With the Internet nowadays, selling things online has been the new way of making extra money on the side. With the Internet it is possible to sell products to everyone around the world. The online marketplace offers much flexibility and many options to sell your things. The main way to sell things online and on the Internet is through online auctions.

Online auctions are selling tactics where you put a product on the Internet at a particular site dedicated to auctions and sell to people. During this process, buyers bid on the products of their choice and whoever bids the highest wins and is awarded the product. These auctions usually go anywhere from a few days to 10 days.

There are advantages and disadvantages to online auctions, like anything else. The advantages of online auctions are many. First with an online auction sellers have flexibility in regard to time and price. With an online auction, sellers can have their products up for sale 24 hours a day and 7 days a week; whereas, with a garage sale or a retail store sellers are only able to sell their products for a certain amount of time.

One issue with garage sales is having to take off all the prices from everything and either put them back in all of the various places they came from, or haul them away to a thrift store or garbage dump. Retail sellers have to contend with extra inventory and paying for employees to help.

The next advantage to an online auction is price. With an online auction a seller can name a price and have bidders bid on the price and put the seller in position to get much more for the products than originally intended, thus maximizing their earning potential. An online auction also offers convenience as the seller can access and monitor their auction at any time and for as long as they want. It also saves them money by allowing sellers to place products on sale for little to no cost. For those looking to make a little extra spending money, it is a matter of convenience to participate whenever they have time to do so.

However like most things, there are disadvantages to online auctions as well. When a bidder wins the bid and is then asked to pay for the products sold, the buyer may not pay the seller and the seller never gets or makes any money. Another disadvantage is like one of the advantages, where the highest bidder agrees to buy the product but the seller fails to get the amount of money they need to justify the sale. In other words, the seller can get much less than intended and be forced to sell a product for less than it's worth. The flexibility of pricing can be both an advantage and disadvantage.

Despite the disadvantages, if planned carefully, online auctions are among the best ways to sell products online due to the flexibility in regard to time, price and cost. Online auctions enable sellers to sell off unwanted household items and also propel them into a full fledged retail business online and maximize their earning potential. Online auctions are among the most beneficial ways to earn money online and in general.