I had a lady drive 5 hours/200 miles to come and buy an appliance off of me. Now that's nuts!

I had a couple drive 150 miles for a $25 chest of drawers.

Christmas lights anyone?



Box shown in these two pics is about 4 feet tall and 3 feet on a side. No takers locally, how about you ?

How did you get pictures of my backyard?

Yea, it's easy to have a "quick mouth, and a slow hand" in this business. Meaning it's a lot easier to win units then to turn and sell the contents for a profit. I have told myself I don't need to buy another unit until I sell through 75% of the inventory I have right now, which hopefully I can do in the next month to 2 months. It's starting to avalanche. Trying to create some discipline so I don't always have hundreds to thousands of dollars of inventory taking up space. Then again, there could always be a unit come up "I gotta have"! 

Thats some hustlin' good job!

Wish I could find a gun cabinet even if there were no weapons in it.  Would go for more then $80 that is for sure.  You had a steal there IMO.

I went to a auction today that I didn't think would make.  So I didn't even bring my auction wallet with me to work.  Didn't make the 10am (4 units) but did skip lunch to make the 1pm (13 unit) auction.  I was flat amazed.  There wasn't really a crowd.  The 10am auction had 9 people from talking with a few of the regulars.  Nice slate pool table and unit sold for $225.

Anyways - we start this auction.  You can tell they don't hold them often and everything was VERY laid back.  We had less then 20 people.  One new black lady that has never been to one.  No idea how she stumbled onto this auction.  Everyone else were regulars, or new faces to me but the old timers knew them.  Prices were LOW.  Highest unit was $195.

I purchased bid on 5 units and won 3.

Unit 1 - 6 georgia luggage bags (aka trash bags cloths) - $20
Unit 2 - 10x10 that had been tossed, beat up fridge - $5
Unit 3 - 5x10 - about 6 boxes of items in back.  Is a gamble - $40

I missed out on another gamble unit that had bags in it, pump pellet rifle, and looked like a amp.  I stopped at $40 since it didn't really grab me.  Other small unit with 6 milk crates, boxes, other odds and ends I got outbid on also.  I prob should of kept going but $50 is my max on small unit gambles.

You WON 3 units at ONE location!! Why you gotta be soo greedy!! Could'nt let somebody else get em', had to throw all that  BIG money around didn'tcha! 

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree I guess. Among the regulars I run with we have an agreement to "share" the wealth and not buy every locker we like and can afford. There are always more lockers around the corner and we often say to each other "do you want this one?" knowing if person "A" needs one right now we can live without it.

On the other hand, the couple I am talking about want no part of that cooperation and subsequently they get run up by any number of people; they don't help us and we don't help them.

As far as knowing how to "run your business, simple as that" goes, there are different ways to "run your business" and they can all be profitable. Apple maintains their price points as an example (doesn't cut prices like others do) and they seem to be doing all right.

I have friends who "turn and burn" and I have friends who are willing to hold out for more .... both are successful. There is always more than one way to be successful (IMO).

I don't disagree about having "professional courtesy" between regulars so the group doesn't run each other up, but in my area the dynamics of the auction scene are to complicated to "share the wealth" at every auction. I have certainly made business relationships were I don't run up some bidders and they have returned the favor and thier are a couple of old regulars that have been doing this forever and have no other source of income and they are really hurting right now so I never bid on units they are interested in. With that being said, we have far to few auctions per month, to many regulars, at least 15-25 that pop in and out depending on the auction, and all the newbies thrown in for everyone to get all the units they need for the month. Add to it that there is real competition between a handful of the regulars about 5-7 that purposely try to run each other up. So sometimes I'm the nice guy and don't go after units and the favor is returned, and sometimes there is a unit I really want and I don't care if everyone else has gotten thier quota for the day I'm gonna get it and if I if I already bought a unit or two that day so what! Like I said, with all the competition and the one-hit wonder newbies still winning between 50-75% of the units per auction there is just not eneough units to go around, and like someone else mentioned there is certainly no time to run around with all the regulars deciding who is going to get which unit that day, and not to mention the implied colusion.

Kinda off topic, but.

I was talking to one of the employees of the major auctioneer in our area. She told me the regulars, especially those with thrift stores and such have been complaining bitterly to the auction company about how the newbies are running them out of business. The auctioneers have come to a realization that although they are making more money right now with the high prices of units, if all the regulars go out of business it may cause them some financial difficulties as well.

Just my thoughts, but I am thinking if all the regular flea market vendors, thrift store owners get run out of business, the scene might only be left with people looking to cherry pick the nicely packed units and units with obvious high value things in them. All the other marginal units could go unsold. If the auctioneer can't sell off the marginal units, which account for most of the units up at auction; why should the facility manager hire the auctioneer in the first place?

Anyway, long of the short of the story, the auction company employee says they are considering some policies/strategies to protect the regulars and thier industry from all the newbies getting in. She did'nt give any examples of what they are planning but charging admission could be one option. Requiring a resale certificate to bid could be another option. Having bidding deposits of say $50-$200 could be an option. I realize depending on state laws and the fact that these are "public" auctions their hands might be tied as to what they can require, but at least one auctioneer is considering doing something to protect the old timers/regulars/professional storage unit buyers.

Swap meets and flea markets are the same thing I believe, just different names for different regions.  I try to call them flea markets on this site, but when I talk to any locals~it's always the swap meet.  That's why you'll see me throwing out both words.

Kinda funny how certain areas call things differently~here in Southern AZ we never buy 'lockers', but instead buy 'units'.

Yep, when i lived in Florida it was called the "swap meet" in Tennessee & Georgia its the "flea market".