Selling tips

Want to be a successful seller on OfferUp? Here are a few simple things you can do to really stand out.

Create a great listing

Take the time to create a detailed and descriptive listing. The more details, the better! The items that sell fastest on OfferUp have lots of great photos, clear titles, accurate descriptions, and fair prices.

Transparency is key. If your item has defects or is showing its age, make sure to include that in the description for a problem-free sale. Ready to sell? See Posting an item for sale.

TIP!

If you posted an item that isn’t selling, try updating it. Add new photos, include more details, reconsider your asking price, consider promoting it, or expand your audience by enabling shipping.

Respond quickly to each buyer

Responding quickly to interested buyers helps you sell faster, keeps the buyer interested, and builds your reputation as a reliable seller. Your average response time and average reply rate appear on your profile and users do look at this when deciding which seller to buy from. 

It might be tempting to ignore low-price offers or questions that don’t seem serious, but it's always best to respond. You can encourage buyers to make an offer closer to your asking price, or remind them that you’re only looking at serious inquiries.

Not sure where to find your message? To learn more, see Finding your messages

Finalize the sale safely and efficiently

After you have agreed on a price, it's time to get the buyer their item as soon as possible. Arranging this quickly is a great way to boost your reputation (as well as get the item out of your house, and the money in your pocket).

Shipping an item Meeting in person
Once you’ve accepted an offer, you have 5 days to ship the item (though we encourage you to ship within 3 days). Make sure to use the label we send you and drop the item off with USPS (the sooner, the better). If you don’t use the label we provide, you won’t get paid.

TIP!

Don’t forget to rate the buyer. It helps build your reputation, increases community trust, and gives the buyer the opportunity to rate you too.

Unfortunately, not every sale works out. Even when a sale falls through, being a considerate seller matters. There are always more buyers.

Keep track of older listings

Sometimes, your item can take awhile to find the right buyer, and that’s ok. Remember to check in on your older listings from time to time. If an item has grown stale, you have a few options on how to manage it:

  • Archive it. If your item isn't getting any attention, maybe it's not the right time to sell it (for example, a Halloween costume in April). You can always hide it in your archives until you're ready to try to sell it again. To learn how, see Updating your listings
  • Mark it sold. Did you sell the item and forget to update the listing? Mark it Sold and you won’t have to think about it again. To learn how, see Updating your listings
  • Promote it. Promoting an item moves it to the top of the feed to increase visibility and engagement. To learn how, see Selling faster with promotions

NOTE

Listings over a year old may be automatically archived by OfferUp. If this happens to an item that you still want available for sale, you can unarchive it (but it will only remain active for a month before being archived again). Or, you can create a new listing to return it to the feed and prevent it from being auto-archived due to the listing age.

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