I’d rather be the object of amorous attention by a guy named Bubba than to ever have a garage sale again. Jeebus H. Christus, but the knuckledraggers come out of the woodwork for these things. Cars would pull up that I wouldn’t get into without a tetanus shot, and out would stroll some slack-jawed yokel with a baggie of loose change lookin’ to git hisself a new washing machine. Then they look at your crap like it’s covered in shit and make disparaging remarks about how crappy it is, then offer you a nickel for something you have marked at $20, then make more remarks along the lines of “guess yew want it more than I do, doncha?” Ah! What witty repartee. Never fucking again.
I guess I’m just a person who refuses to play these little mind games. I’ll tell you what I want for the item, and you’ll pay it, or get the fuck off my lawn. 
I know that sounds harsh, but there’s no gentle way to say that this practice strikes me as extremely pathetic. I’ve shopped many times at yardsales-- they’re great places to get used books (and boy have I found some real treasures.) I always give them the price marked on the item without comment, or if I think the price is too much, walk away. I’m not about to spend ten minutes trying to convince someone to sell something to me for a dime instead of a quarter. Hell, if I dropped fifteen cents on the sidewalk, I’d probably not bother to pick it up.
Did she yell out “Yoick!” as she grabbed up the box?
mm
Where do you live that yard sales occur on the edge of a State Highway??
But as to the OP, I’ve not noticed this too much here, as most garage sales are in neighborhoods and not on main roads, but the one VERY annoying garage sale behaviour that drive me bonkers is the single sign.
Lazy garage sale hosters who take down all OTHER signs in their neighborhood, but leave the one or two up at the turn off from the main road. JERKS! If your garage sale is over, take ALL the signs down, don’t leave up signs and lead garage salers on a wild goose chase looking for the next sign that never appears. Especially at today’s gas prices.
I swear, one of these days, after seeing one of those signs, and turning into the neighborhood (see, I don’t make people wait, behind me, while I weave madly about, I pull OVER), and driving down to at least the first cross street (hmm no sign, is this one of those, or is their next sign further down), and NOT finding any further signs, I’m going to go back to the first sign, find the address, show up at their door, knock and Gaily announce “HI, I"m here for your garage sale??” I saw your sign, do you still have the sleeper sofa?
:eek:
Wow…
We had one yesterday as a matter of fact, 35 miles along a highway used to be the state highway (but is now just a 55-zone connecting a bunch of towns). I left super-early for work because I knew what I’d run into while trying to get through the 2-3 mile section I had to use. Even though I was prepared, I still wanted to gnaw my arm off at the sheer stupidity of the bargain hunters.
What’s even worse is there’s a lot of construction going on on our actual state highway, and most tractor-trailers are using this road as a detour. I can’t believe someone didn’t get killed yesterday.
I’m sorry, fear of not getting the good stuff does not justify being intrusive and rude. If I’m I’m having a yard sale on my property that I advertised starting at a certain time then people are not welcome to stop by when they feel like it. They are trespassing.
If someone politely asks “Do you mind if I look?” before the official starting time that’s NP. If I clearly post “NO EARLYBIRDS” and people ignore it then they are being rude and shouldn’t expect politeness from me.
There is a point where it becomes unreasonable. If someone is making multiple purchases then okay. Getting huffy over a $2 clock radio is being an ass.
I have NP with folks trying to bargain but there are a few who have it fixed in their mind that they have to win. They can’t pay the marked price or it’s a personal failure. They will get nasty if they don’t win, even if the item is a fabulous buy as marked. To those select few I say…piss off and get some help. You’ve got a problem.
LOL I love that. The real fun would be hosing someone who ignores it without a word of warning. What fun.
IMO it’s a matter of degrees. I agree that a little haggling is acceptable but all too often someone gets ridiculous and a little mean. {as I described above} I have np asking if I get a little discount for multiple purchases or making an offer on a more expensive item. If someone has a sign or says, prices as marked then I politely accept it. When something is a great buy I scoop it up without any compulsion to squeeze another dime from the seller.
We have close out 1/2 size tunable and playable guitars at my store for !9.95. A great buy. One fella bought four and asked for a discount. So far that’s okay. No harm in just asking the question. When I politely said no he wanted to argue.
“Hey man I’m buying four guitars here you can give me some kind of break”
“You’re buying four guitars for under $100. If that’s not good enough we can put them back.”
That’s the kind of BS that really gets to me. After years of working with the public I’ve tried to develop a sense of humor about it but sometimes I still get irked and want to take the item out of their hands and say “GET OUT…RIGHT NOW!”
Over here in Blighty we don’t generally participate in garage/yard sales, although we do love car boot sales (which are, for all intents and purposes, the same deal with the same pros and cons).
There aren’t early birds so much as impatient lunatics who are waist deep into your vehicle while you’re still reversing into your pitch. Seriously, they are mental. You know how zombies bang brainlessly on shop windows in cheesy horror movies? Well, replace ‘shop windows’ with ‘back doors of a reversing two tonne van’ and you’ll be able to picture how desperate these people are to get first dibs on your shitty old crockery and Happy Meal toys.
From what I’ve gleaned in the thread so far and my own experience, I believe haggling is more acceptable, or perhaps more friendly and customary behaviour in Britain than across the pond. Exchanges usually take the following form:
You’ll notice that the seller replies to the original enquiry in the form of a question just to check that it’s a reasonable selling price. All very inoffensive, all very British.
However, that’s not to say you don’t get the really cheap bastards because you do, in depressingly large numbers, and they will try to haggle you into the mantle. I remember one incident when some old geezer wanted to give me 2p for a spoon that I was sticking at 5p for (I know 5p is a lot for a spoon, but if you’re going to buy cutlery by the single piece and thus slight the chance of selling it as a full set to a normal person, you gotta pay premium buddy). There’s also the people that stick their paltry offer, in the form of a couple of copper coins, into your hand and walk off, as though the bemused look on your face shows acceptance of terms.
