Ah, the old-fashioned rummage sale; selling stuff we don’t need or don’t want anymore. In this high-tech world of e-commerce and making money on the internet, there is just something fun about sitting in your yard and having people rummage through your old Led Zeppelin or John Denver LP’s.
My wife and I had a rummage sale this last weekend. Well, it turned into more of a get-together with stuff sitting for sale in our front yard.
You know, the neighbors stop over, then some friends, other relatives, and even some people we’ve never met sit around for a while and converse.
My main goal was to sell off much of my tools and equipment I needed for my previous job/life.
I accomplished that for the most part. I did learn some things. Some things I tried worked well. Others, well, not so much.
I thought I’d through together a blog post giving my takeaways from the event, and maybe it will help you when doing your rummage sale/neighborhood get-together.
Garage Sale Tips; Don’t try to get top dollar for your items.
At least in my area, people going to rummage sales are looking to get the deal of a lifetime. Haggling on price is good and often expected. But, don’t expect that the awesome piece of exercise equipment that only got used a couple of times will pull close to full price. What I found is if you want to get rid of the stuff, the price needs to be low.
If people go to a rummage sale, they are looking for great deals or hard-to-find items, like antiques. Or, sometimes both. Great deals on hard-to-find antiques.
There is a perceived sense of security and warranty that goes along with things bought in a store. You can tell someone you took judicious care of something, but they don’t know whether you drop-kicked that Thigh Master across the living room or not.
At the store, wrapped in plastic and cardboard, is worth a ton more.
Garage Sale Tips; Try and sell your higher ticket items on the web first.
If you do have some higher ticket items to sell, I suggest selling them before the sale on one of the internet sales sites. Sales sites like Letgo, Craigslist, and eBay are far better for getting the most for the items for which you want a higher price.
Let’s dig down into the deep underworld of buyer mindset. A buyer at a rummage sale is in browse mode. They are going to see what they see and buy things they probably don’t need but will grab for a good deal. They aren’t that motivated to buy unless it is an excellent deal.
You will probably get some professional buyers at your sale if you are selling hot buzz-worthy items like antiques, tools, or furniture. These buyers will most likely show up early on the first day to see what deals they can get and resell for a profit or collect. Their mindset will be a little different.
They are still looking for a deal, but they know what they want and what the stuff is going for. That is also why I like trying to sell things on the internet before the sale. Doing research and listing your items, will give you a good idea of what the higher-ticket items are selling for. This is the best way to arm yourself against a professional buyer.
I would say, if you have anything with a price tag of fifty dollars or more, I will try selling it beforehand on one of the internet sales sites.
Garage Sale Tips; Advertise a few days heavily before.
I started advertising a week before the sale. As I started putting my larger ticket items online for sale, I inserted comments in the ad for the rummage sale coming up the following weekend.
I also started running ads on Craigslist a couple of days before the sale. We also had a couple of different people bring some stuff over to sell. They had their own Craigslist accounts and started advertising on their accounts for the sale also.
The beautiful thing is that everyone was selling a little different type of stuff, which would bring in some different kinds of people. By everyone running their own ads, we covered a more extensive range of people. We did get a ton of ‘cross browsing’ if that is even a term.
People who came looking primarily for antiques bought some of my tools. Some of my tool people wandered over and left with antiques.
Usually, when you try to sell something, it’s generally good to try and niche down. With rummage sales, I believe it is a little different. It’s good to get all sorts of people there in ‘browse mode’.
Garage Sale Tips; Get good signage and have good directions.
I can’t stress good signage and good directions enough. It’s so frustrating when I go out on a buzz through the countryside and see a rummage sale sign but spend an hour driving around looking for the place. Since almost all smartphones have some GPS mapping feature, I suggest putting the address right on the sign. This is especially true if the rummage is challenging to find.
People can always pull over and type in the address and get a map on their phone right to your door. My wife makes fun of me, but I like using landmarks in my ads. Stuff like across the street from this business or left at the blue church.
She keeps yelling at me telling me to use street markers, but how many times has someone missed a street because the street sign was too hard to read? Plenty.
I like my physical landmarks, and I’m sticking to them. Similarly, my wife loves balloons. She even owns a helium tank to blow up balloons. She does weddings and parties and whatnot, but that’s a different story.
She spent an hour blowing up balloons to hang on signs. I thought it was a waste of time until someone came in and said they would have missed it if it hadn’t been for the balloons.
I’ll be quiet now. She proved me wrong. I guess balloons and little eye-catchers are a good thing. My wife says so too.
Garage Sale Tips; Don’t do change.
I see too many times people split things up into fractions of a dollar. I don’t like carrying around change. Everything I price is in whole dollar increments. It is just much easier to deal with than having a pocket full of change.
All in all, it was a pretty fun and tiring weekend. Lots of hours spent walking around haggling for that last dollar. But, being able to make some money without having to sit behind a keyboard was a sweet relief.
Don’t get me wrong, I love writing and blogging, but getting out, stretching my legs, and opening up my mouth to speak felt good.
Thanks, and be safe,
Kevin