We are privileged to live in a development that has a HUGE community yardsale every year. It is the perfect opportunity for us—both my husband and I have an innate nature to buy and sell things. Combined with my recent conviction of decluttering our home, it is just a win, win for us all!
A few years ago I found a little trick that brings in a large percentage of our sales. The largest percentage comes from food sales of course. I guess that should be a given though—we do live in Lancaster County Amish Country!
Here’s My Little Secret
This week Staples is offering a ream of Hammermill paper for only $.01 after rebate! Yes, you read that right, only one cent.
You pay the $7.30 and then they mail you a prepaid Visa card with $7.29 on it.
Whenever I see these deals (or its often just Staples brand paper), I buy them. I typically get at least 15-20 reams throughout the year.
Why would I do that? Do I go through that much paper? No.
Starting with a Little Experiment
A few years ago I had an extra ream of paper so I set it out at my yardsale to see if it would sell and for how much. (We lived somewhere else then, so it was a MUCH smaller yardsale.) I sold it for $2 very quickly. It was one of the first things to sell. I guess I didn’t realize how expensive paper is!
So the next year, I priced the reams I had at $3. And guess what? I sold out before 9am! Actually, it might have been 8am. It was ridiculous!
This year, I had about 15 reams all priced at $3. I sold them all. Someone actually ended up buying about 6-7 of them (all that I had left at the time)!
Since I pay hardly anything ($.01 plus the tax) for the reams of paper, I consider this a huge money maker for my yardsale.
It brings in $45-60 worth of my sales!
And I’m not sure, but I think I could probably sell them for $4.00 or at least $3.50 and earn even more. For now though, I’m happy with selling them quickly and earning about $50. 😉
Do you have any unique items that sell quickly at your yardsales? I would love to hear about them!
