Getting fair value for collectibles at a garage sale venue
debodun
14 years ago
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gracie01 zone5 SW of Chicago
14 years agoRelated Discussions
Garage Sales / Love 'Em or Hate 'Em
Comments (18)Hello again, everyone, If someone wants to haggle, say that you feel that, rather than putting the stuff at the roadside with a "Free" sign, you put a lot of work into setting up, the price is quite low, and that if he's unhappy with the price as marked ... ... that you've found that Good Will offers a decent/higher price on a receipt. As for putting the stuff into some agency's yard sale ... you have to do about as much digging, sorting, dusting, washing, pricing and packing into boxes to go to another sale as to set up for one of your own, don't you? And you manage your table(s) there, don't you? Patti43, What's "OT" ... "Oregon Territory", possibly? ole joyful...See MoreTag/garage sale. Will you or did you have one?
Comments (26)TAG SALE OVER and a major success!!!!! Thank all of you for your wonderful advice. It was very helpful, and having the best weekend weather in a while was also a plus!! The particulars: We held the tag sale for 2 days - Friday and Saturday from 9am to 2pm. I just didn't want to give up a Sunday, and and been noticing that most people in our area who have sales have been doing the same the last few years. Advertised in our Regional Newspaper - cost $61. Tried to put in what we needed for the basic min. 5 line cost of $45, but by the time we put in the dates, time, several items we wanted to hilight and directions, we went over. Our directions put us over!! (we went with the suggestions of not putting our address but cross streets instead - thanks to all who suggested it as we loved the idea and were only botherd by ONE earlybird the day before - guess it was our FOR SALE sign that gave us away ;; ) We live on a strangely designed street that loops around and intersects with our cross street twice. So our directions read that they had to go to the BOTTOM of the of the cross street. ( Belive it or not my signs had the same directions, PLUS LARGE RED ARROWS POINTING DOWN THE HILL, and some people STILL went around in circles!!!! NO WONDER teachers pull their hair out with some students!!!!! - oh wait, that's another forum, LOL). Also posted on Craigs List. SIGNS: We had LOTS of them! Was able to get a bunch of poke in the ground TAG SALE and GARAGE SALE signs from our agent and I taped my info to the bottom, plus I made more. Used a mega fat tipped permanent marker on 12"x18" poster board. My handwriting is pretty good and I WRITE LARGE!! (those itty bitty signs that people tack up that look like post it notes on a phone pole drive me nuts!!! WHAT ARE THEY THINKING!!!! and they wonder why they only had 2 people at their sale!!!!) Our signs were at both entry points of the main street we are off, at the exits of the highway (connector) we are near and all possible points from the entrance of our developement and directing customers right to our driveway. We put the signs up the pm before, drew out a map before hand and I pencil marked and numbered all of my signs and the map so my DH knew EXACTLY were I wanted them!! ;) and we went over the map. Plus it made it easier to check off when he took the signs down. Didn't put any signs right around our home and at the bottom of the hill until early the next AM, and we made use of our FOR SALE signs by taping up a big TAG SALE on both sides of it. I also kept my signs uniform in look and size, so the TAG SALE letters were all exactly the same size and color on each of the signs as well as the red arrows I added. That way people would not confuse my signs from other tag sale signs. And my TAG SALE lettering matched the lettering on the large TAG SALE signs in front of our house! We brought everything up from the basement two nights before and had it all waiting in our garage ready to be set up. We awoke at 4:30 to get ourselves together and begin dragging out all of our tables, boxes of stuff and furniture to sell. Unpacked all of the dishware, etc and kept the boxes and newspaper together under each table. That was a good idea, because when people were buying handfulls of stuff, we would just grab a box and wrap and pack it for them and they were on their way! We also kept a bunch of plastic grocery bags on hand which was suggested and was also a great help! We place all our our large furniture pieces up front to catch customers eyes. We used our whole long driveway, plus part of the circle of our circular diveway. All our our cars were put at the other end of the circle so we didn't block of the street and people would have not problem parking. It took us a good hour to set up and we did