Whether you go to garage sales to source items for your eBay resale business, or if you are a dedicated deal hound seeing for great buys, it helps to follow a few uncomplicated guidelines. Here are a few tips that may give you an edge.
1) Know The Type of Sale. Estate Sales, inspiring Sales or Multi-Family sales. Each have their own inescapable character and opportunities.
Some inspiring sales offer great opportunities for bargains. About the last things some sellers want to do is load up the remains of the sale and rush off to the local salvation army or goodwill.
Estate sales are only Ok if run by an estate sale service. Prices will tend to be fixed, high, and often not negotiable. That is, until later in the day when the 50% off signs start arrival up. On the other hand, service-managed estate sales will sometimes start on Thursdays, so if you happen to have some time off, seeing on Craigslist or your newspaper for Thursday sales may bring some returns.
2) Plan your routes (and stick to it). Spend some time before you venture out to write down which sales you're targeting. A few minutes with Google maps will help you plan out your routes. If you have a Gps device, it may have a highlight where you can enter your route with each sale as a way point.
You may be taken off procedure by other yard sale signs that will beckon along the way, but beware, as they could be inherent time wasters! Some sellers get very lazy with posting added directional signs beyond the one on the main roadway. Can't count all the times we've screeched and swerved into a neighborhood, tempted by a inspiring neon sign, and then had "huh?, now what" moment when arrival up to a t-junction, with no other arrow signs pointing the way.
3) Carry Lots of Cash. And coins. We can't know what we want or need until we see it. You may come upon a once in lifetime bargain, like a garage full of DeWalt power tools being disposed of by a recently divorced spouse for pennies on the dollar (it's happened!) Or, you might be able to drive a better deal by offering to buy the whole box of books, instead of a couple. Take the two or three that you want, and trade the rest into your local used bookstore for credits.
4) Exploit Your Children. If you have young kiddos, here's an effective tactic. Hand them the item you want to buy, and get them to go up to the sellers and ask "Can I deal for this?". It generally gets an "Awwww", or a laugh, and sets the mood for a discount. You may even wish to train your kids to deal for their own toys. Sometimes the sellers will even give them away if the kids are cute enough. Shameless exploitation, I know, but everybody wins, really.
5) Don't park right in front of the sale. That is, if you drive a fancy car. Drive up in a gleaming brand new Suv, and see if you don't have a hard time negotiating the price down on that set of spiffy golf clubs. The sellers may have a plan in the back of their mind along the lines of "They can afford that nice car, they can afford to pay 10 bucks more". And even if you don't drive a fancy car, park a few hundred feet off anyways. It'll give you a bit of exercise, and make it easier to leave once you're done, avoiding the crush of other parked cars right nearby the sale.
Happy deal Hunting.
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