You may remember a previous blog I posted that talked about how pricing at outgrown sales and thrift stores has been on the high side for me, lately. It seems that things are just so overpriced, even compared to retail (when on sale).
Well, I have been noticing some of this same thing in garage sales. Not by any means the majority of garage sales. Most that I visited last weekend were quite reasonable. But there were a few sellers who wanted to hold out on high prices and tough to negotiate with.
The response I kept hearing at these sales was the high cost of the item when it was new. I think with the scary stuff we have all been going through with the economy, people just want to recoup as much as they possibly can from their discarded purchases. I can understand this desire, but most of the time it isn’t based in reality. While someone may have chosen to pay $120 for a fabric playhouse, I’m still not going to pay more than $5-$10, depending on its condition. To me a playhouse isn’t worth that much, especially when a homemade one can sometimes bring more learning and enjoyment to my child.
The same goes for name brand clothes. While I might appreciate great quality and hand stitched details, the truth is that if I were focused on name brand clothes for my three-year-old, I probably wouldn’t be shopping at garage sales.
Another response I would hear when I asked about negotiating is that the seller could get that price by selling the item on Ebay. That may or may not be true, but there are costs associated with selling something in an online auction, such as fees, shipping charges, time to put everything together and the risk that someone won’t pay you. Plus there is the time involved that has already been invested in preparing for the yard sale. Wouldn’t it be better to knock off a dollar or two to get your item out of the house?
I hope yard sale sellers will keep these things in mind this season when they are pricing their items. There are plenty of people who want the stuff that you no longer want, but only if you make it easy on them.
You can read more blog posts by Mary Ann Romans here!
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