I always hate when you ask for the price, get an absurdly high number, then put it down and then the seller acts like YOU’RE the asshole for not taking it then and there.
$40 for a used nerf gun you can get on eBay for $10 shipped isn’t something I’m going to suddenly go “Wait a second, you were right for charging four times the going rate for!”
Same with me but its usually guns or swords. Some ask for baseball cards. One asked for antique radios. Another wanted antique fishing equipment.
It AMAZES me people come up and ask for my antiques and such thinking I’m THAT idiot who is selling something worth a $1,000 for a dollar. I’ve actually had people get mad at me because “all I see is junk” and they were not finding antiques.
YES, I own antiques. and YES, I know what they are worth.
I tell you something else interesting.
WHERE the sale is.
We live in a modest home and sometimes do garage sales.
BUT, my inlaws live in an expensive, fancy house and we sometimes have them there and guess what - we get TWICE the money for the same kids clothes and junk! People see fancy house and are willing to pay more.
i think the library should be charge amazon prices for donated/used books or do like what a lot of places do and just sell them online themselves and here’s why :
we have an in library bookstore ran by volunteers … and down the street, there’s a used book shop. wanna know where she gets her stock for pretty much pennies on the dollar? the library … its sort of a joke amongst the volunteers
I knew a woman who sold antiques out of a booth in an antique mall and she did the same with furniture donated to a local thrift shop. So she would see maybe an old table going for maybe $10 at the thrift shop, she would buy it, maybe clean it up a bit, then turn around and sell it for $200 in her booth.
People who sell antiques and other used items, that is their life though. going around to garage sales and such and buying things on the cheap that they then resell for way more.
You know what the used book shop has? Room to store books and wait for the customer who will pay two dollars for the book instead of the library’s 50 cents. They pay for that space. You known why libraries sell their books? Because they don’t want to pay for storage for books very few people are taking out, and because they can get a few cents in the process.
Sure, the library could double as a used book store, but then it would have to take all the expenses of being a used book store along with the income.
Best value at garage sales are chainsaws, lawn tractors, snow blowers and generators that won’t start.
My dad and I got several off the curb for free every year. Some idiot left it in the shed a couple years, and fouled the carb with old gas. Doesn’t start, so they pull out the cc for a new one. Dad & I loved those people.
We bought some at garage sales. Never paying much for broken equipment.
My dad kept a stash of old motors for parts. 7 times out of 10 he fixed the equipment inexpensively and sold it for a nice profit. The ones that weren’t fixed (bent crankshafts, burned up pistons) were stripped for parts.
I was always astonished at how many people never changed the oil or cleaned the foam air filter.
Fools running Lawn Boy mowers without mixing oil to the gas. They’d burn up the engine within minutes.
That’d be news to the many people around the world (and in the U.S.) where bargaining over price is commonplace or even expected.
At garage sales, craft fairs and the like, sellers and buyers should expect that offers and counter-offers will be made, without either party feeling insulted. If the price offered is unreasonable, just smile and say no thanks. No big deal.
I’ve been on both sides of this fence.
I am also currently downsizing two lifestimes worth of stuff. Some stuff I give away, some I don’t care what token price I get, and some stuff I hold out for more because I can - I’m sure that some people looking at some of the model kits, books, comic books, and other stuff I’m “charging too much for” and have much the opinion of the OP. Heck some have told me to my face I’m charging too much for “junk”. The thing is, I know that there are some things that ARE valuable to someone else and I’m willing and able to take the time for the buyer to find me or contact me. And some folks, quite frankly, assume I don’t know the value of some of this stuff and are trying to convince me it’s worthless so they can get it on the cheap and they can make the profit.
Are there some rip-off artists? Yes. Are there some people willing to put the time and effort into finding treasures among the junk (perhaps doing repair, paying for cleaning, etc.) then reselling them for profit? Yes. Are some people deluding themselves about the value of their stuff - oh yes. Including some of the folks who are otherwise good at the turn-around game. I recently discovered that a particular model kit my late spouse thought for sure would increase in value didn’t. Well, hey, that’s a risk you take as a collector. Some of the others he bought are worth 20 times what he paid. I bought some comic books 30 years ago for a quarter or 35 cents that I recently sold for over $20 each. Had a bunch of others worth less than a dollar each from the same era. Hey, that’s how it goes. I’m fortunate that I don’t have to liquidate this stuff in a hurry and can take the time to try to value/price things in a reasonable manner.
