I need garage sale help! Prices for beanie babies, clothes, books, drinks??

[MedCruise07]

I am having an I-can't-stand-the-clutter garage sale on Saturday. It has been years since the last garage sale and I am wondering about prices for things, in particular for beanie babies (the TY ones, in gently used condition--some like new), clothes (teens, mostly jeans and sweaters, outgrown and in very good condition), books of all kinds, and the drinks that my 12 year old wants to sell at a stand of sorts (probably a cardboard box stand).

Can someone help me?

 

[C.Ann]

I can tell you what I would be willing to pay for these items, but I'm a long-time garage saler and always have "fixed" prices in my mind that I won't go beyond..

Beanie babies - 50 cents
jeans in very good condition - $1
sweaters in very good condition - $1
books - 25 cents for paperbacks - 50 cents for hardcovers

Drinks from your son? If I knew he was doing this to make money for himself, I would pay up to 75 cents for lemonade (even though I don't like it) or soda (even though I don't drink it).. I like to see kids trying to earn their own money..

Keep in mind though - these are just the prices that I'm willing to pay because I have never had a problem finding items priced this way at garage sales..

Hope you have a great sale!

 

[Cindyluwho]

A good way is to check on Ebay and see what prices things have gone for on there. make sure they are the exact same item in the exact same condition. You won't get "full value" but you can get anywhere from 45-75% of value depending on how nice the item is. I can't imagine that used Beanie Babies go for anything at all but I could be wrong
Also, there's a lemonade stand in our neighborhood today and the kids are asking 25cents a glass.

 

[MedCruise07]

Thanks for the replies. I'm curious whether it would be a better idea to price a little high to allow room for people to offer less, or just price the lowest I am willing to accept.

 

[cteddiesgirl]

I can tell you what I would be willing to pay for these items, but I'm a long-time garage saler and always have "fixed" prices in my mind that I won't go beyond..

Beanie babies - 50 cents
jeans in very good condition - $1
sweaters in very good condition - $1
books - 25 cents for paperbacks - 50 cents for hardcovers


Hope you have a great sale!

Really? Six or seven years ago I was getting 50 cents per paperback and at least $1 on hardcovers. Also after the beanie baby hype went down, I was still getting $2 on them. Although used ones may go for $1.

I would go slightly higher on items earlier in the day and as you come to a close start going lower to what you absolutely wouldn't take any less for.

 

[NAB]

A lot of people sell books are yard sales. I was selling my for 25 cents too. Unless they are like still on the best sellers list that is all you well get.

I found it hard to sell older kids clothes. I have was selling my son's clothes who is 10 and didn't sell anything but my dd who is 8 I sold all her clothes for $1.00

Not sure about the stuff animals. Maybe only $1.00 if they were used and not like collector type stuff.

I find people are not willing to pay much at yard sales. And with all the dollar stores out there these days.....

I would also say 25 cents for a drink. We sold bottled water for 50 cents. We bought 12/ 1.99 so we made money there. We also don't pay a deposit on the bottles here either. What ever, price make it easy to make change .

And pricing all depends how bad you want to get rid of it. But I would try to price stuff because I hate to go looking for people to ask the price.

 

[golfgal]

We priced all of our books at $.25 for little kid books, $.50 for paperbacks, $1.00 for hard covers and sold every single one of them. For clothing we priced everything on one table at $1.00. For nicer, more expensive things we put individual prices on them. Jeans in good condition that were 'designer", mostly Levi's, we sold for $5. We didn't have a problem selling anything. A fe people would try to talk us down on price and depending on what they offered we said yes to most of them. Usually if we said no they paid what we had listed anyway.

 

[C.Ann]

Really? Six or seven years ago I was getting 50 cents per paperback and at least $1 on hardcovers. Also after the beanie baby hype went down, I was still getting $2 on them. Although used ones may go for $1.

I would go slightly higher on items earlier in the day and as you come to a close start going lower to what you absolutely wouldn't take any less for.

-----------------------------------

Interesting how widely prices vary.. I would never pay more than the prices I quoted because I knew if I didn't get what I wanted at any one particular garage sale, I could always find it at another for the price I was willing to pay.. Of course I never went to garage sales because I had to have any particular item - it was more "wants" than "needs"..

With the prices I quoted, I would never ask anyone to go any lower - don't care for garage sales where people price high, expecting people to offer less..
For many, many years I held two garage sales per year myself - one in the spring and one in the fall.. I priced my items based on what I would pay for them if I were out hitting the sales myself and always managed to bring in a decent amount of money - while finally getting rid of all the clutter!!

 

[mjkacmom]

I couldn't give stuffed animals away, and that included beanie babies. Adult clothing items were $1, kids clothing 25 cents an item, and I had tons of children's books, and couldn't sell them for 25 cents! I finally sold them by the bagful!