When Garage Sales Go Bad

When you hold a garage sale, you have certain expectations. You expect to sell items, you expect to make money, you expect your hard work will be rewarded, and that people who stop at your sale will make a purchase. Unfortunately, not all stories have a happy ending. The same is true with garage sales. Bad garage sales happen.

Yesterday I held a sale on my front lawn with high expectations. The weather was decent, I put out lots of stuff to sell, traffic was good on my street, I placed several floor model radios on the curb to slow down traffic and attract shoppers, and for the first time I hired a person to help me set up and take down the sale. My thinking was that my sales would more than make up for this expense. Oh, how wrong I was! It turned out to be one of my worst Saturday sales.

It started out promising. I had all my rummage and all my tables stored in the garage, so I loaded up my station wagon with tables, drove them to the front, then set them up. Next, I drove back to the garage, loaded up my rummage, then returned to the front yard. It was a quick and easy start. I was soon ready for customers.

Sales were slow in the morning, but that did not worry me. I assumed things would pick up. They never did.

The majority of people who stopped were lookers, not buyers. Although traffic was heavy on my street, only a small percentage of cars stopped. My floor radios did stop traffic occasionally, but no radios were sold. No "big ticket" items sold. I had a couple of ten dollar sales. At the end of the day, I had sold $42 in rummage. And then I had to haul all the tables and unsold rummage back indoors. The phrase "adding insult to injury" comes to mind.

So what went wrong? First, I ignored what I already knew -- that late July and all of August are the worst times to hold a sale. People are not in the mood. I should have waited until September. And I learned heavy traffic does not translate into customers. That's only when cars stop in front of your house and people get out. My other downfall was having too many "vintage" items and not enough "practical" stuff. My furniture sold well, including a nice step-ladder. Glassware sold. Placemats sold. People were looking for bargains in household items they needed. They were looking to buy used, rather than new, but only if they had a use and a place for it.

This autopsy of my garage sale I take as a lesson in my continuing education. I will learn from the experience and do better next time. That's about all you can do when your garage sale goes bad.