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Thuh Garage Sale
Jun. 30th, 2008 03:36 amNot sure if it was a success or not. On the one hand, I took in a few hundred dollars. On the other hand, the income I lost because I knocked off early a couple of nights to gain some sleep time to prepare and run the sale would have been about the same.
I wrote up the ad a few days earlier, concentrating heavily on books. Books and LPs. I specified a start time, but not a full address, just a start time of eight am.
DD constructed a few signs for me, and I pulled out all the books I could do without from the office, piling them up in the dining room.
The day before I moved all the accumulated junk and chook food from out of the carport, and gave it a good sweeping. Something sorely needed, so that was a bonus.
I also went to the bank before starting work and got a hundred dollars worth of gold coins for change.
Came the day and there wasn't anything visible. No lights, no tables, no boxes. The dawn prowlers may have cruised up and down my street, but they didn't stop to bother me.
As eight approached, I moved the cars out and prepared my sale area behind a screen of cars in the driveway. Moved in the table and started loading it up with books from the dining room. Put down a mat to hold extraneous stuff like old toys, Lego, a few games. And began pulling out crates full of books from the shed.
DD went out, put up the signs, and moved the cars away.
And they came flooding in! People attracted by the ad, wanting books. At first I tried pricing books more or less individually. $2 each for anything without a sticker or priced under $10, and $5 for anything else. That worked for a bit, but people didn't go off with hundreds of books, just a handful.
When the flow declined, I revised my strategy. $1 a book, or $10 a crate. Sold a few crates worth
Essentially, what happened was that the buyers stripped the eyes out of the books on offer and refrained from carrying away boxes of paperback fiction.
It hurt a bit to see books that I knew were worth tens of dollars go for a buck. There was one book scout who cleaned up big.
Then again, these were the books that hadn't sold on the web in years of operation. And I'd already recouped my expenses in web sales. I guess that the time I spent in buying books, entering them into the database and packing them gained me no reward. Nothing but experience.
End result, I've still got thousands of books. I'll call up Lifeline today and arrange for them to take them away. I'll pull out anything especially valuable and sell on eBay.
I guess I made a few people happy with bargains. Maybe they'll make a few dollars in reselling them.
But I don't have the time to sell the books for what they are really worth, and I enjoy being a taxidriver far more. Bottom line is spending my time doing stuff I like.
And that my wife likes. She wants the downstairs room cleared of clutter, so that's what I'll do. Once the books are gone I can move the clutter into the shed and sort it out at my leisure.
The alternative was that she hire a skip and simply chuck everything into it, and that's going a little too far!
I wrote up the ad a few days earlier, concentrating heavily on books. Books and LPs. I specified a start time, but not a full address, just a start time of eight am.
DD constructed a few signs for me, and I pulled out all the books I could do without from the office, piling them up in the dining room.
The day before I moved all the accumulated junk and chook food from out of the carport, and gave it a good sweeping. Something sorely needed, so that was a bonus.
I also went to the bank before starting work and got a hundred dollars worth of gold coins for change.
Came the day and there wasn't anything visible. No lights, no tables, no boxes. The dawn prowlers may have cruised up and down my street, but they didn't stop to bother me.
As eight approached, I moved the cars out and prepared my sale area behind a screen of cars in the driveway. Moved in the table and started loading it up with books from the dining room. Put down a mat to hold extraneous stuff like old toys, Lego, a few games. And began pulling out crates full of books from the shed.
DD went out, put up the signs, and moved the cars away.
And they came flooding in! People attracted by the ad, wanting books. At first I tried pricing books more or less individually. $2 each for anything without a sticker or priced under $10, and $5 for anything else. That worked for a bit, but people didn't go off with hundreds of books, just a handful.
When the flow declined, I revised my strategy. $1 a book, or $10 a crate. Sold a few crates worth
Essentially, what happened was that the buyers stripped the eyes out of the books on offer and refrained from carrying away boxes of paperback fiction.
It hurt a bit to see books that I knew were worth tens of dollars go for a buck. There was one book scout who cleaned up big.
Then again, these were the books that hadn't sold on the web in years of operation. And I'd already recouped my expenses in web sales. I guess that the time I spent in buying books, entering them into the database and packing them gained me no reward. Nothing but experience.
End result, I've still got thousands of books. I'll call up Lifeline today and arrange for them to take them away. I'll pull out anything especially valuable and sell on eBay.
I guess I made a few people happy with bargains. Maybe they'll make a few dollars in reselling them.
But I don't have the time to sell the books for what they are really worth, and I enjoy being a taxidriver far more. Bottom line is spending my time doing stuff I like.
And that my wife likes. She wants the downstairs room cleared of clutter, so that's what I'll do. Once the books are gone I can move the clutter into the shed and sort it out at my leisure.
The alternative was that she hire a skip and simply chuck everything into it, and that's going a little too far!
