Garage sale observations

[The Keymaster]

We held a garage sale for the first time in our 33 years of marriage today...a few observations:

People will show up the day before your sale while you are setting up to try to "preview" the items. Our "previewers" were dismissed.

We had the same guy ring the doorbell twice during the afternoon and evening...not sure what he wanted as he was ignored, but my gut feeling is it was sale related.

Our sale started at 8am, the first buyer was there at 7:15. I actually had no issue with that as we were ready for business, and he spent over $104.00.

The "professionals" know each other, and are the easiest to deal with.

Our sale ran from 8-3 today. We has a steady flow of buyers until noon. We did less than $40.00 after noon. Had some activity, but mostly "lookers".

There were one or two that were unhappy with prices, and were quite vocal about it. One guy actually tried to dissuade a prospective buyer from purchasing my golf clubs. Fortunately I did not have to intercede as the buyer politely told the guy to mind his own business.

Overall it was an interesting experience. We will see what the 6 hours of sale time tomorrow bring.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

We had a next door neighbor that could hang a 3x5" index card "Garage Sale" sign up at the corner 5 minutes before she opened her garage door and would have traffic all day long. My wife decided to do it one day--put an ad in the paper, store-bought sign at the corner, etc. and she probably didn't have 6 people all day long. That was the one and only garage sale she ever did.

 

[CZB1962]

We used to have them all the time when we were younger. I guess I am just too old now because it kind of pisses me off when someone tries to talk me down from a quarter........I wish I were kidding.

I also had an item that my mother brought over to sell and my wife accidentally priced it lower than my mother had. A lady went to buy it and I noticed the two prices so I apologized but told her I could not sell it for the lower price because it was not mine.

She became very irate and said "you couldn't do that in retail". I told her to go buy it retail then and get off my property.

 

[The Keymaster]

All in all we actually has a pretty good day. Other than a couple of "off center" people we didn't really have any issues. We sold nothing for less than 50 cents. Yes we did have exactly 2 people that spent exactly 50 cents.

 

[perry]

My neighborhood garage sale is this weekend. I have some patio chairs I don't want to pay to have hauled away by Ray's. So I am going to put a free sign in them in the morning and hope someone takes them off the curb.

 

[CitiusFortius]

We had the same guy ring the doorbell twice during the afternoon and evening...not sure what he wanted as he was ignored, but my gut feeling is it was sale related.

did you tell him to come back when he had 50 quality posts?

 

[phylodog]

My neighborhood garage sale is this weekend. I have some patio chairs I don't want to pay to have hauled away by Ray's. So I am going to put a free sign in them in the morning and hope someone takes them off the curb.

They'll go quicker if you leave them out all night with a sign that says $10

 

[dice dealer]

Last one we had "The Expert" showed up and informed me everything we had was junk and was only worth half as much as we wanted for it .
He showed up 4 times in the 2 days . He actually bought close to half of everything we had at a price of 80-100% of what it was marked .

 

[Snapdragon]

We held a garage sale for the first time in our 33 years of marriage today...a few observations:

People will show up the day before your sale while you are setting up to try to "preview" the items. Our "previewers" were dismissed.

We had the same guy ring the doorbell twice during the afternoon and evening...not sure what he wanted as he was ignored, but my gut feeling is it was sale related.

Our sale started at 8am, the first buyer was there at 7:15. I actually had no issue with that as we were ready for business, and he spent over $104.00.

The "professionals" know each other, and are the easiest to deal with.

Our sale ran from 8-3 today. We has a steady flow of buyers until noon. We did less than $40.00 after noon. Had some activity, but mostly "lookers".

There were one or two that were unhappy with prices, and were quite vocal about it. One guy actually tried to dissuade a prospective buyer from purchasing my golf clubs. Fortunately I did not have to intercede as the buyer politely told the guy to mind his own business.

Overall it was an interesting experience. We will see what the 6 hours of sale time tomorrow bring.

I've had the same experiences in Lake County. I've also found that staying open past noon on Saturday is not usually worthwhile.

 

[perry]

They'll go quicker if you leave them out all night with a sign that says $10

I thought about making a big $5 sign for them and putting small writing saying to just take them. I'm afraid people in Fishers are too honest and would bang on the door to pay

 

[spec4]

Our town wide sale was fun. Sold a lot of junk and met some nice folks. Also met some turkeys. Two women promised to come back for items, never did. One woman was trying to beat me down on price for a purse, telling me everything that was wrong with it. I gave her a take it or leave it price and she bought it. Both neighbors had the same experience with her.

 

[perry]

I put the chairs out at 8:05. Just went out to mow and they were gone, so under an hour. Not bad

 

[sj kahr k40]

I had a guy show up at 7:30 for my 8 am garage sale, he brought doughnuts so I let him dig thru my stuff as I put it out, he bought about half of what I had at 75-100% of asking, my kind of garage saler!

 

[dprimm]

Hardest part of a garage sale is getting whatever is left to Goodwill before they close! Stuff is not allowed back into the house!!!

 

[The Keymaster]

Today actually ended being OK. Not near the volume, but we still took in $200.00 in 6 hours. I had a hilarious mother/son exchanging dialogue when he decided to purchase my 2500 watt generator. According to her, he did not need the generator because we don't have hurricanes in Indiana.

 

[CindyE]

I'm pretty sure that one of our neighbors has the same sale several times a year, and just keeps it all set up in the garage. One person partially blocked our drive for awhile.
Funniest thing that happened at a yard sale years ago: Remember those mirrors you could win at the county fair, throwing darts, etc.? I had a Bad Company one with a marijuana leaf on it, and another one (from my ex...I swear) that had a big leaf and said Columbian Homegrown. A kid was with his parents. He picked up the mirrors and quietly asked me if I had a bag to put them in, so his parents wouldn't see.

 

[PistolBob]

Last sale we had I ended up making more money off the grill than the junk we sold. I was grilling hot dogs and bratwurst all day...$1 a dog, $2 a Brat...ice cold Big K pop for 50c a can.

 

[KellyinAvon]

We had our community yard sale a few weeks back. Sold the lava lamp, the gazing ball AND the stuffed camel (which I got in Qatar but was kind of creepy) so it was a major success.

The "Burmese Mafia" used an interesting tactic: yell "ONE" while holding up an item. I yelled back, "THREE!!!" The sketchy guy who asked if we had any cellphones? That got my radar up as did the pickup with a male driver, no passengers who drove by 3 times.

We had quite a few books, I went hardbacks a dollar, paperbacks 50 cents and if you by a bunch we can negotiate. Had this lady with 32 assorted books, I said I'd take $16. She said, "Weeeellll, that's too muuuuuch." My reply was, "That's 50 cents a piece." Was glad to see her go bug my neighbors.

 

[KellyinAvon]

I'm pretty sure that one of our neighbors has the same sale several times a year, and just keeps it all set up in the garage. One person partially blocked our drive for awhile.
Funniest thing that happened at a yard sale years ago: Remember those mirrors you could win at the county fair, throwing darts, etc.? I had a Bad Company one with a marijuana leaf on it, and another one (from my ex...I swear) that had a big leaf and said Columbian Homegrown. A kid was with his parents. He picked up the mirrors and quietly asked me if I had a bag to put them in, so his parents wouldn't see.

 

[littletommy]

I bought a 1965 Fender mustang guitar, and a 1969 Fender princeton reverb amp at a yard sale years ago for $125 for both. I sold the amp to a friend of mine a few years ago for $500, and he offered me more. Still have the guitar.

Love yard sales!