These suggestions are based off of what I learned from selling at the Just Between Friends Consignment Sale. Your consignment sales may have different consignor fees or percentages. But many of the selling and pricing principles remain the same!
Work the closing shift, to have your $10 fee eliminated.
I did this for the Lancaster sale, but not the Reading sale, because of my schedule. Having done both, I decided that for me, I would rather pay the $10 fee. Why?
- I have to drive at least 20 minutes to each sale. Till I pay for the gas and the time to get there and back again, the $10 is not worth it to me, especially since I am going to the sale multiply other times throughout the week for drop off, pick up and the presale. If I lived closer, this might change my opinion.
- The clean up and tear down shift is hard work. I’m not trying to deter you from this shift. It was a great experience and I’m glad I did it, but it was long (6 hours). I was on my feet the whole time, moving and sorting items. Granted, I loved it too. There is something super satisfying about organizing. But I was exhausted!There are definitely benefits though, like a free pizza break half way through your shift and sometimes they offer special $5 gift cards to places like Dunkin Donuts – to keep you moving and focused. Like whoever finishes sorting first!
- I really enjoyed working at checkout. I love meeting the people, seeing what they are buying, and tweaking my patterns and skills to be efficient as I can for the customer. That’s just who I am! I love it, its what I’m good at, and so I’ll stick with it. 😉
Work a shift, to earn an extra 10% on your sales.
This is the key! If you have a goal to sell $300 worth of items, then you’ll earn an extra $30 just by doing this step. And I love it, because you can choose from so many options. Maybe you like to walk the floor and sort clothes. Maybe you like numbers, and people, so you want to work at checkout. Maybe you want to greet people to the sale. Maybe you want to help tear down and clean up. There are so many options and with each one you can make it a point to be observant at what is and what is not selling!
Set a goal.
My initial goal was $100. As I started pricing things and realized who much I had, I realized I probably needed to raise my goal.
Then, my goal became $300.
It was super motivating for me to have this goal set, especially as I entered my prices into the program and could see the value of how much I had entered so far. Don’t waste too much time thinking about what you could make if everything sold at full price, but I am a firm believer that it is ok to dream a little! Then come back to reality. 🙂
A lot of consignors like to set a goal of selling 80-90% of their items, which is another motivating option! Do what works for you.
Price higher than you think.
I talked a lot about pricing in my earlier post, but I will emphasize again—price higher than you think. (If you’re goal is to make a lot of profit. If you’re main goal is to get rid of stuff, then just price it for whatever you want to get for it.) But even if you simply price things $.50 to $1.00 more than what you think they should bring, you will still probably sell the item!
You may also want to read more about how I set my prices and what sold and what did not sell for me.
Carefully consider what you want to do with your items that don’t sell.
If you’re in it to make money, consider carefully what you might be able to sell on eBay, Facebook groups, at a yardsale or at the next consignment sale. I priced some items too high, however I was glad I did. I ended up selling several clothing items on eBay for almost the same price as I tagged them for at the sale—but on eBay, you only pay 10% of your selling cost!
Presale Usually Nets About 30% of Your Total Items in Sales
Keep in mind that you typially sell 30% of your entire sales on the first presale day. Someone told this to me the first day I was selling at items at a consignment sale, and for me, this ended up being true!
At the end of the first day of the Reading sale, I had sold about $100. By the end of the week, I had sold about $300. The same was true for Lancaster, but slightly less overall. All in all, I sold about $500 between both sales. The total listing price value for everything (that did and did not sell) was about $800.
Other articles in this series that might interest you:
How I Prepared for My First Consignment Sale
How I Priced My Consignment Sale Items to Earn a Healthy Profit
What Sold and What Did Not Sell
How I Tagged My Clothes and Why I Decided to Buy a Tagging Gun
My #1 First-Time Consignor Regret
