Yard Sale

After all, it is a lot of work to run a yard sale. At the end of the day, often I regret my pricing wasn’t done well. I feel bad for myself after I realized I sold stuff too cheap; I also feel bad for buyers after I realized I priced too high. These are small amount of money, not big items. But I just want to be fair.

Some of buyers were very tough. I want to sale my microwave for $20. This older gentleman insisted me to sell him for $15. I told him I already cut the price from $25, but welling to cut a couple dollars. He slowly walked away, repeatedly asked me for $15. I patiently told him $18. He ended up didn’t buy.

This happened to a lady also. A pair brand new shoe I priced $3, already down from $5. This lady insisted I should sell her for a dollar. She did the same as the old man. At the end, I didn’t sell to her either. A buyer saw the whole negotiation. After she left, he told me” you are tough. I like you.” I laugh. I said” I am very nice too.” He said"my wife was tough but very nice too, before she passed away”. I told him” I am sorry to hear that.” He also said he does not like people here. They are so not respectful. I didn’t ask more details about why he'd think that. I just said” it’s ok. I don’t care much.”

Earlier, an old gentleman stopped by. He joked with me when he first walked in” Are you behaving yourself?” I jokily stood straight and answered” Yes. I am.” We both laugh. He started talking about someone he knows (I didn’t get his story. It’s about someone from foreign country became his long term friend. I guess he had station somewhere at South-East Asia long time ago.) He said, one time on his friend birthday, he decided to buy a birthday cake for the friend. Since, he is doing it every year. And now, his son is already 38. I joked” too bad you don’t know me. Otherwise, you could do the same for me.” We both laugh again. When he left, he drove by me and honked. I waved. It’s unusual for an American honk in general. Then, I remembered it is Saturday morning. Thank god it’s after 9am. (Someone would be upset if trying to sleep in on the weekend.)  I know he had good time with our short conversations.

For me, it’s always interesting to see many people with so different purpose when doing garage sale shopping. Like me, sometime I am looking something. But most of time, I shop for fun – find interesting stuff for cheap. Sometime I do ask for cheaper, but I don’t force people to sell the price I think “right.” The seller has history with each item. It’s not my decision for the price as a buyer. In contract, I decided my price disregard buyer’s “strategy”. The two incidents above, seems to me that they really like the item and welling to spend so much time to confirm their price.  I don’t understand, if they like it so much, for a couple dollars, why not just buy it?  Mumm… they must not need it.

Well, from my observation, I concluded that garage sale is all about right person show up at right place at right time to get the right item. 
How interesting!