Rummage sale pricing<question>

Have two charity rummage sales coming up.
One to support my friends Autism foundation where they teach children with autism computer skills (such a challenge but helps them so much. You should see these kids. They are awesome)
Second is for other friend opening a private school (k-6) cause local public school is so over crowded.
Needs funds so he can enroll anyone that wants, not just the rich kids.


At both there is a question on pricing items.  Majority of people say toss it out and let people make offer.

I say, tag it.  To many people walk away if no price. Embarrassed to ask, think its to much....
And if it's marked $10 thy can talk you down or you can mark it down, thy think they got a deal.

It's a psychological thing.  People will pay more.

Plus, your going to get people working there that either think something is valuable and price to high and it won't sell; or price things way to low.  $1 for things people would be happy to pay $5.

Already, I've donated some coins. One is a set of war time steel pennies. All three mint marks in one case.
They wanted to ask $20.   I donated them cause who ever had them polished them and burnt the steel.  Has that rainbow look.  The set sells for about $1.50, $3 at coin shop.  But one person saw on eBay that one penny was "listed" at $14.99.   Not sold, listed. And it was an uncirculated penny.
People just don't know what thing are worth or the art of pricing for negotiation.


Anyway, for you yaurd sell'rs and swap meet people, what's been your best pricing strategy? 
Tag sale or open offer?   



On a positive note, I've cleaned out some inventory that's been sitting and for good causes.
All the jeans.  Low value coins.  Lots of Nintendo DS accessories that GameStop wouldn't take.
(I seem to be a magnet for DS stuff....)
Just all that little crap, $1-$5 items, that you never seem to get round to selling......


Im rambling. Point of order.  Yard sell pricing techniques.  Suggestions.  Thank you.

Well I like things priced. Husband does not. 

But after much convincing on my part he priced stuff (well I did). Sold it after being at 4 different sells.

So tag it.  IMO.  The nice thing that everyone is going to look at can be left untagged they will ask.

But sense this is for charity and such,  working with a lot of donations pricing may be to over well-ming depending on the quantity of goods.

Could meet in the middle and have tables everything on this table $1.00, next $4.00. If you have the man power to man the tables. Or just color code items.  Pink tag .50.

And if someone is willing to pay $20 for the pennies let them. A fool and there money are soon parted. 

Did you tell them what the pennies were worth and why ?

"People just don't know what thing are worth or the art of pricing for negotiation."

Why it is a rummage sell, and why we pick them.    You can add your expertise to help the charity make more money.

Glad you cleaned up some clutter for a good cause.

 I added some glue, formaldehyde, and other misc. items to the fire pit today. (falla-particalboard TV stand).   

Good luck let us know how it turns out. 

I prefer tags. It gives me some idea of whether the sellers want to sell what they have, or think they've opened Sotheby's on their patio.

If you choose to tag your items, then please, please don't leave pricing to the people (such as the one you described) who look things up on ebay, see an asking price for a mint condition specimen, and decide that the asking price is the market price, and that their beat-up version of the item should sell for the same amount. Nothing sends me back to my car faster than going to a garage sale that has ebay listing printouts taped to items!

Gosh, that was a bit of a tirade, huh?  Good luck with your sales!

We price everything. When you have hundreds of items and a lot of traffic (100+ a day for us), haggling over everything is not feasible. We put good yardsale prices on everything and haggle very little. We yardsale every other month and sell 70% - 80% of our stuff each time. Clothes are our biggest draw which has started to build a nice base of return customers. We sell clothes like this; 50 cents per item for shirts, shorts, pants, etc. from infant to adult stuff. Sorted by size on tables, our customers buy bagfuls of these clothes. $2.00 for used jeans, pants, shirts, dresses, skirts and any item worth more than 50 cents are on hanging racks. All other items worth more than $2.00 are individually tagged. This system for selling clothes is easy and you don't have to spend time pricing hundreds of clothes. Sell seasonally, don't sell winter gear when it's 105 degrees. Hope this helps someone.

Also: We sell ice cold water for 25 cents a bottle when it's hot. Costs 10 cents/bottle. Sold over a hundred bottles last sale. Not a lot of profit but customers were very appreciative.

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Also: We sell ice cold water for 25 cents a bottle when it's hot. Costs 10 cents/bottle. Sold over a hundred bottles last sale. Not a lot of profit but customers were very appreciative.

Guy at swap got a big popcorn machine out of locker. He started selling popcorn at 25cents a bag.  Then started selling water, soda....

Said not only does the popcorn/drinks get people to come over to his table but he makes $25-$50 profit each day but his sales went up too.

Said he tried selling hotdogs and it was 'okay' but to much work to keep an eye on it and sales. Then the health department said he needed a license so stopped.

Guy at swap got a big popcorn machine out of locker. He started selling popcorn at 25cents a bag.  Then started selling water, soda....

Said not only does the popcorn/drinks get people to come over to his table but he makes $25-$50 profit each day but his sales went up too.

Said he tried selling hotdogs and it was 'okay' but to much work to keep an eye on it and sales. Then the health department said he needed a license so stopped.

If I tried that at my flea market the food vendors would have a fit and would either turn me in to the flea admins or ride me out of the flea on an old taco shell!

The food vendors have to post a $1 million dollar bond....insurance against food poisioning I guess.

*****

I once had some liquid spray candy out front and one of the minions came over and told me I couldn't sell it.

Of course that doesn't stop kids from walking around and coming up to every vendor and asking us if we want to buy a candy bar for a $1.

I myself tag most things.  However, I also have specific prices on cards/boxes that I lay out.  So I have a index card saying "Movies / CDs are $2 unless marked", a box of ".25 items" and one for ".50 items".  Everything else gets a sticker.

We can't sell food at our flea.  The flea has concession stands so they don't want competetion.