So...  I have a full time job that pays the bills, my wife is a stay at home mom with a full time job with our 2 children.  I have been buying and reselling for several years now - primarily auctions, estates, flea market, craigslist, etc.  In February, I picked up a partner and we bought our first two units (2 of 3 lockers owned by the same person) for $1,200 total -  not including expenses.  We have cleared $1,500 so far and haven't touched the antiques, guns, jewelry, silver, gold, etc that we have.  We also have ~40-50 boxes of knick knacks, collectibles, and antiques we haven't gone through.  My issue is simple - I have too many small items that hold a good amount of value (~$1-2,000) added together but low dollar (<$50).  So the question is how do I move them.

Original thought - a store.  After joining the forum - an antique mall.

Store Front

• Benefits - set schedule, opportunity for consignment, opportunity sub-lease (ala vendor booths), lower price sqft, substantially more display space, immediate availability
• Drawbacks - very time intensive, higher overall cost, large overhead, pressure of maintaining inventory

Antique mall

• benefits - lower overall cost, lower time necessary, very high foot traffic
• drawbacks - high sqft price, commission/payment processing charge (15%), ~6 month wait list

My general thought is that with either option, I can continue my "traditional" reselling approach.  I am just needing to find an avenue to get the "smalls" out in front of more people.  My wife has the ability to work a store front with the kids.  We also wouldn't need to have the store be open every day during the week.  The important time would be Friday-Sunday to allow maximum road traffic and drop-ins.  We don't need this endeavor to put food on the table - strictly increase/maximize the profit. 

Just a note of clarification - I wouldn't consider goodwill, salvation army, etc as direct competitors to what I envision.  I couldn't compete with free merchandise and labor.  The "cheap" stuff is donated either for tax right off or to good causes.  I am thinking more of an antique/consignment business model for the store.

Still thinking through everything - meeting with a realtor on Friday to look at some retail properties and talk pricing.  I might be able to get a retail spot for close to the same as a vendor booth in an antique mall.

Sam

To get rid of the smalls take them to the flea market and turn & burn. If you think you have a great lot of high quality smalls you don't want to get low balled on then just sell them at a vendor/antique mall, for fast turn around take them to an auction house.

The great thing about the flea market and vendor malls is you can quite anytime, take a vacation anytime, play hookie anytime you want. You can't do that with running your own store. Read some of the posts of those that own stores, there is always something to do, and even when sales are good and you should be able to relax, no you gotta scramble and find more product to fill the shelves. When you have a good weekend at the flea or a good month at the vendor mall, you can take a week or month off to enjoy the spoils if you wish. A few bad weeks or months at the flea market and vendor mall is a bummer, but a few bad weeks or months with a store is a killer (monetarily, emotionally).

what did you do buy a carnival?

No, I tend to attract units with LOTS of stuffed animals though, and I would have better luck selling beach balls to eskimos then selling those darn things! 

It is funny to watch SW and read your posts... If you do this as a business, you should never pay more than you can make money reselling and the same goes for the other guy... There is no such thing as bidding someone up - just bidding what your willing to pay. I am relatively new to the storage auction scene but have been doing auctions and reselling for a decade. The auction houses love me because I will bid on ANYTHING I can make money on. And I bid until I can't make money. I don't care if I am bidding against a 'regular,' a 'whale," or the pregnant widow of 5 children.  If you want it, you have to be willing to pay more than I am...

Sam

PS - I love when someone gets the idea of 'bidding me up.' I don't have any problem with staying at an auction all day bidding 100 times and walking away with nothing while those 'bidding me up' walk out with a substantial bill.

I disagree, some may think I am being a jerk, but I have purposely bid higher on a unit just to keep a newbie from winning it or getting it for a price cheap enough to make a good profit on it. From my point of view, the industry is already too competatitve, and the last thing I need is more competition. Letting newbies get good units on the cheap only encourages them to attend more auctions and bid on more units, and then tell their friends about it. The only thing I want newbs telling their friends is how much money they lost on buying a storage unit and not to try it themselves. 

I had to deal with the same thing from the "old timers" for the first 6 to 8 months of going to auctions until they got use to seeing my face. I still see a certain group of "old timers" who like to run each other up. Part of me thinks they know that they tend to get inside information from the managers or employees, so when they see each other bidding on a unit they think the other "knows" what my be inside and bid it up. Just part of the game.

I went to an auction last month where the facility made it clear they did NOT want any personal items back from the units. No pictures, no paperwork, no ID cards, etc. They said if you feel compelled to return this stuff to the owner it is up to you to find them and contact them. One of the things that has given me some peace of mind in this business is the ability to at least return the personal stuff and hope the facility is able to get in touch with the owner.

What do you all think about this? Is it legal for the storage facility to refuse returned personal items?

This chain of facilities is where I have gotten some of my best units, so I really don't intend to write them off as jerks and not attend their auctions anymore.

One way I create customer goodwill and try to get them coming back to buy from me at the flea market is instead of giving them a plastic bag to put their items in, I give them a purse, backpack, shoulder bag, etc. from the pile that doesn't sell on the tables. It's amazing how excited they look when I give them one of these "bags" to put their stuff in when I could'nt sell them for $1 on the tables. 

Where I live they sell at the flea market so fast they will burn the skin off your hand! I haven't found any in a unit yet, but the "gun hounds" hit my tables every weekend before sun up.

I'm in PA, got a storage unit and my first time finding a car title...actually two of them. Anyway, the manager of the storage facility asked for me to look for a title because evidently they have a car sitting on the property from the same person for one of the titles. I asked a little bit further and she said "having the title would be easier so I wouldn't have to get a salvage title."

So...should I return the title to the property manager? Do I have any legal right to the car if I wanted it?

Thanks

In my opinion, NO!! Don't return the title. Eventually they will auction the car too, and you will have possession to the title. Others might have better advice though.

Great day for splitting the crowd! 4 auctions in 1 day, and 3 going at same time.

I went to the independent facility. There was only 1 other regular and 12 newbies. One guy runs an auction house and he won the big one. A 10 x 30 80% full for $750. I got a 10 x 15 25% full $150. The owner of the last unit showed up just as the bidding started! Auction ended.

We all rejoined the big corporate caravan. Prices were sky high at the auctions going on while we were at the independent facility. Around 60 people, 8 regulars, 5 old newbies, the rest fresh newbies. The location we rejoined only had 2 BUILD UP units. They went for over $100 each. ATTENTION NEWBIES, YOU DON'T PAY OVER $100 ON SMALL BUILD UP UNITS!!!  The next location had 2 units. First had old beat up freezer & 4 hubcaps, $11. Second took about 10 minutes to cut the lock off, this one should be good! NOPE, EMPTY.

I go clean out my little buy and hustle to the late auction at another small independent facility. 6 regulars, 12 newbies. 4 units, prices reasonable but not cheap for what was showing, but probably enough meat on the bone to make some money.

The auction I missed was PODS and they went pretty high. I heard something like $750-$1300 range.

Looking back at previous post it looks like the current trend is stealing a couple good units at the small independent facilities, but fighting of the newbies and potentially overpaying at the large corporate caravan runs. The large corporate run on Tuesday I skipped was full of newbies and expensive too from what I was told.