I can’t say that in all the boot sales I’ve enjoyed that I’ve had much stolen. Then again, you are standing right behind a couple of pasting tables with your goods on so it’s not too hard to keep an eye on people. All of the good stuff is on the table top itself for exposure, with all the cheap crap underneath, the stealing of which would do me the favour of not having to dump it in the skip on the way out.
We’ve got a garage full of good shit to sell and will probably boot sale the lot of it in a week or two. I can’t wait. You make a day of it; sell a little, buy a little, buy a burger and an ice cream from the respective vans and make a couple a hundred notes by the end of it.
I was not completely inflexible. I had one guy who wanted to buy an old VCR we had priced at 20 bucks. He fished around in every pocket he had and gave me an embarassed smile. “Sorry, I only have $17 and some change.”
“Sold,” I said.
*
That’s* something entirely different than the people who simply refuse to pay marked price.
Right.
It’s really some mental disorder. They probably have it named. I’ve had customers act like they deserved a discount for buying two $10 items. After all it’s a multiple purchase isn’t it? That calls for a discount right? :smack:
I’m sorry, did you forget your medication this morning? Please stop by again when they’ve kicked in.
When it’s late in the day and you want to get rid of your trash, that’s when you’re going to be open to a better offer. But when you’re selling something for $5 that’s in in perfect condition that was $50 new and you’ve just opened the doors, why are you going to take an offer of 50¢ for it?
Also, if it’s a higher ticket item, odds are a bit of bargaining will go over better than for a 25¢ item.
I guess I’m weird because I figure the marked prices should at least be good for the first hour of the sale. Which is why I refuse to have a garage sale ever again. There’s a time and a place for bargaining, and first thing in the morning ain’t it. Of course, that’s also why I ended up giving away a bunch of stuff at the end of the day, because I was so offended by the so-called bargain hunters.
These days I just have a freecycle non-garage sale. Works much, much better. I may not get any $$, but the stuff goes away much faster and with far less hassle and aggravation.
Yep, that’s a strange notion. It becomes easier for buyers to haggle as the day goes on. But, unless combined with other conduct which is in itself rude, it isn’t rude, improper or out of place to bargain first thing in the morning.
I disagree. I cannot understand why some of the posters in this thread see haggling as rude, or improper. Yes, you may have marked something a dollar. “Will you take seventy five cents?” isn’t an insult or an attempt to badger* you. It’s part of garage saling. When my family held a garage sale, we expected haggling. When we sold antiques or collectibles (which, we generally bought much cheaper at garage sales) at shows, we expected haggling.
- nor should they mushroom or snake you.
I realize that yard sales and eBay aren’t quite the same thing but this has been bothering me for a while, so I’m going to jump into this thread to kvetch about some eBay customers.
I’m liquidating most of my comics to raise eating money. So far no problem.
So I set up eBay auctions and start selling them. For the most part things are going as I expect - I’m getting about five cents on the dollar for what I paid for these comics. If they sell. Meh, I can’t eat comics - I can eat with the money I can get for 'em.
Anyways, with that background, it seems rather obvious to me that I’d want to set up my S&H charges to cover at least the various fees for eBaying stuff, and maybe actually make a little money for my time. For the most part, no problems.
When I started I’d set it up, telling people I’d combine shipping on multiple auctions, and offer them a single, lower, price for combined shipping. But, I kept getting complaints from bidders that I wasn’t making things clear enough - so I decided to use the eBay feature that makes everything clear, if the bidders decide to read the silly directions: S&H is X. If you buy more than one auction I’ll take two dollars off the combined shipping costs. This way people could figure S&H for multiple auctions.
Yeah, right. For some reason - the people who chose to buy multiple auctions were shocked at the combined S&H totals they got hit with. Now, I can understand why they’d be annoyed, or exasperated, to be paying more in S&H for what they bought than the items cost. OTOH, it’s not like I hid the planned charges. Nor that I’m unwilling to reduce that further, if they whine. (Not that I advertise that fact, of course. I’m greedy, dammit.)
But, for pity’s sake, the information was right fucking there! How the Hell can you bid on eBay if you can’t fucking read?
This doesn’t even begin to mention the number of bidders who can’t use email to let me know they can’t pay right away or are planning send a check.
sigh
And in spite of this, if I can’t get a job in the next several months, I’m still going to likely end up trying to open an eBay business of my own. I must be a masochist. Or at least bloody desperate. 
Pennsylvania. Head out of Philly on Route 30, aka The Lincoln Highway. After you’ve left the car dealerships and strip shopping behind and are approaching Lancaster county, much of the drive is bordered on both sides of the 3 lane highway with single family dwellings, the speed limit ranging from 25 to 55. Ditto once you’ve passed around York and are heading towards Gettysburg.
They’re out every weekend of the summer, just like dandelions. Between the clueless yard sale shoppers and the clueless touristas who have come to see the A-mish people, a weekend trip on 30 can consume 6 months worth of driving profanity in an afternoon.
No shit.
This afternoon, we were going from Shippensburg to Carlisle on Rt. 11. We got stuck behind someone who was driving very slowly and very erratically, but we couldn’t pass her because it was just after the time the Mennonite service got out, so there was a lot of oncoming bicycle and horse-and-buggy traffic.
I suspect Mrs. Clueless was looking for garage sales.
Robin
bemused look
You wanna try this again, only in English?
I got it all, I think, except, what’s a pasting table?
Two countries, separated by a common language.
I’m gonna go with pasting–pasteboard— cheap folding table with a top made out of cardboard or particleboard.