Garage sales, yard sales, rummage sales… Whatever you want to call them it is a great source for items you can resell on eBay and make a good profit. There are many sellers on eBay that get most of their products from garage sales and don’t need to look for other sources to make a good part-time income. I personally have made some unbelievable profit margins on items I have picked up at local sales. In my early days of selling on eBay, I once made over $2,000 profit in one weekend of garage saling. Though garage sales are not one of my main sources of products for eBay currently, you can still find me rummaging through others unwanted goods from time to time. I do plan on challenging myself later this year and see just how good I can do in one weekend. I will of course post my results here.
Here are my best tips for finding great treasures at garage sales:
1. Plan out what garage sales you want to go to the day before - Look in your local newspaper’s classified section. Many of the garage sales are listed there. However, don’t stop your planning with the newspaper. Craigslist is becoming an ever increasingly popular place to post garage sale ads. Recently I have seen many sales ONLY advertised on Craigslist and the descriptions are more detailed since Craigslist doesn’t charge per word like the newspaper.
2. Start Early & Move Quickly- Most sales start at about 8:00 am. Most of the best deals of the day will be found before 10:00 am so make sure you get a very early start. Also make sure you move from sale to sale as quickly as possible. The whole key here is to get to as many sales as you can. If your wife/husband is not into eBay… DO NOT BRING THEM ALONG WITH YOU! I can get to approximately 4X as many sales without my wife in tow. Add my kids and it moves up to about 10X as many.
3. Bring Enough Cash – Take at least $200 with you… More if you can afford it. I once found a great collection of CDs and I didn’t have enough cash on me to purchase it. I had to run to the ATM to get more cash and by the time I got back it was gone.
4. Have Someone You Can Call To Look Up Larger Ticket Items – When I go to garage sales I have at least 2 different people I know I can call to look up the value of something for me on eBay. I once came across a large sound mixer that was used at an auditorium. They were asking $100 for it. I had a good idea that it was worth more than that, but wanted to make sure before plopping down a Benjamin. I called home and had my wife look it up… It was going for $400 on eBay. I don’t call for every little item, but for the larger priced items it is a good idea… I now have a cell phone with internet. Wow is it great at garage sales!!! If you are going to use garage sales as a main product source for eBay, I highly recommend getting an internet capable phone or a laptop with wireless internet access!
5. Take A Notebook With You – I seem to always forget how much I paid for an item. I also pass up some items at sales that I would like to research when I get home. A notebook is a great way to record both. By writing down the price you paid for different items you will have a clear picture of how much profit you made. By writing down items you were interested in but didn’t buy you can research later and you will know next time you run across that item.
6. Get A Deal On A Group Of Items – This is probably my best tip of all. Try to get a whole group of items for one price (usually the same type of item such as books, dvds, barbies, etc). I got to a sale early one morning and saw about 120 DVDs in a bookcase for $4.00 each. I asked what they would take for all of the DVDs. Once they got over the shock of the question, they asked if I thought $100 was too much. I acted like I had to think about it for a minute and said, “no I think I could do it for $100″. I sold the lot of DVDs for over $400. Another example is a Mary Kay makeup lot… This lady was getting out of the makeup business and had the rest of her inventory in her garage sale. I estimated the value she had on all the items if bought individually was $800. I asked how much she would take for all of it. She was very happy to get rid of it for $100. Sold… I made $400 profit on that transaction.
Garage sales are a fun way to product source for eBay. You get to go out and meet a lot of people while you do some treasure hunting. Not a bad way to spend a Friday or Saturday (or both if you are really serious).
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