84 sats \ 3 replies \ @031ef7d322 19 Jan \ parent \ on: Did you ever organized a garage/yard sale? AGORA
Making the event happen is easy. Considering it a success usually requires some planning.
If your advertising (physical signs, online posts, etc) is effective you should get substantial traffic, and in my experience it often happens in waves. Unless you’re essentially disposing of junk, with zero expectation of receiving any amount of money, you should create a price list in advance. Especially for larger items that would fetch a decent price on eBay/FB/reddit/etc, at least write down your starting price and minimum acceptable offer. When multiple people are inquiring/haggling you need to have a quick response. Even better, if you have a partner to assist then they can also consult the list instead of running every offer by you (or letting something valuable go for too little).
Add price tags to as many large/valuable items as possible. Smaller/cheap stuff can be organized by price (bin of $1 items; any 5 Items from this table for $10; clothing on this rack $5; etc). If you expect to do this during slow times of the day, and you have good attendance, it simply won’t happen (or will be rushed) and you’ll end up with less revenue or more leftover items than you hoped.
Try to spread things out to minimize the need for people to dig through boxes or piles of stuff. You want to minimize the effort of a prospective buyer to visualize owning any given item. Minimizing the need for shoppers to touch things also reduces the chances opportunistic theft.
Figure out what forms of payment you’ll accept in advance. If accepting cash, have plenty of small bills ready to provide change. If accepting digital payment, write down what apps do you can point to a sign to everyone who asks. Even better, print out QR codes, username, etc.
Check the weather and have a plan if there’s any chance of precipitation or winds. Prepare some beverages and snacks in advance, and also keep any tools/materials nearby (pens/markers, paper, price tags/stickers, real tools) to minimize the amount of time you’ll need to step away during the event.
Lastly, since you’re a Bitcoiner, always keep OpSec top of mind when anything related to Bitcoin comes up, especially if hosting the yard sale at home!
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To be fair I’ve done it both ways, and both were a success at the time.
Many years back I did a collaborative yardsale with college friends when people were moving out of town. The goal was essentially to get rid of everything and hopefully cover the cost of beer we drank that day. It was as much a chill day-drinking event w/music as it was a yardsale.
As I get older and own more valuable things, I’ve accumulated a LOT of stuff that I eventually realize I don’t really need. This results in piles of stuff I’m “planning to sell” but I kinda hate taking the time to deal with eBay. For larger items I’ll make time to meet someone from CL/FB marketplace if it will free a bunch of room and recoup some minimum cost (say $100, but everyone will have a different threshold). Eventually I realized these piles are perfect for an annual yardsale, so that’s what I do now. In my older years I get more satisfaction from this (minimally) disciplined approach, so I figured it’s worth sharing for people who are newer to it.
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