I'm not sure if the Dotsons are part owner of Storage Treasures. But I did see the same tweets. I saw something from Dan saying to unfollow ST, the merger will kill his business. Wonder what the merger is.... Perhaps SUAL?

They really aren't helpful in the post office facility. On the phone, they try.. but the systems just suck, which is par for the course being that they're a government entity. One thing I had happen with myself and an Ebay sale is that the package shows as not delivered, but they TRIED to deliver but couldn't leave it at the house. They posted a pick up notice but the wind blew it away or something. The recipient never knew that it was waiting for them. About 6 weeks later I get it back with a "abandoned" stamp. Tracking never showed it past my town.

the other thing you can do to speed things up is make an effort to talk to people. whether at an auction or anything else talk to others, share connections ask them how to sell this or that. do you ever have luck with these, etc.

That's what I've done, around here the competition is unwilling to share info.. I find myself avoiding lockers that have items that I don't have a connection for, but I'll never get the connection if I don't buy it. For instance, a contractors unit. I don't have a guy that consistently looks for things like doors, plywood, cat 5 cable, etc. so I don't buy those types of units. I'm afraid to sit on a bunch of lumber..

It's weird, since I've opened the shop, I've bought at storage auctions less. I was up over 4 a month. Now I'm at 1 maybe, if it's really good. Recently the weather's been bad which is keeping the people at home instead of shopping here, plus all the sales that the big box stores are doing, so I may HAVE to buy to put something sexy up on craigslist. But it's been a total bummer so far this month.

I think that people who are in this as a business soon find out that there are other avenues to acquire goods. Storage auctions are good, but it's tougher to make money as you said.

You can pick privately or at yard sales and you get to fully inspect before making an offer, thus it's easier to make your profit.

You can attend a piece auction and get much better prices than you would have 10 years ago because nobody goes anymore. I say that out of my experience locally, I know that some parts of the country still pack the house at their local auctions.

I see a big upswing in clean out services locally. I think people are tired of paying for their inventory.

I haven't bought one in a month. But that one I was able to flip just about every item worth keeping in about a week. The only place I've bought lockers recently is through storagebattles. There haven't been many auctions around recently. None in 2 weeks. Maybe I need to expand my radius!

However, with rented furniture, it's impossible to KNOW that you're in possession of stolen property. Aaron's typically marks their owned property with "Aaron's" and a store number somewhere on the furniture. It may be on the back of a TV or under the tabletop. But it's not like they remove it when it's paid up. If you were to call a store and say, "Hey I've got this couch with Aaron's on it...etc." They wouldn't have any info to give you if you don't have the customer info.. and that's even if you're calling the right store.

You can't be expected to track down which Aaron's store and the customer info, etc. Aaron's will be focused on the person who bought the furniture in the first place to retrieve their money. If it comes down to Aaron's tracking it to the storage facility, I don't know if the facility would give up your info. Depends on the management I guess..

To track furniture to that level takes way too much manpower and costs way too much to even recoup their money from that piece. I wouldn't worry about it. Consider it laundered furniture.

You're probably right.