Fail

[Flasch186]

My wife is holding a garage sale right now that she has kept me uninvolved with. Now I find out why when I go see the prices she put on crap. I am actually running rescue sorties to go outside and save things from this ridiculousness. unbelievable. :banghead:

[DanGarion]

My wife is holding a garage sale right now that she has kept me uninvolved with. Now I find out why when I go see the prices she put on crap. I am actually running rescue sorties to go outside and save things from this ridiculousness. unbelievable. :banghead:

Are the items too low or too high?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Are the items too low or too high?

+1

[Eaglesfan27]

I'm guessing they are too low which is why Flasch is trying to rescue them. Seems like if they were too high he could remain uninvolved until the end of the day.

[Flasch186]

too low, even some buyers, while im out on a sortie, confirm my feelings that things are real "bargains".

[JonInMiddleGA]

That's an issue if the primary objective is turning a profit.

If on the other hand the primary goal is to clear space & unload clutter then it's probably not such a big deal.

I've seen both motivations and I've seen pricing errors in both directions ... which does a good bit to explain why I haven't done one of those sales in years.

[DanGarion]

That's an issue if the primary objective is turning a profit.

If on the other hand the primary goal is to clear space & unload clutter then it's probably not such a big deal.

I've seen both motivations and I've seen pricing errors in both directions ... which does a good bit to explain why I haven't done one of those sales in years.

It depends on what you feel is a profit. If you have got your use out of the items and no longer want them, then pretty much anything you get is a loss anyway, but since you don't want them anymore and got use it could technically be looked at as profit no matter how much you get. Most things are worth only what someone is willing to pay...

[JonInMiddleGA]

It depends on what you feel is a profit. If you have got your use out of the items and no longer want them, then pretty much anything you get is a loss anyway, but since you don't want them anymore and got use it could technically be looked at as profit no matter how much you get. Most things are worth only what someone is willing to pay...

Yeah, I could have been more detailed I guess. I've just personally never been inclined to put items into a garage/yard/tag sale that I had any more use for, so I'm definitely in the "anything is profit at this point" category. But there's a lot of variance in how people do that, some folks use them in lieu of selling through classifieds, eBay, etc. and are looking for a more serious return on an item that they'd just as soon not part with unless someone makes it worth their while. If the stuff is more in that grouping then pricing errors are a lot tougher to tolerate.

[RendeR]

Flasch..umm..perhaps she kept you uninvolved precisely for this reason ? *grins*

She's trying to clear stuff out, I doubt she really cares how much she makes if the prices are too low =) (in your opinion)


just looking at it from a different direction ;)

[Mustang]

Wish there were garage sales up here in January.

Of course, there are estate sales, but those are too creepy for me.

[cartman]

Of course, there are estate sales, but those are too creepy for me.

If you can get past the creepy factor, you can find incredible bargains at these.

[Anthony]

there's a reason why the term garage sale is one letter away from "garbage sale". that stuff is gonna get thrown away. i don't pay top or equal dollar for things that someone else doesn't value. your wife is correct in that if she truly wants some things gone then you gotta put a low price tag on them.

[JonInMiddleGA]

If you can get past the creepy factor, you can find incredible bargains at these.

+1, my wife loves 'em. Since it's mostly antiques that she's looking for at those, I think she looks at it as giving a good home to something that the deceased would have wanted to be taken care of.

[gstelmack]

The whole point of a yard sale is to clear clutter. If you get enough money to go to dinner, great. People will typically dicker even at the rock-bottom prices.

And if you look real close, you can probably find the stuff that someone dickered with you over at the local fleamarket the following weekend...

[Buccaneer]

You don't have a Goodwill (or something similar) in your area? We have donated thousands of dollars worth of stuff each year (using thrift store prices) and ended up with an actual return on deduction greater than the time and prices we would have gotten to do a garage sale.

[JonInMiddleGA]

You don't have a Goodwill (or something similar) in your area? We have donated thousands of dollars worth of stuff each year (using thrift store prices) and ended up with an actual return on deduction greater than the time and prices we would have gotten to do a garage sale.

