Auctions everywhere today!  I tried a couple of the well known caravans and the crowds were disgusting!  So, thinking I'd be smart, I headed 35 miles North to a "secret" facility that usually has smaller crowds.  

Secret my ASS!  We pulled up, and there were OVER 100 PEOPLE THERE!  WTF is this?  The wind was gusting at 40-50 mph, and it was raining cats and dogs!  Umbrella's were literally blowing inside out due to the wind gusts.  I stayed for two lockers, and after seeing the crowd, how long it was taking, and how much they went for, I called it a day.  

Maybe it's time to get a job??  Just Kidding!!  Even a crappy day of auction buying beats a good day on a real job!!!!

Went to one yesterday......facility usually had kind of crappy units and yesterday was no exception.  I only hung around for three lockers to sell and looked briefly in the fourth and left.  There were around 80 people there and it took an hour for the first three lockers.....I decided I had enough to do besides stand around there in the cold wasting time.  Talked to one of my friends later on and I made the right decision.

Out of all those people, I recognized about 10 of the "regulars" and there were a lot of new people, lot's of them talking about the shows, and of course there's at least one in every crowd now....usually more than one....that has to yell out "Yuuuup" at least a couple of times, because that's just so damn funny!  We need a vomit smiley!  It was hard to tell what the prices were with this crowd, because the lockers I saw were so crappy they were only going for about 10x pre show prices.  It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if there would have actually been something worth bidding on..............

First show tonight, when Jarrod is jumping up and down on the wall he makes a comment...."oh man, I have a drug test this week".  Wonder what that's all about?   LOL!

I gave out quite a few gifts from my inventory this year.  Some of my friends even tell me that the best gift I could give at the Christmas party would be a gift certificate for my store or to let them come dig around in the back room where stuff gets sorted. 

But, even for as long as I've been doing this, I still have a brain fart now and again.  Like today.....I have a couple of women that work for me part time.  I got them each a $25 gift certificate to Starbucks, but I had forgot to purchase a Christmas card to put them in.

I was all stressed out because I needed a card, so I left the shop for a while today with the intention to grab lunch and get a couple of cards.  As I was sitting there eating lunch, I all of the sudden thought to myself, "what am I doing"?

I went back to the shop, pulled a box of Christmas cards that I had marked at a dollar off the shelf, filled them out, put in their Starbucks cards, and handed them out.  I was gonna drive down the road to Target or Walmart to fight the crowds to spend $6 or so on two cards when I literally have boxes of them sitting on the shelves that I have been practically giving away!

Sometimes things are just so obvious, we overlook them! 

Just a word to all those that have a tablet, ipad or other..........Get some kind of cover!  I've dropped my ipad out of the truck a couple of times, threw a box on it when I forgot I had it laying on the seat, and it's flown out of the seat once or twice during a panic stop.  So far, no damage to my ipad at all, but I finally broke the hinge on my case during a panic stop the other day. 

Kind of funny that you mention Estate Sales MM, because I have been doing a lot better buying either full or partial estates than I have at the storage auctions lately.  Prices are just too damn high to make any money at the auctions! 

I have been buying items from other auction buyers though.  I let them overpay, clean the locker out and go through it, then I go over and pick out what I want and cash them out.  The plus side is I don't have to clean out a locker on a deadline, I don't have to make any dump runs, and I just take what I want.  The downside is, I know I'm not going to find any hidden big ticket items because it's already been gone through. 

Overall it's been working out.......having a store is a double edged sword.....you can get rid of the "smalls", but you have to keep buying them so you have enough inventory in the store to sell........no inventory...no customers! 

A box pops up and you have the customer sign in the box with their finger.  We use it with an ipad, but it works with most smart phones too. 

Then, you can email or text a receipt right to the customer, or give them a register receipt.  It's pretty quick and easy!

Get Square.....highly recommended! I think this topic was covered somewhere else, but I use this in my store, garage sales, just about anywhere.  My friend used it all year at his fruit stand.....it's awesome.  I do set a $10 minimum sale for credit use, so a lot of times they'll actually go back and pick out more stuff.....it is worth taking credit cards!

https://squareup.com/

Oh, and they do take about 2.75% of the sale, but everything you need to run this on your smart phone or ipad is FREE!