Yard Sale or Estate Sale to Attract Buyers?

[jaybirdsmommy]

I used to sell books on Amazon and was in thrift stores around town multiple times a week. Once I was done with the books, I would shop for other things. There was a thrift store named Savers here that had took time to sort out their clothing and price it accordingly. Cheap Wal*Mart or JC Penney brands were cheaper and higher end brands were more expensive. Like the eBay sellers they took time to examine, sort, price and label each item. Yes, the prices were a bit more expensive (sometimes double for great brands) but items were easy to find and sort through since they were sorted and labeled by size. Goodwill, OTOH, priced every like thing the same price. It didn't matter if it was a pair of Arizona Jeans or Lucky Jeans, they were all $4.99 each. Clothing was crammed together in loose sizing (small, medium, large, etc) so when I was looking for a size 4 pair of nice jeans for my DD I had to dig through dozens and dozens of wrong sizes and crappy brands. What would take me 5 minutes at Savers would take me 25 minutes at Goodwill. Goodwill did not put the time, effort or staffing into making shopping easier. Goodwill and their single pricing system is still in the area, but Savers is now gone. People shop thrift stores like they do yard sales. They want the lowest price. Period. Even if it takes they 5 times longer to find what they want. Me, I was happy shopping at Savers because it was easy even though it wasn't the cheapest.

Yes, I think it's the thrill of finding that $200 pair of jeans with the tags still on them in the $4.99 pile that make people like that system better. I've got a favorite thrift that's like you describe. They're very well organized, and most of their clothes are marked a single price ($2.99 for boys jeans, $3.99 for womens tops, etc). Name brands they price higher depending on what it is. If it's still got the tags on it, they're going to go for 60% of the highest price. Then, the name brands sit on the rack for 2 months until the tag hits the color of the week and they sell it for 0.50. It's silly, I don't know why they don't just price things the same, it would sell faster and for more money. It's just not quite as satisfying (to me, anyway) to hunt for good stuff in there, because I know it's going to be priced higher when I find it. Also, maybe a little bit of sour grapes cause I work and can't get there at opening on Tuesday morning when the 0.50 sale starts. All the good stuff is gone by lunch.