Month: February 2018

Perhaps you’ve been hit with a serious case of vacation envy and you decided to go on a long-term trip somewhere. You thought it would be easy setting up everything- your passport, your luggage, your dog, your cat, and your phone, but then you’re confronted with this one huge problem. You can’t just leave all your stuff in your flat unattended!

Sorting them out is easy enough, but giving them all away can make you hesitate about leaving at all. Would the loss of your possessions, some of which proved their loyalty through the test of time, justify a trip which you’re uncertain of being worth your time? Luckily, you’re not the only one who’ve asked this and leapt into the unknown of pre-travel planning We’ve compiled you a list of things you can do with your things so that you’ll feel secure while travelling.[

1. Ask Your Parents

You might not want to part with all of your stuff but you certainly don’t have the money and the maintenance to keep them in a large storage facility. In cases like this, the persons you can run to for help are your parents. To be more specific, your parents’ garage. Sure, they might get a little surprised with your sudden long-term travel statement, together with the moving truck that contains your whole flat, but the thought of free storage can make their words sound like buzzing to your ears.

2. Sell the Useless Items

One of the upsides of going over your whole flat is to know what are the completely worthless stuff and have them thrown out or sold to your friends. If even your mates won’t buy them, you can set up a garage sale or auction them online. An online website is a good platform for selling the furniture and the small-scale things are good to sell on a garage sale. A few pounds from your possessions won’t hurt to add on for your travel expenses.

3. Give Your Things to Charity

This is for the ones who wanted to do good before leaving to have the time of their life. If you think you would easily regret giving your things to charity, then it would be better to just store them in boxes so that you’ll have them when you get back home. But if you’ve got a mountain of stuff you don’t know what to do with, then it’s better to give. You never know what the universe will reward you for this kind act while you’re travelling.

4. Rent Your Flat

One of the basic solutions of pre-travel planning is to have someone rent your space. With this, you don’t have to worry about unpacking everything when you get back or returning to your home and see some of your possessions missing because you’ve sold them or given them away. This could also earn you a few pounds as well and can definitely aid with your travel expenses. You just have to be sure that the person renting your space is someone that you trust and someone that will keep the space clean for you when you get back.

5. Rent a Storage

By far the best option, if you wanted safety and security for your things. Using an excellent indoor storage facility can provide you with the assurance that your possessions are not rotting away because of poor ventilation and poor packaging. A storage facility also keeps your things away from mould, rodents, and bugs. You can also be assured they are protected even in harsh weather climates. With this option, you won’t be bothering any family members and friends.

Bristol-based self-storage, Stashed Away, is a family run facility that offers an affordable and local solution to your personal storage needs. With a variety of storage solutions available to choose from, we’re sure you’ll find the ideal solution to suit your storage needs. Contact a member of the team today on 01179516325 for any further information about our storage availability.

Every week thousands of people are selling their unwanted goods online with the purpose to make some money on the side. With eBay, one of the biggest and most popular platforms, selling online has become a lot more convenient and faster. However, to successfully become the next eBay “Powerseller” there are a number of important points to consider before you go ahead.

A highly successful UK top seller named “vintageneil” has revealed his top-tips in a blog post. Below is a summary of them. Spend time on research, and lots of it. If you know exactly what you want to sell then that’s great, but check out your potential competitors, your potential suppliers, your potential customers and even your own soul. Being a successful seller on eBay can be immensely rewarding but requires work. Some new sellers spend many months researching before going “live”.One single, and poorly shot, photo on each of your listings is not going to help you become a Power Seller. There are many guides to photography on Ebay and it’s worth to check them out. One quick (and cheap) tip is: Get a single sheet of tissue paper (purple is a good one), and scrunch it up several times so that when you lay it flat it has thousands of random creases all over it. Tape it to a large piece of card (maybe the bottom cut out of a tomato box) and you have an instant backdrop for small items that look great in photos.

Many sellers can’t be bothered to provide a half decent description of the item they’re trying to sell. That’s a shame as creating a description either invokes bidders to get into a bidding war with another bidder or creates the desire to make an instant purchase using “Buy it Now”. It’s essential to lift your listing above the rest. There are many very successful sellers on eBay who do not use any fancy graphics at all, but just concentrate on providing an honest and detailed description of the item Including phrases in your small print, such as “I will not be responsible for items lost in the post” is the kiss of death for buyers, so make sure you come across as reasonable and honest. Don’t create extra work for yourself. Set out your policies clearly and firmly, but in a friendly manner. Make sure your postage rates are not hidden in your listings, and don’t overcharge for PAYMENT METHODS

If you’re serious about selling, you have to offer PayPal as a payment method. There’s no getting away from it, and it’s essential for receiving payments from buyers overseas. The protection and convenience it offers buyers means you really need to offer it as your main form of payment. Just accept Paypal, cheques and postal orders, to fulfil most buyers’ expectations. Customers expect to be kept informed, every step of the way, and that means a sale confirmation email, a payment received email and a despatch confirmation email. If you are forgetful, or you plan to sell a lot of items then it is best to automate this procedure from the very start. Subscribe to eBay’s “Selling Manager Pro” rather than a third party product. It’s very reliable, generally, and if anything goes wrong your customers will be more likely to empathise if the error lies with eBay.

New sellers have an incredible advantage, when it comes to packing, over larger sellers. You can show, through attention to detail, a level of service that simply cannot be matched by your bigger competitors. Describe how you pack your items, in detail, to show your customers what a great service they can expect from you.

Don’t fall at the last hurdle. Make sure you get everything right and try to foresee problems before they happen, such as address errors, damage, over or undercharging, Post Office scale errors, forgetting the customs label, and so on. We all must start somewhere when it comes to building feedback. Feedback is one of the reasons behind the success of eBay and buyers value it as a means by which they can judge sellers before parting with their cash, so much so that there are many programs available on the internet which allow buyers to scrutinise individual’s feedback. Be patient and build up your Feedback by buying your postal supplies, and other things you may need, from other eBay sellers.Storage is critical. If you end up with stuff all over the place it may affect business reputation, possibly your marriage, probably your sanity, and your home just won’t look like a home anymore. Even selling small items, such as books like I do, will cause you headaches if you don’t keep your stock neat and tidy. If space is at a premium then you’re obviously not going to be selling antique furniture, but even the smallest of items will use up all your available space eventually.