With warm weather in the air, the ubiquitous yard sale, garage sale and tag sale signs dot the landscape as home owners and apartment dwellers eagerly attempt to unload unwanted items.  This is an excellent time of year when your bargaining and negotiating skills come in handy. Typically, the goods in a garage sale are unwanted items from the household with the home owners conducting the sale. The goods are sometimes new, like-new, or just usable. You may find some good useful merchandise for your apartments or home at a real low price.

The arduous task of cleaning and getting rid of those treasures is now in full swing. Like house detectives, home owners and apartment dwellers, are combing their basements, attics, closets or garage looking for dormant items that have withstood the test of time. Now, is not the time (for sellers) to get sentimental or nostalgic about past gifts that they have received. It is the time to clean up and throw away!

Some view this cleaning up task as a complete waste of time but for those savvy entrepreneurs, it is time to make a profit. Yes, there can be financial gain for all that separating, polishing, cleaning, and pricing those family heirlooms. It may seem like a major chore organizing piles of clothes, books, furniture, home appliances, electronic gadgets, children's toys, garden tools, board games, sports equipment and other treasures but in the end, the satisfaction of getting payment in return and additional storage space is worth the effort. 

There is no doubt there is much work associated with this enterprise, whether it is a garage sale, yard sale, rummage sale, tag sale, lawn sale, attic sale, moving sale, garbage sale, or junk sale, they all mean the same thing, get ready for a good deal.

There are strategies to consider when preparing for a tag sale.  There are so many logistical factors to keep in mind: What items do I get rid of?  Where should I put these items, on a table, the ground, on a rack? What should the price of the item be? How can I advertise this sale? Where should I post these yard sale signs? Do I have enough cash on hand (to make change)? Am I ready to haggle with customers who want a lower price? Needless to say, the seller is looking for two things:  getting rid of everything and getting top dollar.  See attached comic strips: "For Better or for Worse", and  "Baldo" to get another view of the yard sale. 

Once the items have been collected and a fair price has been labeled (to the item by the seller), it is now time to make those  brightly color neon signs that pop up like mushroom on almost every street corner on the weekends. These signs usually indicate the date, day, time and location of the event. These signs beckon the passerby to stop and take a look at all these wonderfully priced treasures. The sales venue is typically a garage, driveway, carport or front yard or porch or occasionally, the interior of a house.

You will sometimes see grandmothers and grandfathers chatting around with each new customer, trying to convince the buyer to buy a certain item by giving a brief history lesson of the item. Buyers who arrive before the hours of the sale to review the items are known as "early birds" and are often professional restorers or resellers. Such sales also attract people who are searching for bargains or for rare and unusual items. Bargaining, also known as haggling, on prices is routine, and items may or may not have price labels affixed. Some people buy goods from these sales to restore them for resale.

I encourage you to stop by a yard sale, get acquainted with the seller and then start the bargaining. You might be pleasantly surprised at what you can find.

Bob Chudy