posted on August 13, 2001 07:03:28 AM
Monday morning, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief. Just held my biggest garage sale ever over the weekend and this morning I'm reveling in the cash but feel like I've just run a marathon.
<p> The best thing about the sale was that I got rid of 2/3 of my non-selling e-bay stock and made over $1,000 mostly on items priced from 25c to $5. That's a lot of stuff sold!
<p> The worst thing about the weekend were the group of women who went through and changed the price stickers on everything they planned to purchase. Luckily I was helping at the cash register at that time and although I wasn't 100% positive about the first item that came through, I caught the others and flat out told them they'd changed the prices. "No! No! That was the price marked." they claimed. I knew better as I'd just priced one of them about an hour earlier. I told them the correct prices and they went ahead and paid that amount, but it still burns me.
<p> Anyone else have their own sale recently? How'd it go for you? What are your best tips to pass on to others planning one?
posted on August 13, 2001 07:45:45 AM
Why do people change the price? We had that happen a lot too the last garage sale we had (We don't do them often, but with an upcoming move out of state in 2 weeks, it is a good reason!)
My wife knew exactly what she priced and how much, and people were changing 50 cent stickers with $1 stickers to make the price cheaper. Is it that awful to spend the extra 50 cents??? I don't understand how people can do this.
posted on August 13, 2001 08:21:08 AM
I just had a garage sale a couple of weeks ago to clear out stuff. A friend of mine brought some of her stuff over and helped out.
What a pain...now I know why I only do them every few years. What gets me are the people who quibble over 25 cent items. Or the ones who want to pay $1 for something marked $10. The Garage Sale culture around here is very odd...we saw all kinds of folks.
I sold about $350 worth of stuff, which was about 85% of what I put out. It paid for back to school stuff and birthday gifts for my son. It will be a long time until I do another one.
posted on August 13, 2001 08:32:53 AM
Worse than price changers are the thieves. It's hard to believe that people work the yard sales just to steal.
Well, OK, it's actually very easy to believe that yardsales are easy pickins' for todays thief on the go.
posted on August 13, 2001 08:43:51 AM
I've had 2 yard sales this summer, each sold about $450.
I'm pretty easy-going about them, I have a quite protected driveway, and put up 8 tables of smalls with other stuff lining the drive.
I don't price sticker anything.
I have a nice captains chair that I set up in my strategic location & off we go. I place an ad in newspaper & use lots of big dayglo signs in the neighborhood.
About 95% of the stuff I sell at yard sale is scrounged from dumpsters -- believe me, it's almost all better quality than stuff I see at most yard sales, too -- plus other odds & ends & some eBay rejects. So I don't have hardly anything invested in it, if someone steals something, so be it, but so far I don't think that's happened.
Most everyone is nice, but there are always those idiots who haggle you to death over 25 cents, and then someone brings their kids & doesn't have any idea what control is, so the kids end up breaking something -- yes, I made them pay for it, too, a $5 teapot.
To keep my sanity I start about 8 am (driveway is securely blocked until I want to open), and go to about 1 pm, then put up a sign at the end of the drive that sale is over.
posted on August 13, 2001 01:36:15 PM
As to people switching price stickers, I once worked in a store. We had a woman come in switched the price with something from another department, so the # was wrong. Just by fluke the head of that dept was filling in on the regester, she caught it. The women was completely insulted & refused to pay for it. She came back the next day & tried it again with the same item & then got into the same woman's line. How stupid can you get?
posted on August 13, 2001 03:22:36 PM
Regarding the women that changed the prices at my sale, I have to tell you the rest of the story. Included in their purchases was a free large wooden crucifix that I had laid out on a table for anyone who wanted it. I didn't feel right about selling it so figured someone else might appreciate it. Well, these women stuck Him in their bag along with their newly priced items and I really wanted to yell, "I bet Jesus is real proud of you!" on their way out. But--what goes around comes around. As they were leaving I heard the sound of breaking glass, and one of the items from their box had fallen out and broken. You know, the Bible says "Vengeance is mine" and He wasn't kidding!
posted on August 14, 2001 01:02:49 AM
We have a huge driveway and live in a pretty good neighborhood so there is some good junk that fills the garages around here, I would actually be the poorest house on the block. Anyway there isn't too many yard/garage sales around here so a few of my neighbors brought out there junk as well and put it in my driveway. We had items from .25 to 2000.00(a truck) and lots of stuff in between.
