From Craigslist to a Garage Sale
This was posted on Saturday morning.
I do hate having garage sales, because when I typically add up the sales, I sit all day and make $2.89 per hour. But, I have "stuff" I want rid of . . .
Because I have been unloading stuff, I set up shelves in one side of my two-car garage and have a semi display area of everything I want rid of.
What I am basically doing is posting items over $20 on Craigslist. When I have someone who wants that item, I will arrange a time that is totally convenient for me for them to come to my house. When they get here, I simply open that side of the garage, and show them the item they were interested in and let them know the rest is for sale. For my first attempt, the person spent $47 and took up maybe 15 minutes of my time. When he left, I simply shut my garage and carried on with my life.
Yesterday, because I had time, I did a "garage sale" from only 11:30 to 1. I posted it the night before on Craigslist, and also listed some items I had for sale. I ended up selling $80 in that time frame, which is ok for me because it is an hourly rate I can accept.
So basically if you have an area that you can section off as a semi-permanent garage sale area, you can list your items that are above a certain amount and sell those individually and upsell as that person comes to pick it up.
Also, you have an area where you can simply open up for one hour at any time if you want to do a regular public garage sale.
Also, as I am listing and selling and interacting, I am finding that some of the items I have are worth more than I think - I can generally gauge it by how many phone calls and messages I get on certain items. If I get 5 messages or calls, I know that item has some value.