Before the advent of Craig’s List, garage sales were the way we got rid of all that stuff we truly didn’t need anymore. Or some people used garage sales to buy – at bargain prices – all that stuff they swore they could really could use.
So this is the time of year when you see driveways full of all that good-intentioned but barely used exercise equipment (now that I can go outside and exercise, I don’t need a stationery bike, you say to yourself), old bed frames, plastic serving platters that you got for free from the caterer, glass vases, and the toys and clothes the kids have outgrown.
When it comes to garage sales, there are two distinct groups of people (though they don’t have to be mutually exclusive) – the buyers and the sellers. Their intersection is evidence of the old adage, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
I fall into the seller category, though I haven’t had a garage sale in quite a while. The amount of merchandise coming into this house hasn’t slowed down, mind you, but I am not getting rid of much of it these days – or at least not since I moved into this house in 2007, after having gotten rid of plenty.
As a seller, the motto is simple: “Move the merchandise.” The last thing you want to do is drag it all out to the driveway and then drag it all back down the basement again. So if that’s the plan, you need to play “the price is right,” and be willing to concede when it isn’t. You put stickers on most everything, and throw the small stuff into a box marked, “All items 50 cents.” People will still pick up a book, examine it like it is a first edition of Hemingway, and ask, “Will you take a dime?” And, depending on the attitude of the potential buyer, you might make a deal. After all, you are in this to make money, right?
Once, I was selling two shower massagers. One was used, so I marked it at $3. The other was brand new, still in the box, so I marked it $5, which I knew was a fraction of the original cost. It was only because I couldn’t install it and didn’t want to pay for a plumber that it was unused in the first place. So bargain hunter A comes up the driveway and begins an examination of both items that was more thorough than my last physical and offers me $3 – for the brand new one. No, I advise her, for $3 you can have that used one. “I give you $3,” she declares. Let’s face it, attitude has a lot to do with the negotiations here, and I didn’t like hers. “No, for $3 you can buy the used one.” By now I am figuring that I’d like to take both and smash them on the driveway in front of her rather than accept her offer. PS – I don’t remember what happened to the shower massagers, but I know that neither went home with her.
Some buyers are very specific. They do a drive-by of your sale and call out the window: “Do you have any kids’ furniture?” Once a woman stopped by and bought all of my audio tapes (OK, this was so long ago that we didn’t have CDs then). She didn’t care about the music, since she was probably hauling them off to Englishtown to sell at a flea market. Another time a man came by looking for old VCRs. He didn’t care whether they worked since he was looking for parts. The next year I had more VCRs ready in case he showed up again. Sadly, he didn’t.
People like to examine your merchandise and they want assurance that it will work. Once someone came back the day after the sale ended to return a phone that allegedly didn’t work. Return? At a garage sale? We don’t have a return policy. The trouble is, they know where you live. But didn’t you see our “Going Out of Business” sign?
A friend of mine used to have an annual garage sale, and there was so much stuff in her driveway that she needed multiple “sales people” to handle the crowd. We set up a sporting goods department, grouped the lamps together, and assured buyers that new merchandise was arriving daily. The next week, someone stopped back, assuming this was a weekly event. Her husband made out well that year when he accidentally sold a car. Put it this way: The car wasn’t for sale – at least not until someone made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
My sister and I combined forces for a garage sale at her house once, where she was determined to get rid of all the stuff her son no longer needed, including a bike. She priced it fairly and then engaged in rigorous negotiations – with a little girl, whose mother sat in the car while the kid delivered her authorized top price. In the end, the kid caved. “Congratulations,” I offered my sister. “You just beat the kid out of a dollar.”
Another time I was selling an old microwave. The house I had just bought had a built-in model, so I didn’t need the countertop one from the old house. Someone came along and paid me $20 for it – big bucks in the garage sale biz. As he was walking away, lugging the bulky microwave, he turned to me and asked, “Does it work?” Shouldn’t he have asked me that before plunking down his $20? Yes, I assured him, explaining why I was getting rid of it. He bought it – the microwave and the story.
Garage sales typically begin on Friday and can last through Sunday. Even as you are dragging your stuff out, the “early birds” begin flocking in. These are the people who arrive before the published start time of the sale, eager to beat out the competition for the prime merchandise. It is always a pain to deal with them, because you are busy setting up, figuring out where things are going to go and how to show them in the best way, all the while keeping an eye on the early arrivals, both for their interest and to be sure that they won’t walk off with something behind your back. Some people want to bargain with you early, offering half of your tagged price. “It’s 8 AM,” I told one person. “Come back at 3 and if it is still here, then we can talk.” I sold that item for the listed price that morning. While I was hustling my merchandise, the neighbor down the street was more clever. She sold cold drinks and grilled hotdogs on a hot day. I know SHE made money that day.
As a shopper, you have to get out early (which is one reason I don’t shop garage sales, since I am not a morning person). My friend, a dedicated garage sale shopper and antiques expert, told me recently about the beautiful outdoor bar she spotted at a neighbor’s house. It would be just perfect for her deck, she explained. But, unfortunately, by the time she got there, it had already been sold. And that was at 7:30.
You can pick up considerable bargains at garage sales. My friend’s husband bought a pressure cooker years ago for about a dollar. He still uses it. And other friends have bought their grandchildren all kinds of children’s furniture, car seats, high chairs, desks and toys for a fraction of what you’d pay at Toys R Us. Most of the stuff is in pretty good shape or can be cleaned and spiffed up to look like new.
Shoppers take heart when they hear stories about people who have spent $5 on a painting and later found out it was an original by Rembrandt or some other famous artist (fueled by the popularity of the PBS series, “Antiques Roadshow”). Those stories are usually “urban legends,” but it is nice to think we can own a piece of art that the Metropolitan Museum of Art would die for, isn’t it?
As a seller, with all that work – retrieving your sale items, sorting and pricing them, putting them on display – you want your sale to show a profit. If you end the sale with little to haul away and $50 in your pocket, it is a good day. The more good merchandise you have, the more money you will make (weather and other conditions taken into consideration). Another friend recently had a garage sale where her husband sold old fishing rods he had repaired and he made $400. She sold enough stuff to make $75, so she didn’t do as well, but she had little left to haul back into the house.
One option is not to return the leftovers back to the house at all, but simply to leave them at the curb with a sign reading “FREE.” Still, once in a while, you see someone examining the free vacuum cleaner you left at the curb, checking that every attachment is there and in what looks like workable condition before deciding whether to take it away – FOR FREE! Man, you can’t give some stuff away!
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