Prepping for an Estate Sale

Some of you know I have been downsizing my Etsy store for some months now. I’ve wanted to have fewer items and ones that focus mainly on age, quality and uniqueness. This includes art, pottery, jewelry, books, religious items, silver, etc. And to this end I have removed some things from my store and offered them in my local BuyNothing group or donated them to charity. But my overall progress has been at a snail’s pace. I find myself reluctant to let go of some of the items because I still see them as “good things.” But, but quite frankly, some have been in my store for years and it’s time to move them along.

So when my friend Beth wondered if I wanted to have an estate sale with her this coming weekend I knew it would be the perfect way to get rid of lots of neat things while recouping some of my investment. Now I’ve kicked into high gear deciding what to bring over and how to price them. I’ve bought some colored stickers and am using pink for $5, orange for $10 and green for anything $15 and over.

Some of the items I’ve chosen include an Orrefors glass vase, an old Quimper candlestick and a West German bowl. All things that I didn’t expect to linger.

Some of you may be thinking, why don’t you just lower their price in your Etsy store? And I have put them on sale before, usually at 10-20%. With more drastic reductions, well frankly by the time you deduct the fees and the effort and cost of shipping materials and the potential for the item to get lost or damaged en route or that you might receive a negative review, it’s just not worth it. At least to me.

My inventory goal is to bring over at least 100 items and as I’ve been sorting through things it’s gotten easier to choose. Most of what doesn’t sell will be donated in some capacity, but not everything.

My financial goal for the sale is to make at least $300, but hopefully I will make more.

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Tasks for Estate Sale Prep

• Gather up items to include in the sale.
• Buy stickers and/or tags for pricing.
• Price items.
• Write ad.
• Publicize online. I’ll be doing free ads on Nextdoor, garagesalefinder.com, Facebook and likely Craigslist. I wanted to use Estatesale.com and others like it, but fees started at $39.99 and up.
• Get lots of cash, particularly in small denominations.
• Sign up for Venmo. I really didn’t want to offer this option, but my family thinks I’ll likely lose sales without offering an online payment option.
• Gather up plastic grocery bags and packing material.
• Organize goods in the house.
• Put up posters outside.

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I’ll be honest I’m a bit nervous, well really nervous. Fingers crossed folks will be nice and it won’t get too chaotic and we sell a lot of stuff.

Wishing you happy hunting,

Karen