work fast. At first I just unpacked the boxes at each table and later went around to kind of keep like items together. I did have the more expensive pieces set at one table so I could keep better track of them. I marked some pieces that morning but not all - oh, and China Markers, well they don't work very well in the damp cool morning!!! ended up using permanent marker on many china and glass items. Never did get around to pricing the furniture because.............even though the sale was to start at 9am (but I knew there would be early birds).......what I didn't expect were all of the dealers rushing in at 7AM!!!!! I knew there would be dealers, but not that early, and some of them had just come from another sale some 10 minutes away from me!!!!! And this was the part I loved the most!!! My DH and I took bets on which items would be the first to go and how badly did we underprice them and not realize their full potential value. Well, I had a few hidious pieces, and one piece of art that was AWFUL ( I knew the artist and trust me, it was bad!!!!) Things went flying, I started bargaining, and was very happy. NOTE: when a dealer asked you a price, throw it back to them and ask what they are willing to offer and then just double our triple it and work your way down until you are satisfied!!! It works pretty well. (I love to shop and love to bargain. I've done tons of traveling and shopping all over the world, done pretty well for myself and always walk away getting what I want at the price I am happy with and feel was fair!) What is interesting is some dealers are up front with their buying, and others try to make you think they are in love with an item and "have to have it for themselves" and they make you think they are not dealers (those are the ones to watch our for ;) You may think you are selling to a poor helpless grandma, but, not so fast!!!! Anyway, I stood my ground on my prices and basically got wholesale prices for most of my early sell items and that made me VERY happy. (I did research certain items that I felt might have had some value.) I'm am certain, if I hit our large regional flea market this Sunday moring, I will see many of my early sale items up there!! For us to rent a cargo van and drag all of my stuff up there to make a few more bucks, really ain't worth it! And, yes, those hiddious pieces sold, and some for a lot, and the art...............I bargaind for MY price and not the give away price the dealer wanted it for! - trust me, the painting was BAD!!! We did sell a box of old license plates for too little, though. Oh, well, they were given to us by a friend who wanted to unload them and they just sat in the garage for years! Found out from one of the dealers after the guy who bought them left. She asked if there were any porcelain plates in the box, and there were a couple. She said they had value. Oh, well, you can't win them all, and honestly, we really didn't know. After the one hour feeding frenzy, (and btw, all of the dealers knew each other), the "let me get our early and beat the early bird", regular buyers arrived. The pace was steady all day and we ended up closing at 4pm instead of 2 'cause they kept on comming!!! We were very pleased with our first day. Surprisingly, the next day, although we did have a stream of people all day, was pretty slow. The first buyers didn't come till 8:30am and they were just the early Sat. am crowd. The rest of the day was so different than the day before. We honestly expected the Friday work crowd to show up Saturday, but it really didn't happen. I guess it's summer, people are away, and maybe some figured that all of the good stuff was gone anyway, who knows. We still had some good stuff at great prices, but this group wanted you to pay them to buy your stuff - ha, ha!! We again had the mad dash after the sale was over and made out pretty well. Unloaded a few big items we won't have to drag with us, and did better than Mickey D's for dinner!!! I'm a happy girl!!! We finaly had to take down the signs to stop the traffic. I put all the items I wanted to keep (how bad is that!) in a box and boxed all the rest for Good Will and donating the funiture to a local charity. Bottom Line: It was a blast, loved talking to people, got rid of stuff and we made money!!! It also took me back to my old days doing the Art/Craft show circut!! It was fun. Would I do it again, YES..........but not right away!!! Thanks again ALL OF YOU!!!! for all your suggestions and helpful hints. I know it would not have been as successful as it was without all of you on this forum!!! ~L Oh, and next time? I'll just do it one day, the extra $$$ on the second day was not bad, but not nearly as good as the day before!!!...See MoreAre garage sales a thing of the past?
