Garage Sale SCs - and a First

[Skarredmind]

Ugh I have sooooo been there. I have always had a bit of the desert trader in me, so I have yard sales partly because they are fun. Except for the knobs.

I had an older but GOOD, and fully functional (and high wattage) microwave for sale. The *ONLY* reason I was selling it was because it was just too big to fit in the kitchen in the new house, priced at $10. Someone walked up to me and said,

Idiot "$5 is enough?"
Me (He was talking with an accent and it sounded like a question) "No its $10"
Idiot "No. $5 is enough."
Me (Oh he's bartering, ok, I don't want to carry it back in the house so...) "How about we call it $7.50?"
Idiot "$5 is enough."
Me "No, its not." (walks away)

It sounds a little petty here, but I was just thinking WTF you don't come up and demand prices.

Another one was a friend had a BIG box of Yarn, and put an ad in the paper about it. She got a call about it shortly after the ad came out and sold it for the price she was asking (probably could have got more actually, she was mostly thinking get it out of the house). Then for the next week she proceeded to get all sorts of SC calls, including ones offering half the price and telling her price was ridiculously high, and ones that even threatened to sue because she advertised a price for something then had the GALL to sell it before they could call her about it (still completely confused about that one... its like the knob thought she was a store that should issue rainchecks or something). Since then she's trashed a number of things rather than deal with the idiots in the paper.

[Dreamstalker]

Decluttered is always so uplifting.

I'm helping my dad with a yard sale when I go out there next week; predictably he hasn't sorted anything (and I know for a fact there is boxes and boxes of stuff in the garage). The sale is Saturday, I predict chaos in the house on Thursday and Friday (and probably plenty of SC tales on Sunday--this is a community sale involving about a dozen houses). One thing I need to drill into his head is to LOCK THE FRONT DOOR during the sale.

[Indigo]

I love getting SCs at my garage sales - especially when they decide to try and intimidate me. Because the moment they do, our three long-haired German Shepherds make themselves known - works every time

And early birds annoy me to no end. In order to get more traffic to my yard sales, I tend to post an ad on Craigslist which states that early birds will be charged double unless they bring coffee and donuts. I actually had one woman bring me donuts as I was setting up one morning. But usually I'll just park the truck across the end of the driveway to keep people out until I'm ready to open.

[Merriweather]

Then for the next week she proceeded to get all sorts of SC calls, including ones offering half the price and telling her price was ridiculously high, and ones that even threatened to sue because she advertised a price for something then had the GALL to sell it before they could call her about it (still completely confused about that one... its like the knob thought she was a store that should issue rainchecks or something). Since then she's trashed a number of things rather than deal with the idiots in the paper.

I like Craig's List, so I can just delete the ad the minute something sells.

I'm helping my dad with a yard sale when I go out there next week; predictably he hasn't sorted anything (and I know for a fact there is boxes and boxes of stuff in the garage). The sale is Saturday, I predict chaos in the house on Thursday and Friday (and probably plenty of SC tales on Sunday--this is a community sale involving about a dozen houses). One thing I need to drill into his head is to LOCK THE FRONT DOOR during the sale.

Yeah, we had to wing it a bit on this one (usually I'm quite organized), and afterwards I realized that without having prices on things, I know I let a couple of things go for less than I'd planned simply cause I either zoned on what to ask, or in at least one case, didn't realize until later that what the person had in their hand included something higer priced than the similar items they had. Time spent preparing does help a lot.

And early birds annoy me to no end. In order to get more traffic to my yard sales, I tend to post an ad on Craigslist which states that early birds will be charged double unless they bring coffee and donuts. I actually had one woman bring me donuts as I was setting up one morning. But usually I'll just park the truck across the end of the driveway to keep people out until I'm ready to open.

Love the coffee & donuts bit, I'll have to try that When we lived in the UK, we loved to go out to car boot sales (basically, flea markets - from a few tables in a pub carpark for a charity to huge ones held in fields every bank holiday Monday). One of the larger, regular ones had such a problem with people not even being able to get things out of their boot (trunk) and set up without the other dealers jumping in and rummaging, that for a small fee you could rent a roll of that orange plastic roll-out barrier stuff used at construction sites to put around your car til you were set up

[Dreamstalker]

I know I let a couple of things go for less than I'd planned simply cause I either zoned on what to ask, or in at least one case, didn't realize until later that what the person had in their hand included something higer priced than the similar items they had. Time spent preparing does help a lot.

He was thinking to just have colored stickers and a sign "everything with red stickers $1" etc...the problem with that is it would be too easy for tag-switching. Anything we have that's in an opaque box I plan to take it out and hide the boxes elsewhere (I've heard of SCs stashing stuff in boxes). Under no circumstances will anyone be let in the house; that happened when we were having a yard sale of my grandparents' stuff and we later discovered a few things missing.