Practical items that I could just buy somewhere else? I won’t bother.
Collectibles, on the other hand, I will attempt to engage the seller in a respectful conversation. There is generally an established market value range for most collectible items. For example I collect widgets, and I find a widget model “A” for sale locally. Now as a collector of widgets, I know the collector market value for the model “A” is $450 - $550 depending on condition, but the seller is asking $700. In that case either 1) he knows his asking price is out of market value range and is hoping to find just one sucker to pounce, or 2) he does not know the market value of his item, and may be receptive to a respectful chat about why it’s worth $450 - $550. I have found that more times than not, the latter is true.
I’m able to politely explain that what he has is a collectible with X,Y & Z features in XX condition. I’ve even gone so far as to direct them to sources where the item can be valued independent of what I’m telling him. He wants to sell the item, and I want to buy the item, I just cannot overpay. My offer comes from a position of genuine interest and knowledge of that particular collector market. If you do it right, you can convince them with information why their widget is realistically worth $500, and get them to do the deal.
So many people use eBay listings to value garage sale items.
I’ve had to tactfully explain they need to look at the completed eBay sales. What something actually sold for.
eBay has made it harder to find garage sale deals. They can research what items are worth.
I’ve listed some things on Craigslist and Facebook that I was in no hurry to sell. On those items I responded to lowball offers with a curt “Nope, price is firm”. One guy messaged me a couple of times a day, telling me how he’d really like to buy the item, but I was just asking too much. Eventually I was able to respond, “sorry, it sold for my asking price” and he flipped out.
When I moved in with my gf and listed my home for sale I was in no hurry to sell, and I told my agent I didn’t want to hear about any offers less than my asking price . The very first person to make an offer 15% less than my asking price, she left me an excited message about it. I wanted her to understand I was standing firm, so I told her to counter with 5% above my asking price.
The people freaked out, telling her I wasn’t bargaining in good faith (I wasn’t bargaining period, actually) and they told her they would be seeing me in court. It took some patience on my part, but I eventually got my asking price.
Er… just how was that supposed to work? You won’t sell at the price I offered so I’m going to sue you until you come down in price?
The owner sets the price. The buyer can accept, attempt to bargain, or walk away. If the buyer doesn’t want to engage in bargaining then you’re down to two choices. I don’t see a legal recourse for forcing the issue.
I will occasionally do that at a Garage sale. Once in a while they listen and offer to lower the price.
Once in a awhile i will see something vastly underpriced (that I dont really want) and I will offhandedly mention that they could ask for more.
But if I get out of the car and see nothing but crazy high prices on junk, I just get back in.
As for offers- I had a whole box of like 40-50 HB books, for $1 each. But when someone offered me $20 to take the whole box right now- *sure. *
I ran a yard sale for two friends. I ended up handing them over $400.
I KNOW WHAT I GOT NO LOWBALLERS
When I’ve sold things on Craigslist. I price them low enough to queue of potential buyers. If person A shows up and, only then, decides they want 50% off something that I’ve listed at a fraction of the retail price, there’s always person B who’s next in line. Same thing when I’m buying something - I don’t want to deal with dickering with some redneck who KNOWS WHAT THEY GOT.
Overcharge? You are under no compulsion to buy and items don’t have intrinsic dollar values anyways.
that’s the thing it pretty much has a permanent book used store in it and gets hefty donations of material monthly…
Ebay has also effectively killed and created the collectibles market.
Now, if something might be remotely ‘hot’, people scarf up all @ retail explicitely to put it on ebay and skyjack the price. (new video game systems, etc)
Also - things that used to be actually rare (older toys, etc) can now be found much easier, dropping the price substantially.
Yeah, there’s some of that. But I’ve been successful several times with my reference to Amazon. Enough that it’s sometimes worth an email.
I also price things low enough that I get a queue. And I lower the price quickly. If someone doesn’t email me in a day or two, time to lower the price.