Garage Sale
A community event. The ultimate way to
re-cycle. A great way to make some extra cash. A strange and truly
american custom. Anyway you want to look at it, a Garage sale can be
an interesting way to spend a Saturday. Well..... maybe once a year.
One of the things about being
associated with a suave savvy sophisticated and money wise partner is
you get to learn a lot of new things. For this week I was learning
about Garage Sales. Did you know, for instance, that there is an
entire science dedicated to the proper marketing of Garage Sales and
the appropriate merchandising of the items contained therein?
Let me explain.
Garage Sale Marketing 101
First, you have to get out the word.
Different communities are using different mechanisms. It used to be
that the way to go was the Newspaper (in our case, The Oregonian) but
evidently that is too passe even for the older neighborhoods. Just
nobody does Oregonian anymore, probably because they don't actual
deliver much anymore. No, we put a add online on Craig's List. And
you don't just list your sale, you also list some of your big sale
items. Perhaps you even list the big sale items separately and
announce that they can be viewed from 9 to 2 on Saturday (hey, that
is during my Garage Sale, Perfect !). In our case our big items where
a nice china Hutch and matching dining table and a big bin of Legos.
The Legos got a few calls right off the bat. More on them later.
Now once you have the word out, you
have to price things and get things set up such that people will
actually buy them. You have to do Merchandising. You can't just leave
things sitting around and expect people to find them and buy them, no
no no. You have to put them up high enough for older people (the ones
with time and money) to be able to comfortably peruse. This means
tables. Lots of tables. We didn't actually have too many tables, but
what we did have was a bunch of long boards (no idea from where) and
a bunch of small size moving boxes full of my books. Two boxes
stacked on top of each other, 2 stacks for legs, board on top.....
bang.... a table.
Then you need a bunch of the little
circle labels and some larger sticky labels and a pen and you go to
town.
But now what? Do you price things
according to their value or to get them to sell? Do you put a high
initial price and see if people but them? You can always mark them
down later. But the real buyers come early. But if your prices are
too low then you are losing money. I think the most important thing
is to just get prices on everything. You can wander around the garage
all day changing prices if you want.
My partner likes to arrange things by
function. So we had a table for kitchen stuff (50 cents for any
cooking utensil. When two households collide you have a lot of
leftover spatulas), another table for electronics (with the cable
grab box!!) and another table for household type stuff; like blankets
and quilting supplies. In the center and spilling out into the
driveway (Boy I hope it doesn't rain) were all of the random big
things. We had some good random big things. We had: 2 air
conditioners (one in-window, one standing), a lounge chair (very
comfy), the aforementioned China hutch and table, numerous suitcases,
my 2 old WWII down mummy sleeping bags (man it was hard to give up
those bags) and a nice standing lamp. And a bin of Legos!
Did you know that there is a huge
thriving business in re-cycled LEGO pieces? On eBay there are many
sellers advertizing boxes of “newly cleaned” used legos. They
sell them by the pound. About $20 a pound for just a bunch of random
bricks (though they claim to have some larger and more interesting
pieces (like airplane canopies and wings)). $20 a pound and it seems
like we had at least 10 pounds worth. We marked the bin at $60. And
we were not going to negotiate because this is one of the things that
we know we can sell on Craig's list. (oh hell, if you had come
and offered me $50, I would have buckled).
So, we have our advertizement. We have
our Merchandising. We have our pricing. Are we ready to go? Hell no!
You forgot two of the most important things: Change and Signage !!
You need a whole bunch of 1's and 5s (cause everyone has fraking 20s)
and you need quarters (cause you are a fraking idiot and think that
the 25cent grab box-o-random-electric-cables is a good
thing...twerp). You also need signs that start at some real road
(that real people know about and drive on) and lead to your “Home
in the sticks”. Geeze, we have a Portland Address and we have
people telling us that they have no idea how to get “back to the
road”. Of course, we had people that I was pretty sure hadn't found
their way back to their homes in the last decade or so. But I
digress.
So signs. Hand lettered. I wonder what
they said, I never saw them. Let me ask. They said, “SALE, SATURDAY
9-2 ------>” and they had our address; 223157 stick street.
Signs are important. Our neighbors have permanent signs that they
use. They offered to lend them to us. I guess If people got to the
house across the street they could then find us. We would be the
house with the stuff in the yard. “You having a yard sale?” asked
one of the first guys to arrive at 9:00 while I was carrying a box
into the driveway. “No,” I replied “I just like stacking this
shit in my driveway with signs on it”. Turns out this guy saw my
partner out putting up signs and pretty much followed her back to the
house. Well, he would follow the way she put up the arrow signs. He
evidently got ahead of her one time and had to circle back till she
put up the last arrow.
And this was one of the normal
guys......
So. The people.
We have many classes of people. My
neighbors with the permanent signs were one of the first to arrive. I
think they just wanted to come over and chat some. But they looked
around and took a few children's books for a school donation and were
very pleasant. Perhaps that is why Americans have yard sales; to meet
the neighbors. We had another neighbor come and buy the nice bicycle
we didn't have room for. I didn't get to meet them. I must have been
counting money or changing prices. Who else did we have? We had the
WWII veteran. He was very nice. Told us about his wife of 60 years
who just passed recently. He was looking for something for his great
grandson who was coming to visit him for a week. Think of that,
visiting your great-grandfather and actually being able to do things
with him (and perhaps even remember him). I told him that I was
getting married on Thursday and was hoping for 60 years with my wife
too. He looked at me kinda funny and said “Good luck with that.”.