Does anybody's Goodwill/etc actually do their own receipts or is everywhere pretty much like all the ones around here where you can put down whatever you want to on a blank ticket they're happy to provide?

[M GO BLUE!!!]

I bet most of the crap she's trying to move for pocket change is Flasch's.

Take a few things of hers out there that annoy the hell out of you. ;)

[Buccaneer]

Does anybody's Goodwill/etc actually do their own receipts or is everywhere pretty much like all the ones around here where you can put down whatever you want to on a blank ticket they're happy to provide?

We have three in town (all huge places) and they indicate the number of "bags" (the unit of measure being a grocery bag) in each of 20 categories. Before I drop off, I create a spreadsheet of item types and price (e.g., 7 Men's Jeans at $10 or 25 Children's Shirts at $1). As far as actual dollars, $1000 worth of stuff (at thrift store prices) can net me $100 in additional tax refund.

[JPhillips]

Does anybody's Goodwill/etc actually do their own receipts or is everywhere pretty much like all the ones around here where you can put down whatever you want to on a blank ticket they're happy to provide?

When I was the Production Manager for a 401c3 theatre I was specifically instructed that I wasn't allowed to provide a value for donated items. I don't know if that's just legal advice or truly against the law.

[miked]

Here at Northlake Mall, they just give you a nice blank sheet and TurboTax does the rest. I keep an inventory and usually get a decent tax refund, much better than I would have made haggling with the sort of people that go to garage sales in my area.

[Mustang]

The whole point of a yard sale is to clear clutter. If you get enough money to go to dinner, great. People will typically dicker even at the rock-bottom prices.


My friend had a garage sale and a glass was marked 10 cents. A lady tried to get him to accept 5 cents so took the glass and dropped it and told her she could have it for free now.

He has never had another garage sale.

[Comey]

When I was a manager at one of the biggest/most profitable Salvation Army's on the east coast, we had a guide for valuing items. With all the volume we had coming in, we didn't have time to go through each bag. So, it gets put more on the donator to self-value their items, using the general guide to help them.

[Lathum]

My friend had a garage sale and a glass was marked 10 cents. A lady tried to get him to accept 5 cents so took the glass and dropped it and told her she could have it for free now.

He has never had another garage sale.

that's awesome

[SackAttack]

I bet most of the crap she's trying to move for pocket change is Flasch's.

Take a few things of hers out there that annoy the hell out of you. ;)

That was what I took from 'rescue,' was that she was selling Flasch's crap that she wanted to get rid of, and for less than he thought it should have been priced, to boot. ;)

[sterlingice]

I bet most of the crap she's trying to move for pocket change is Flasch's.

Take a few things of hers out there that annoy the hell out of you. ;)

This is easily the correct answer. Obviously, she'd just trying to get rid of Flasch's crap so it's time to return the favor. Make sure it's priced really low so it will move immediately, too.

SI

[Karlifornia]

I've been exposed to this garage sale underbelly where people use words like "dicker" and "sortie"


I'm freaking out.

[AgustusM]

my wife and her friends use to gather their stuff together and have a garage sale that from setup to finish would take about 8 hours - they would collectivity make about $200 and then spend $300 on food and wine and complain about how tired they all were.

Really, what is the point of that?

Now I put the stuff our for charity and give here a hundred bucks to go out with her friends, we are all a lot happier.

[DanGarion]

My friend had a garage sale and a glass was marked 10 cents. A lady tried to get him to accept 5 cents so took the glass and dropped it and told her she could have it for free now.

He has never had another garage sale.

That's clutch!

[Drake]

My wife's idea of a yard sale is pricing things at 50% of what she thinks their current retail value is.

My idea of a yard sale is "Everything for 10 cents or less, with bulk discounts for people who want to just load shit into the back of their truck."

Needless to say, when she has a yard sale, I don't participate except to hold her when she cries at the end of the day because no one bought anything. (And then to rent the dumpster to haul the unsold shit away.)

[flere-imsaho]

I don't bother with yard sales, I donate the crap directly to charity. Luckily around us there's a rotating group of like 3 or 4 charities which will cart it off from our front door and leave a receipt.

And that's not even mentioning the metal scrappers who show up each garbage day.