Sell Your Household Contents Easily

Whether you're moving, scaling down your home, refurbishing all your furniture or emigrating there is now an easier solution to selling your home contents than selling it off piece by piece.

Moving can be a tedious business.

When you start packing up your house one is always surprised at the amount of stuff you accumulate over the years. We all have that one room where things we don't know where to put, go. Be that your garage, the spare room or the attic.

When it's time to move, just thinking about going in to sort out that room and it's contents might make your heart sink.

The Original Method To Sell The Contents Of Your Home

One would think that there should be an easier way to do this than what comes to mind for most people. Yet, the first methods in which to sell everything in your house many of us think of include things like garage sales, auctions and second hand dealers. Unfortunately this involves having to schlep your household items to those places (in the case of second hand dealers), or having auctioneers visit your home, or struggling to get things moved and gaining awareness of a neighbourhood garage sale. There are of course those weekend flea-markets, but those too one needs a permit for, plus schlepping stuff every weekend is not my ideal way of spending my time off.

The digital versions of the DIY method, Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree, are of course quite a bit better, but still require a bit of time and effort on the part of the seller. They still require you to take photos and place everything online, and then having to sort through multiple people to find a buyer.

The process is simple, and free, but can take time.

Thankfully it seems there are now a few options should you not choose to DIY.

The Companies That Sell Home Contents

It is no wonder that not many people know about this option. Trying to Google for any such services is an exercise in futility. The websites are pretty bad and not optimised for Google at all.

These are some of the companies we managed to find available in South Africa to move your home contents easily.

Quick Look-up Table - read more detailed feedback below the table.

Company	Service Area	Type of Service	How it Works	Cost
MovingOn	Nationwide	Sell everything.	Online Platform; Sell offline. Catalogue items, pre-book to buy via website. Hold big sales days to sell the rest and market those days to their own database.	20% of total sales.
Sell n Buy SA	Gauteng Only.	Sell everything.	Online Platform; Sell offline. Catalogue items, pre-book to buy via website. Hold big sales days to sell the rest and market those days to their own database.	20% of total sales.
Old Things	Gauteng Only.	Buy everything.	They buy all your items in bulk and collect them from you.	No fee.
Mrs Sell and Clear	Gauteng Only.	On-site auction.	Online Platform; Auction offline. Catalogue items, buy via website. Hold auction days to sell the rest and market those days to their own database and through social media.	Varying fees.
Vuyani Transport	Cape Town, East London and Port Elizabeth Only.	Buy everything.	They buy all your items in bulk and collect them from you. Items not bought are sold on your behalf.	No fee.
Richards Buying and Selling	Cape Town Only.	Buy everything.	They buy all your items in bulk and collect them from you.	No fee.

Moving On

These guys have done wonders for the “selling of home contents” industry. They are the only company that has put some effort into their marketing.

They offer quite a nifty idea - they offer one platform where you can sell your items. One of their agents will come to your house to catalogue and price the items you wish to sell and then advertise them on their site. They then hold “big garage sales days” where buyers can come and collect the items all in one go.

Buyers can view all home sale items on their website and decide to book items they want from that sale. Buyers pay a 20% deposit on the item and receive the item on the day of the garage sale. The online sales-catalogue also shows what has been ‘reserved' and what is still available so that you know what is still available to purchase on the day of the ‘garage sale'.

What we also really like is that they have a database of buyers. They alert their buyer database via a newsletter of any new sales. It is open to the public and large businesses like auction houses or other second hand stores that wish to stock up on items.

The cost for their service is 20% of your total sales.

Service Area: Nationwide

Newsletter & Social Presence - You are automatically added (opt-in) to their newsletter when you book an item.

Facebook - Very active Facebook page.

Sell n Buy SA

Reading their website, it appears that they are the original ideators of the concept. Just a pity they only operate in Gauteng.

The idea - Pretty much exactly as per Moving On. They offer one platform where you can sell your items. One of their agents will come to your house to catalogue and price the items you wish to sell and then advertise them on their site. They then hold “big garage sales days” where buyers can come and collect the items all in one go.