Who else?
There was the guy who really wanted to
buy a lot of things but just didn't have the money. He did take the
huge Ikea TV Console from Hell. Damn thing must have weighed over 100
pounds. But he bought it ($15 now and $15 more when I come back with
my truck). He also ended up with a lounge chair. My partner let me talk to him when he came back, because he stood too close to her the first time. Funny, he didn't do that
to me.
The junk metal guy came by in a pickup
with high plywood signs. He just wanted a price on boxes of metal
things. Pots and pans. Random metal weights. My wonderful but
previously unused “50cent Box-o-random-electronic-cables”. $5.00.
“Oh, you must be kidding, I just want the scrap”. He told me the
story of his very well wrapped but slightly short middle right
finger. (His english wasn't very good). “I was carrying metal, you
know? And I had an air-conditioner and when I picked it up the freon
sprayed on my hand, you know? It was very cold. Very Cold. But I
shook it off and it stopped hurting after 5 minutes. No big deal, you
know? Then two weeks go by and it turns black and it really starts to
hurt. It really hurts and I go to the doctor. And they say they can't
do anything for me. You know? They want to operate. I could see my
bones in the flesh, you know? And they find a little tiny splinter.
But they can't do anything for me, and they give me pills.” at
this point he suddenly can say a few words very clearly, “They give
me Oxycontin and Vicodin and Hydro Co Done. But it doesn't help very
much. And as you can see, it is a problem. It is a problem for me
because I play the accordion. It is very sad.” And off he went.
People of many sizes came in. Many
people that I was amazed could walk came in and just wandered around
for 5 minutes and then wandered out. No free large chunks of gold in
that garage sale. Damn.
Had some nice families come in. Dad
bought his son the flatscreen TV for $50. “He shot my other TV with
an airsoft gun. Put a hole in the screen. It was an accident.”
When the families came by the son or
daughter always went straight to the bin-o-legos. The boys would
immediately start building something. Usually a space ship. I could
tell because they would announce “I am building a space ship”.
The girls would pick out the little lego action characters and make
comments about their attire and social status. “This one is very
rare, you know. Very rare. See the green shoes?” I liked the
families. Dad would usually buy something. Mom would encourage the
kids to get books. One young lady (perhaps 14) was going through the
books in a very concerted fashion. At a dollar a book you gotta think
that a book lover would be having some fun. Hey, Powell's Books !!
LOL. (sorry, this is a double inside joke). I engaged her for a
minute to see what she was interested in. There were a lot of good
books there, but only if you like what I or my partner read or study.
She found “Great Gatsby” and was very happy. I might be done with
a book, but I still like it to go to a good home.
The Memories
Perhaps THAT is what a garage sale is
about. You have all of this stuff. All of these parts of your life.
Things you really needed and were kind to you in the past. That WWII
air force down bag, for instance. That started life as a 2 foot
square flat box with a quarter inch screw through it. It was made to
be screwed onto the back of a ejection seat of a jet fighter pilot. I
say a jet airplane but then I have to revise my WWII story. OK,
Korean war jet ejection seat (be crazy to be Vietnam, it is a heavy
down bag, for gosh sakes). Anyway, the flat box (made of fiberglass)
had a metal zip cord around the outside rim. You pull on that wire
and it would tear open the box and the bag would WOOSH out. (Well, it
would woosh out exactly once. No getting it back in). Then you have
this really fabulous down mummy bag. A really fabulous down mummy bag
with screw holes randomly through it. My mom sewed up the holes (editor's note: with fabulous little red triangle patches) and
then I started using it (Them actually, there were two. My brother
probably had dibs on one). It was hard to find a place that was cold
enough to use them. They were very warm. They were also reversible.
Forest green on one side. Snow White on the other. Lets your jet
fighter pilot eject into any enemy territory and hide out. No zipper.
Just crawl in and pull the draw string tight. I remember using one in
college on a hiking trip into the white mountains. It was very cold.
I was not. Anyway. I have this thing with memories. A part of my
life. But it doesn't fit me anymore and I can't find anyone that
wants it (even after I tell the stories) and I have been hauling it
around unused for 35 years now. Enough. I love you but it is time to
go. I don't just want to dump you in Goodwill. I want to look into
the eyes of the loving great-grandfather who had one of these “During
the War” and wants to give it to his great-grandson that is now a
first class in the Boyscouts. And for that, you need a garage sale.
You also need to be very lucky.
As my partner told me, on my second or
third trip to the Good Will truck. “It isn't that no one wants your
silly old sleeping bag. I mean, your very special and warm old
sleeping bag. It means that no one wants your very special and warm
old sleeping bag today. If we had done a little more advertizing and
spent more time on merchandising and been open for 3 or 4 days, so
that everyone had a chance to come by, we would have sold a lot more
of our strange stuff. Maybe even your sleeping bags.”
Sigh
Which brings us to....
Cleanup
When all is said and done, you still
have a bunch of old redundant or useless crap in your garage and
driveway. Suck it up, buttercup. Load up the old Adventure Mobile and
cart that crap to Goodwill, wonderful down survival sleeping bags and
all. Just throw that crap right away. But get a receipt and make a
list. That crap is worth THOUSANDS on tax day.
Still for Sale:
Bin O Legos: $60
China Hutch: $250
Very Expandable Dining Table. With
Pads. Matches the Hutch: $150
(Hutch and Table together: $350)
(Hutch and Table AND Legos: $400)
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