Pricing for Garage Sale

[PunkRockinHorn]

a friend and I are having a garage sale sat. morning, and we have a general idea of how we should price things, but a little more input from some experienced garage salers would be appreciated....specifically how much should i sell my golf clubs and bag for...the clubs are in alright condition and the bag is in really good condition...suggestions???

 

[ldogg53]

no way to tell without knowing brand... quality of bag..etc..

but basically I've always priced things at what I would pay for them at a garage sale + a few bucks on top... so if you walked into a garage sale and saw those clubs and bag sitting there what is the maximum you'd pay? then add another $10 or so..

 

[TTUStudent]

Id try and ebay everything first, then garage sale anything that doesnt get sold.

 

[TX_HORNS]

I agree with TTUStudent, especially where **** like golf clubs or other larger dollar items are concerned. For smaller stuff though, EBay wouldn't be worth the time or hassle.

We usually have one garage sale a year and my advice is to price **** where you have bargaining room because everybody will offer less no matter how low you have something priced. For example, I inherited an uncle's possessions and we had an estate sale. He had about 5 Polo button down dress shirts he'd never worn with tags still on them (wouldn't fit any of my family or friends I offered them to, so they went into the sale). We priced them cheap as **** at 4 bucks apiece. Every person who walked in tried to talk us down to a 50 cents or a dollar for them. I understand bargaining is part of the deal with a garage sale but ****, it's a brand new $70 shirt. I'd donate the ****** to Goodwill before I took 50 cents for it. I did finally get the four bucks I was asking for them, but have since let my wife handle the bargaining at our garage sale.

One last piece of advice: keep an eye on stuff. Numerous times we've caught people trying to walk off with **** who when confronted pull some kind of "oh I completely forgot to pay" ********.

 

[PunkRockinHorn]

the bag is a Palmer...i dont even know how good that is...i havent played for a while....most of the stuff we're selling is small stuff, but i may try the ebay route...thanks for the suggestions...

 

[horn4life]

On men's shirts this was my saying and it blew the stuff out.
"If it's got a collar it's a dollar, if not fifty cents."

 

[Cheeky Baby]

I've done Ebay since 1998 and have been pretty successful selling off all kinds of crap I didn't want anymore, crap I bought at a garage sale/thrift shop, and name-brand clothes I don't want anymore. However, ebay has gotten so big for its britches and no longer cares about us "little people" anymore. They actually promote buying (on Ebay) wholesale lots and reselling them, of course, on Ebay. That being said...

...do a little research on whatever it is you're trying to sell before you waste time putting it up. Golf clubs are heavy and would cost so much to ship, that most people would probably just buy them somewhere locally.

A few years ago, we got a hold of about 20 brand new Big Berthas for only $10 each, turned around and sold them at our garage sale and made a killing. At the same time, we had a bunch of new and gently used hunting overalls (I guess that's what you call them) that we got for almost nothing and also made a great profit off of. Furniture does fairly well, depending on the condition. My ex and I made almost $3,000 over a weekend and probably 85% was furniture.

Whatever you do, just keep in mind that it IS a garage sale and no one gives a **** how much you paid for something originally or that it belonged to your grandmother, etc. I'm have a GS in a couple weeks and have tons of namebrand clothes that I spent a lot on, but I'm just going to say $1 for each piece.

PRICE IT TO SELL, unless you don't mind storing it for the next garage sale.

 

[Black Scholes]

Sincere question:

How is a garage sale worth the time and effort? Wouldn't you get just about the same benefit by donating the stuff to Goodwill or the like and taking the charitable contribution tax deduction?

 

[AhhhCraig]

Cheeky, I want to know how you got 20 or so brand new Big Bertha golf clubs. Were they fakes? What's the scoop?

 

[Cheeky Baby]

Craig - Our neighbor was this big wig exec for Guiness. When he wife finally made the wise decision to divorce the cheating, controlling, abusive SOB, he had a garage sale before moving out. He just wanted to get rid of stuff and since we were neighbors and I babysat their kids from birth when I was younger, he gave us a "pre-sale" and pretty much took whatever on anything he had. We walked away with so much awesome stuff for like $200 bucks. This included the Big Berthas, the hunting gear, a brand new pair of men's Cole Haan's, tons of Guiness stuff, and some stuff he had picked up in one of his many trips to Ireland. This was before Ebay, but I tell you, we could have made even more if we had auctioned it off.

 

[PunkRockinHorn]

well i'm 22 and live with my parents and we donate a lot of stuff throughout the year to various places so i'm not all that worried about the tax write-off stuff... and honestly it isnt all that much work for me...i could use the little extra cash it is going to give or i wouldnt be having it

 

[texaslgr]

How did the garage sale go? Wife and I raked in a little over $400 on Saturday. Stayed up all night with some folks drinking beer and setting up, struck up the BBQ pit around 4:00am for some fajitas and sausage, breakfast tacos at 6:30am, in bed and done for the day at 2:00pm.

Good times.....and, yes, it was worth it.