Buyers can view all home sale items on their website and decide to book items they want from that sale. This is where things slightly differ from Moving On. It seems that Sell n Buy takes the full asking price for all items and then settles with the seller in cash at the end, post the sales event. The online sales-catalogue also shows what has been ‘reserved' and what is still available so that you know what is still available to purchase on the day of the ‘garage sale'.

What we also really like is that they have quite a large database of buyers (upwards of 5,000). They alert their buyer database via a newsletter of any new sales. It is open to the public and large businesses like auction houses or other second hand stores that wish to stock up on items. Another service we like is that they vet all the potential buyers for security reasons, before they come to your home.

The cost for their service is 20% of your total sales.

Service Area: Gauteng Only.

Newsletter & Social Presence - They have a WhatsApp and email subscription service to alert for any new listings added in the area you choose to be alerted for.

Facebook - not very active Facebook page.

Old Things

The idea - This is rather nifty, just again a pity that it is only available in Gauteng. Instead of playing middle-man these guys buy everything off your hands in one go. No waiting for items to sell. No garage sale days. They send an agent to view the goods, then make an offer to purchase, and if you accept the offer they come and collect it all in one go too. They even pay you upfront, prior to collection.

The cost for their service - no cost for service as they buy everything from you.

Service Area: Gauteng Only.

Newsletter & Social Presence - No visible newsletter subscription on their site.

Facebook - no Facebook presence. It leaves one wondering how they sell all the items, but I guess, since they pay you upfront, it doesn't really matter!

Mrs Sell and Clear

The idea - interesting concept that blends the divide between an auction and online catalogue. Similar to Moving On and Sell n Buy SA, they also catalogue all items and add them to their website. Buyers are able to come to the website directly and purchase items outright, or attend the auction day.

The cost for their service unfortunately is undisclosed on their website. They do say that there are varying costs dependent on size of auction for the most part. They also offer additional services such as cleaning post the auction day.

Service Area: Gauteng Only.

Newsletter & Social Presence - there is no newsletter subscription, but there is a user login. Perhaps they send newsletters to those with accounts.

Facebook - they do have a relatively active Facebook Group.

Vuyani Transport

The idea - Although they are primarily a moving/transport company, they also offer buying of household goods. Similar to Old Things, you take pictures of the items you wish to sell, send it to them on WhatsApp, they make you a purchase to offer and then come and collect the goods.

They in turn post the items on their own website for sale, but again you get paid upfront so no waiting for anything to sell. They mention that should they not buy everything from you, they still add it to their site to sell on your behalf.

The cost for their service - no cost for service as they buy everything from you. The cost to sell through them is however undisclosed.

Service Area: Cape Town, East London & Port Elizabeth Only.

Newsletter & Social Presence - There is no newsletter subscribe section on their site.

Facebook - they do have a Facebook page, however the last activity was in 2018, which is a little dubious.

Richards Buying and Selling

The idea - R&C Buying & selling is another company that buys all your goods outright. We had to dig deep to find information about them as their website has very little information on it. As with Old Things, instead of playing a middle-man, these guys buy everything off your hands in one go. No waiting for items to sell. No garage sale days. They don't specify how they work on their website, but we called them up to find out more. They ask that anyone interested in selling their household contents or any unwanted goods take photos and Whatsapp them. Depending on how many items there are, and their interest to purchase them, they then may or might not set a viewing appointment. After this they make an offer to buy the goods and will collect those from you.

The cost for their service - no cost for service as they buy everything from you.

Service Area: Cape Town Only.

Newsletter & Social Presence - The website is pretty bare. No newsletter subscribe here.

Facebook - They do have a fairly active Facebook page and seem to do most of their item selling through there, their brick and mortar shop and flea markets.

It was really difficult to find these companies on Google. One would think that they would make it a lot easier for people to find them. Perhaps that is why MovingOn is the most popular company on this list because a) you can find them on Google and, b) they actually operate nationwide.

As it pertains to using these services to sell your household contents or go the DIY route, it's really nice to know that there might be options to manage it for you especially if you are in a time-crunch.