This Mexican lady went through everything and kept handing stuff to another lady and a guy she was with the whole time talking to them in Spanish. I watched them closely and they were switching price tags, and just plain removing some and the guy was sticking items under a windbreaker he was wearing. I was keeping pretty close tabs to the price of the items they were picking up and I was keeping a running total in my head and jotted down some figures and a list of the items I knew the guy had stuck under his jacket.
After about 10 minutes they came over to me to total up what they wanted and I started writhing it down on the same piece of paper I had the other notes on and she looked very confused when I gave her the total. I had figured in the stuff he had stolen as well as the original prices the best as I could, she tried very hard to explain in broken English that she didn't owe that much and that she didn't buy some of the things I had written down, so I tried to explain that it was the stuff that her male friend had stuck under his jacket, they started talking back and forth between themselves in Spanish.
Her male friend walked over to the truck that was for sale then out to the car they were driving, I thought they were going to take off on me, he waited a few minutes and then came back without the windbreaker and of course the stuff he had under it. Again she started in that some of the stuff on the list she didn't have or want, and that I had over charged her.
He then said that he put some stuff in the truck and it didn't have a locking steering wheel and he told the other girl to put some clothes an iron and a small TV in the truck behind the seat that he was going to come back and get it later that night. Oh I guess this would be a good time to tell you that I am fluent in Spanish and I pretty much just look like a dumb white guy. The other girl now moves off and he starts to argue with me as well, all this for less than 20 dollars, as he tries to distract me to what she is doing. She stuffs some stuff in the truck and it even catches the attention of a neighbor lady that stopped by the yard sale.
My neighbor looks at me, then looks at the girl at the truck, she can see that I know what is going on. She starts chuckling and they she starts laughing pretty loud so I asked her in Spanish "Judy what is so funny?" they almost didn't even catch at first that I asked her in Spanish. Then the guys eyes got pretty big and then I asked him in Spanish "do you think she is laughing because she knows I'm a reserve deputy sheriff?"
It was kind of a bummer I really wanted him to come back, and I wanted to catch him ripping off the truck. As there was nothing really stolen, it was all in the truck, there really wasn't much I could do. Or make that do anything that would amount to anything. I finely told them, in English, to get in their car and leave unless they wanted to stick around and I would call a friend of mine that was on duty, funny they seemed to understand that without an interpreter.
posted on August 14, 2001 04:05:00 AM
I live in the midwest in a small town. I have done a number of successful garage sales, and can't even imagine anyone trying to steal from me, although I'm certain it's probably happened.
One caution (and I believe someone may have touched on this) is to put your check-out area at the end of your driveway or yard...in a spot where they have to walk past you to get to their vehicles, instead of in your garage. (That's why most retail stores have their checkout counters near the door.)
Another good idea is to open up all purses, bags, plastic tubs, etc. that you are selling when they come to checkout (anything that could contain other "stuff". I volunteered at a church mission thrift store once (in a different area of the country), and someone clued me in to this little practice. You'd be surprised how much merchandise people can stuff into a purse they're buying. Then they walk up to the counter to pay for their purse. Lots of surprised looks when I began emptying their "haul" right in front of them. And...oh yeah...they were all "so surprised." Didn't have any idea the stuff was in there. Yeah right.
Really, though, don't let all this talk scare you away from having a garage sale. Most of my experiences have been positive. My favorite part of the sale is when it's over...I take everything that I don't want to haul back into my house and put it out onto the curb with a "FREE" sign. Most of it gets hauled away by the next morning. I feel good that, instead of throwing the stuff away, someone who could use it more than I could now has it. Good luck!
posted on August 14, 2001 05:36:39 AM
I remember when I was 12 my mom had me babysit her yardsale. Some people ripped stuff off and I had not even known it. Got the biggest ass kicking of my life when my mom found out. I've not had anyone steal from my sales since.
I'm having a yardsale this weekend. The local goodwill store has books 10 for $1.00 and I buy several carloads for my yardsales. I resell them: paperbacks for 25 cents each or 5 for $1.00 and hardbacks 50 cents each or 3 for $1.00 and make profit. I usually don't have any books left over. Made over $1400 last year just on the books in one weekend. I love running yardsales. Yesterday I cleaned goodwill out of books.
. I volunteered at a church mission thrift store once (in a different area of the country), and someone clued me in to this little practice. You'd be surprised how much merchandise people can stuff into a purse they're buying. Then they walk up to the counter to pay for their purse. Lots of surprised looks when I began emptying their "haul" right in front of them. And...oh yeah...they were all "so surprised." Didn't have any idea the stuff was in there. Yeah right.
Hippy wannabe 
~^~