Ten Yard Sale Lessons

I helped manage my great aunt's yard sale these past few days, and here's what I've learned:

1. If it is screwed in, bolted, and otherwise permanently affixed to the wall, someone's still gonna ask if it's for sale.

2. If you sell someone a Bible, he will repay you with a long sililoquy about how it isn't just ancient history--the second coming is in fact soon at hand! We just have to wait for Iran and Russia to join forces and attack Israel, and Jesus and the antichrist will duke it out over the Temple Mount. Just nod and smile, and don't try to seem too much like a blue-state, godless, fornicatin', ivy-league, no-good elitist. (I mean "ivy league" in the general sense of course, as in any East Coast university with a liberal faculty--or is that redundant?)

3. Those fab-u-lous furnishings you bought 20 years ago that were just so in style and for which you paid thousands of dollars...yeah, those...well, I hate to tell ya, but they aren't going to come back into fashion for at least another 20 years. You might as well just hold onto them, unless of course you can refrain from whining and moaning about how much they cost you as the unshaven bachelor in front of you offers you $25. (This leads me to my new Yard Sale Rule of Tenths: if it cost you $100 originally, you can probably expect to get $10 at most. This is not true of cars, but certainly true of almost everything else.)

4. Did you have to reread that last paragraph to make sure I said "bachelors"? Yep, most of our customers were male: divorced, single guys, unaccompanied husbands, furniture dealers...whatever. This surprised me because I expected old bitties, especially at an old bitty's yard sale. I think some of them just wanted a friend to talk to. They got a ten cent wrench and ten dollars' worth of conversation. What a bargain.

5. The really hot ticket items were the smallest and grubbiest things there. Who buys used bed sheets? I don't care how many times you wash them. Just eww. And my great aunt's old nighties and dressing gowns? (Now, I know in Japan used women's underwear is sold in vending machines, but I had not realized this trend had spread so far.)

6. This leads me to believe that people don't go to yard sales for the big stuff. If they want furniture, they go to a furniture store. When they come to your junk sale, they want your junk. I don't know why. See number four.

7. It's best if you can organize your own yard sale, price the items (with room for negotiation), and then leave the actual selling to your friends. This keeps you from the last-minute sentimental pangs as your realize the artifacts of your life are on the auction block. My great aunt kept inspecting the books people were buying, pulling out every tenth one with a mournful, "Noooo! This one's not for saaale!" Making your customers feel like they have just run over your dog is not the best sales technique.

8. Despite all the crazy stories of people stealing from garage sales or bringing their own Sharpie markers to relabel the prices on the sly, the yard sale crowd is a pretty honest one in my experience. They may not have any taste, but they have their morals. Left alone while I was helping other customers, one woman came up two flights of stairs to find me to give me a dime for some little knick-knack she wanted. (No, I don't know the point in selling something for a dime, but people will still buy it--they may be even more inclined to do so than if it were free.)

9. To add to the credibility of this particular subset of the American population, I noticed that many people were buying clothing and other items to give to homeless shelters, churches, and other needy causes. My aunt plans to give the remainder of the stuff away anyway, but that did not stop them from wanting to do a good deed.

10. You're really not going to make much money selling your stuff, it's true. But you will be able to get rid of a lot of the damndest things, and sometimes they are even sold to people whom you think will appreciate them. And, if you're like my great aunt, who at the last minute tried to retag everything at five times our original prices for the flea market dealers who arrived even before the sale was open, don't bother. You need those guys to take some of the big ticket items off your hands. Yeah, they will sell them for at least double what they paid, but they have the patience and the steady traffic of customers to allow for higher prices. You don't. They're getting a good deal, but hey everyone's gotta make a living.

Now I just have to remember this for the coming months when all my treasures are on sale. Open the bidding!

(Photo of Seattle yard sale sign posted on Flickr.com by mindfulbreath.)