Comments (18)Posted by debodun:"I had two Eastlake caned seat chairs out last year with a $35 each price tag. A couple of young bucks stopped and offer me $5 for BOTH. I told them where to put their $5. Sometimes a person will ask if I can do better on the price, so I say "Certainly!" and make it a higher one." That seems a little extreme, and combative. I don't expect young bucks to know about antiques. But even more so, I don't expect most sellers to understand that the antiques market has taken a serious down-turn. When I have had sales, I was never insulted by the amount that someone offered, but how they make the offer. Saying "I'll give you..." is an insult, Asking "Can you do better?" is not. I don't know the persons circumstances, perhaps $5 is what their budget should allow? Or perhaps they are poor negotiators, and have watched too much of that Pawn Stars fake reality show, and have picked up poor haggling habits -thinking they have to start low to get the best price. When I had a sale it was stuff I wanted to unload -that was the objective. So, I priced it to sell. I was a picker and sold to dealers and I had a shop for a while, and did the flea market route -so I had an idea of what dealers would pay. If I had 20 pairs of Salt & Pepper shakers and marked them $2 a set, I would have an idea of what I would do for the lot, so if a dealer picked out the 8 best pairs and asked what I could do on them, I'd have a figure in mine mind, I might even tell them before they asked "If you're getting that many, you can have all 20 for $1.50 a pair, that'd be 30 bucks". My main rule with sales was that I would try to leave a little wiggle room for serious buyers. I could waste my time and take the stuff to several different antique dealers, or wait for them to come to me and save gas and time. I also price things 'each' and in multiples, so with a stack of identical plates I'd hang a sign. The price difference may even seem a little ridiculous. "Plates $2ea or 10 for $5". People thought they were getting a great deal and didn't feel a need to haggle, I already did it for them. But inevitably, someone was going to ask to pay $4 for 10. I wouldn't get mad, no. Some folks feel it doesn't hurt to ask, so they do. I would pretend that their math skills weren't too good and I'd say "I'm sorry, you can buy 2 for $4, or the best I can do is 10 for $5", if their math was really poor, and they had to ask again, I would repeat the same thing, "No, 2 for $4, 10 for $5" The crip-crap that I really didn't want to box up again at the end of the sale, I always priced like that. If you are only going to buy a couple of plates, your wasting my time, if you are going to buy a stack, I'll give you my best price up front. If people feel like they are getting a deal and had a good time they tell their friends. And if I had an item that no one was paying much attention to, but I really didn't want to pack up again, I would come down on it the first day, or the first time some weird young buck picked it up, looked at it and said "cool" "It's marked $10, but you can have that for $5." But my main rule was I came down on multiples and big purchases. If someone collected $40 worth of junk and didn't even ask to haggle, I might give them a discount at the till anyway -again, because they will tell their friends. "Oh, I had that marked $10? You're buying so much stuff, you can have it for $5." See why people wanted to be on my mailing list? For the most part, on the high end and antique items I didn't come down until later on in the first day or on the second day. But if I had a couple of hot items at a very good price, like beautiful Eastlake caned seat chairs for $35, I expected folks to want to haggle before they bought them. It makes them feel better. So, I might price them at $40 ea, and if some young bucks said "Will you take $5" I wouldn't be insulted, I would give them my come down price "tell you what, $70 for the pair" If they made a counter offer and it was the beginning of the day, I would tell them "I haven't had them out very long, and I was planning on going half price (or what ever) tomorrow, if you come back tomorrow and they haven't sold, you can have the both of them for $40." The next day I might change my mind and not even put them out, or if the young bucks come back, tell them "someone offered $50 for the pair yesterday before I closed and said they would be back with the money this morning. I told them the first person to pay me $50 today will get them, those folks haven't come back yet, so if you want to snatch them up, you can have the pair for $50 right now." But I usually kept my word, If I quoted a 'tomorrow' price, I sold it for that the next day. And if it was for an item I just wasn't sure what kind of interest there might be for it, I would say, come back tomorrow, I am going to mark everything down tomorrow, we can wheel and deal then. If it was an item that every early-bird dealer and collector picked up and asked what I could do on it, I knew it would sell eventually and I might even re-tag it higher after the first few hours, so I could come down half off the next day or later in the day. If it's marked $12, and every dealer offers $6 after I say I'll come down to $10, then I would mark it up to $20, so the next dealer to ask, I tell them "the best I can do is half price." Sometimes it sold to a collector for the $20 or $15....See MoreGarage Sales Have Changed in the Last 20 Years
Comments (68)Back when your mother was selling was at least 20 years ago. There wasn't anyway to buy things online. You went to a store or you looked at ads in a newspaper. Now you can find anything online anytime. You also were limited to your area. Now you can shop world wide. That has reduced the prices. Twenty years of everyone's parents passing and now Baby Boomers are going also. The market is flooded with everything you have. There are no less that 15 estate sales running this week in my area alone. They will have the same amount every week. They all have the same things you have. When you add in the fact, like others have said, that a large part of the younger people no longer want stuff, the price has hit rock bottom. The plates in your first picture that are priced $4, you would be lucky to get 25 cents. If you enjoy having the sales, by all means keep on doing them. The professional estate sale companies here price everything and it is full price the first day, 25% off the 2nd day, and 50% off the 3rd day. After that it goes to a charity or the dumpster. I am not saying that you don't have nice or pretty things, because you do. They just don't sell anymore. Pink depression glass that was $50 in the 90's won't even sell for $5 now. If you look on E-Bay for current prices, be sure to go to the side and check the box that you want to look at sold listings....See Morejilliferd
14 years agoIdeefixe
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14 years agogracie01 zone5 SW of Chicago
14 years agolindac
14 years agoi_dig_it
14 years agogracie01 zone5 SW of Chicago
14 years agoHeather Reynolds
6 years ago
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