You can read "Shopping Garage Sales and Thrift Stores, Part 2" here. Reply to this post to discuss it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Auctiva Editor,

Thank you for your informative article on shopping at thrifts and garage sales.

My question is regarding sets of dishes. How to you sell them? Piece-by-piece or the entire set in one aquction? I have a fairly large unique old set of V&B and don't know how to go about listing it. It would take several boxes to ship the enitre set to someone. As it is a unique set, I don't think that I should split it up.

Also what about chipped, crazed or cracked pieces. If it is a set to you include them at no charge, except postage?

Thanks very much in advance for any comments.

quote:

Originally posted by PEM:
Thank you for your informative article on shopping at thrifts and garage sales.

My question is regarding sets of dishes. How to you sell them? Piece-by-piece or the entire set in one aquction? I have a fairly large unique old set of V&B and don't know how to go about listing it. It would take several boxes to ship the enitre set to someone. As it is a unique set, I don't think that I should split it up.

Also what about chipped, crazed or cracked pieces. If it is a set to you include them at no charge, except postage?

Thanks very much in advance for any comments.

I have sold many complete sets of china on eBay. I only list complete sets if they are complete or just missing 1 or 2 pieces. I do not purchase sets that have cracked, chipped or too many missing pieces. On more modern china or dinnerware, I have found that by piecing it out, my profit is much more. It is so costly to ship an entire set of china that many buyers just won't buy online. Also, when selling an entire set, the packing materials can be quite costly so I charge at least a $5.00 to $10.00 handling fee and post this in my ad so they know before bidding. One set I paid $15 for at an estate sale recently sold for $250. Good Luck! Jeanie

Remember, you can always edit later, so grab anything that looks interesting. It's a numbers game. Don't forget this.

This practice of grabbing and looking later has always rubbed me the wrong way. We have a local jewelry buyer who literally grabs "all" of the jewelry and sits off in the corner and sorts through it. He usually puts 98% back. Meanwhile, other people who may have bought some of what he put back are long gone. This isn't very fair to the host of the sale or to other shoppers for that matter.

At the professionally conducted estate sales here, once you put an item in your pile, you own it. If you try and put things back you'll soon have a negative reputation among estate conductors and your fellow dealers.

Watching people beat up garage sale hosts on their prices when the stuff is already plenty cheap grates me as well.

It's informative artice for garage sale ~ thrift store novices but maybe part three should be about garage sale etiquette. It's good to remember the people you buy from as well as your fellow dealers are people too. It's not just about the 900% profit margin.

I agree with what Lyne said, "Grab everything you want and ask what they want for all the items". I tend to do this all the time. Not only at garage sales, but at retail stores too.

I ask if they can do better since I'm buying more than one item. If they can't I ask them if they can talk to their manager. Most of the time this works. But it really works well at garage sales.

I also have to agree to get to know the staff at your thrift stores. They do give you special treatment ans also give you special pricing. I somtime buy them a soda from the vending machine. You know the deal, you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back.

I recently went to the salvation army in my area and bought about 40 record albums. They wanted a buck a piece , $1.00. Since I knew the girl at the register I didn't even pay close to $40.00 for them.

I actually sold 20 of them for over $200.00 and the rest I'm keeping for my collection. So make sure to be all nicey nice to the people at the stores.

The great thing about being nice to them was that one of the girls from my local store got transfered to another store in my area. So now I have two places I can get deals from.

So make sure you get to know the people where you shop and always negotiate the price on things. Even in retail stores..

Here is to your success

-Carlos