All across America people are quietly emptying out closets,attics and garages to get items to sell in online auctions. It's one of the fastest growing businesses in the world and even with nearly a million users on Ebay alone it's only scratching the surface. Consider, 100 million households in the U.S. and nearly all of them have computers or cellphones with internet access. What a market!

Our industrious online auction seller finally gets the house and garage cleaned out and he or she is excited about the money made so far. What next? Where to get those great items that sold so well in her Ebay store? Mini-Warehouse auctions is one good way.

Where

Just about any town has a mini storage warehouse these days and one thing that they all have in common is that some of the people who have rented the storage space will let the rental contract expire and have the contents siezed by the warehouse owner. That owner then will try to recoup his lost rental money by auctioning off the contents of the unit. Often times the owner will have multiple units to auction off. Why auction it off? Simply because he needs the space emptied out so he can rent it again.

You can contact the owner of your local self-storage warehouse asking when the next auction will be or watch the local paper for listings of auctions in the classified section.

How

Some things you need to consider before you go to the auction are:

1. how much money you are prepared to spend
2. where you are going to keep the stuff you just bought
3. have a truck on hand to move it
4. a handtruck will be handy to have as well
5. how you are going to sell the items

People store all sorts of things in warehouses and for different reasons. You might find anything from furniture and appliances to fine art and some just plain junk. Be careful how you bid. Most filled storage units auction for $400 or less so you'll have lots of opportunities to make a profit on the goods.

Selling The Goods

Look over your goods. Sort the big items out for sales at the flea market or if you have a good location, a yard sale. Now we come to the smaller things like jewelry, electronics, books and such. Anything light enough to ship without the cost being too high can be sold on EBay or Yahoo auctions for a tidy profit. Here's an example of how it might go:

1. You got a mini storage unit with

• a flat screen tv (22 inch)
  
• books and toys
• a refrigerator ( a couple of years old but works good)
  
• 14 pairs earrings,6 necklaces
• a collection of comics
• 2 antique chairs
• clothing fitting a man, woman and 2 kids
• you spent $475 to get it all
  

The refrigerator you listed in the local newspaper and sold it for $100. The clothes,some ofthe books and the toys you saved for your upcoming yard sale. The rest auctioned off on Ebay fora total profit of $900 for the chais as they are antique and another $300 for the rest. Not counting the yard sale profits you made $775.00 profit!