Monday, May 16, 2011

Garage Sales

The City of West Hollywood hosted a garage sale this weekend. Or, really, a bunch of people throughout the area all put on garage sales on the same day. I have fond memories of hitting up garage sales on the weekends with my parents growing up, and even having a few of our own. This totally makes me an expert on the subject, and as such, I have some suggestions for the people who, rather ineptly, tried to sell their stuff.

First of all, no one wants junk. Seriously. Don’t try to sell stuff that really should be put in the trash. One person’s trash is everyone’s trash. Seriously. Second, price everything!! Don’t make your customers have to ask what the price is on everything they are interested in. If there’s no price, I am far less inclined to want to buy something than if it had a price tag already on it. Next, have things in some sort of order. Books with books, clothes with clothes, toys with toys. Don’t just have everything in boxes for your customers to sort through. Have them laid out neatly where they are visible. Also, price things reasonably. People who come to garage sales are not prepared to lay down big money, and definitely don’t want to pay near full price for things that are clearly used.

I had thought these things would be fairly self-evident but clearly not. I didn’t even find one single thing worthy of purchase (though my boyfriend did find several books to buy). Most of my enjoyment lay in walking around parts of the neighborhood I had never been to before.

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