit card and contact details. But you must then also include your bank account number for payments. Otherwise it is a case of simply signing up as a new customer. Payments for goods, including the cost of postage charges, are automatically put into your bank account when any sales go through. All you have to do is visit the post office and send off the purchases — and inform the buyer goods are on their way.

My year-old daughter Sophia was keen to clear out a stash of books she has outgrown. Listing them was an easy process as the site already has pictures and descriptions that can be used, as it has for thousands of other popular books being sold. The lowest price from all sellers is listed and when buyers click on the link a full list of the old books for sale is shown.

Unfortunately, she was sometimes competing with more than a dozen other second-hand sellers of the same books — and some are charging as little as 1p per novel. A further six books for sale at 99p each did not find any buyers.

But Amazon then starts taking its cut. As if this is not confusing enough, Amazon also takes a This commission rate varies depending on the item being sold — starting at An exception is Kindle accessories for which it charges Had they been rare books for sale, the outcome may have been different. A smooth and simple service to use but not lucrative. Sue Dove, 53, an accountancy clerk from Watford, Hertfordshire, thought she might use the website after New Year to shift an old pinball machine collecting dust in the garage.

Although it had initially worked, some small pieces were lost during a garage clearout. As Sue already had an eBay account used in the past for buying — which required personal contact and bank card details as well as a password and user name — she simply had to register she would like to sell as well as buy.

She also opted to use PayPal.

How To Make Money at Car Boot Sales : Insider tips and practical advice on how to buy and sell at 'boot fairs' by Chapman, Giles (eBook): unyyozeqy.web.fc2.com: eBooks

This meant a successful bidder could automatically send money online to her PayPal account before picking up the goods, cutting out any concerns over cash-in-hand haggling when they picked up the machine. Pictures are important for eBay sales so Sue ensured she included a good quality example. Downloading a photograph on to eBay, she says, proved surprisingly trouble-free. As part of the sales agreement eBay would take ten per cent of whatever the hammer price might reach when the machine was sold.

My description was modest to ensure there was no disappointment when the buyer came to pick it up. They got a good deal and it is great to think they can now do it up and get enjoyment from the game.

Selling items on eBay can be a gamble but it offers exciting potential. Sue Dove is selling this old Gottlieb 'Joker Poker' pinball machine. Despite the huge impact of the internet, the traditional car boot sale is still a firm favourite for those trading in second-hand goods.

The vast majority are held at weekends — usually on a Sunday — between early spring and autumn, but some are held all year round.

'I take home £80 to £ at car boot sales': How to cash in your share of the £52bn of clutter lying in the country's attics | This is Money

Ana Thorsdottir, 23, of Finsbury Park, North London, clears out her wardrobe three times a year and sells unwanted clothes at local car boot sales. Ana also takes clothes rails to show off her wares.

Almost everything gets sold. For newcomers, Ana believes it is worth first visiting a sale to get a feel for the market and look at the kind of goods being sold, how they are presented and prices asked.

Good old-fashioned trading, but be prepared to haggle — and get ready for an early weekend rise. If you are occasionally selling unwanted items lying around the house, there is no need to tell the taxman — whether you use the internet or visit a car boot sale. This includes those selling goods bought for resale, making items to sell for profit or selling for others on a commission basis. For more details, go to hmrc.

Recycle old clothes in swap shops. Although it means you are unable to make money out of unloved clothes, it enables you to swap unwanted items for something you are far more likely to wear. Sites such as Posh-Swaps, Bigwardrobe and Swishing do not charge any listing or membership fees as they are focused on growing a database. Once signed up, you can list items and include descriptions and photographs and go in search of something that might be worth a swap.

The Swishing website offers details of swapping events. For those looking to sell specialist items there are other options that may be worth exploring where there is a strong concentration of potential buyers. Online luxury brand reselling website Vestiaire Collective is one such outfit, focusing on selling upmarket second-hand designer items. In return, the site promises to list the item with photographs and pays delivery costs, sending a pre-paid postal form.

Kristy Arnold, 40, of Hampstead, North-West London, says: It was a great sale as I was convinced no one would want it. But they can also offer guidance on what might be a suitable price. Charities such as Oxfam are also happy to take clothes, but for a good cause rather than money. There are clothing donation banks dotted across Britain in car parks as well as Oxfam shops. Swapping is fun and costs nothing while giving to a good cause might feel more rewarding than receiving cash.

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