There’s a new twist appearing at several garage/estate sales in this area of the Midwest this year - early buyer’s privileges at garage sales and estate sales.
Several large church groups, non-profit organizations, and school groups have begun offering early buyer’s privileges at garage sales and opening one to two hours early for buyers who are willing to pay anywhere from $1 to $3 for the chance to shop before regular shoppers are allowed in.
Additionally, early buyer’s privileges have been offered for anywhere from $5 to $25 by a few local estate sales already this year.
Early buyer’s privileges have been common place with many large antique shows and flea markets around the country for many years. Long before eBay came into existence , I regularly paid anywhere from $25 to $200, or more, for the privilege of shopping at antique shows and flea markets before the regular buying public was allowed in the doors.
Similarly, for years, many Friends Of The Library booksales have offered FOL members the chance to buy books the day or evening before they opened their doors to non-members. Your FOL annual membership, in effect, gave you early buyer’s privileges at however many sales the FOL put on during the year.
Although I’ve never seen them before, it may be that early buyer’s privileges at garage sales and estate sales are commonplace in other parts of the country. This is the first year they’ve appeared around this area though, and the reaction from buyers has been both interesting and surprising.
As I’m sure it is in other parts of the country, garage sale shoppers around here can be divided up into two general groups. The first group consists of those who are looking for inventory to sell on eBay, in their antique shops, in their booths in antique malls, or at flea markets. The second group is made up of shoppers searching for a wide variety of things for personal use - appliances, clothing, furniture, etc.
To me, the reactions of each group to the introduction of early buyer’s privileges at garage sales and estate sales has, surprisingly, the opposite of what I would have expected.
The second group of shoppers have taken to early buyer’s privileges like ducks to water when it’s offered at large group sales. The group sales offering this option are bringing in $200 to $300 that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. I’m somewhat surprised people from the second group keep paying to get in early, because so many people are doing it, the exclusivity is lost it seems to me.
The people from this group aren’t paying to gain early access to estate sales which isn’t surprising. Estate sales were never high on their sale priority list. Offered the choice of a sale advertising “lots of women’s clothing” or “quality children’s toys” and one advertising “antiques” and they choose the first one every time.
What I do find surprising is that people from the dealer group have shown that they won’t spend a few extra dollars for the chance to buy inventory before others do.
So far there have been three estate sales that offered early buyer’s privileges for prices from $5 to $25. I’ve been at all three when they opened and paid my money. At one I was the only person there. Although the sale had some nice items, their prices were quite high and I only bought two things.
At the other two, I was one of only two people who bought early buyer’s privileges when they opened and we were each able to buy a lot of good merchandise at low prices.
I’m really surprised that people dependent upon these sales for part or all of their income, won’t spend a few bucks to put themselves in a position to have the chance to buy inventory. But it’s OK with me, I’ll happily spend a little money for the chance to buy quality merchandise with little or no competition.
My guess is that group sales offering early buyer’s privileges will continue to grow as long as people keep taking advantage of them. What’s it like in your part of the country? Are early buyer’s privileges at garage sales and estate sale common place or non-existent?
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May 16th, 2006 at 10:02 am
Hey Gary…we’ve missed you, welcome back!!
I agree with you 100%!!
I gladly pay for the ‘early bird’ entry and I’ve found 99% of the time its way worth it.
While I’ve not encountered it at garage/yard sales in my area yet, they are common for Antique shows and FOL book sales.
This past weekend I attended a FOL sale where my membership not only gave me early access, but a 20% discount off the already low prices.
I scooped up 9 or10 banana boxes of books, tapes, CDs and DVDs for $75, one box contained over 100 Conan the Barbarian paperbacks and another held 50+ various Star Wars paperbacks.
I was approached by a person later on with an offer of $70 for the Star Wars box!! I also overheard several folks mention the SOLD box of “Star Wars” books under the cashier’s during the sale.
While I don’t always score like this, the ‘early entry’ fees are ALWAYS worth paying.
May 16th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
I agree. I’m always willing to pay for the opportunity to buy inventory before the general public is and I find it surprising that so many others who are serious about selling on eBay or Amazon aren’t.
There have to be at least 40 or 50 people in this area that regularly shop at garage and estate sales for merchandise for their antique shops, flea market booths, booths in malls, and to sell on eBay and Amazon. At the three sales that have done this this year, only two people have taken advantage of it - one other person who sells on eBay and myself. And, we’ve bought a lot of merchandise for resale at those three sales.
I talked to him this morning at a thrift shop and we are both hearing the same comments about these three sales from others - “I’m glad I didn’t pay $XXX to get in early” because there was nothing there when they arrived when the sales opened to the public. Of course they wasn’t. My friend and I had already bought it all.
We’re not complaining though. We figure that it’s a trend that will probably grow and as long as we keep our mouths shut around here, we’ll continue to have the good stuff pretty much all to ourselves.
Good luck with the books.
Gary
May 18th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
I’ve never seen estate or garage sales charging for early access here in AZ.
Based on the people I know, most of them won’t pay the fee.
I’ve been a taker of the early bird option at shows for years. I think it’s a great deal, depending on how it’s done. If you can get in while the sellers are setting up it’s worth it.
However, some shows have the sellers set up, and then open the doors for early buyers. In these cases, it’s usually not worth the fee because other sellers pick all the deals.
I’ve been known to buy space to get in early if the show doesn’t offer early access. That always works better, but is a time commitment - you can’t just leave if you bought space.
In fact, some shows try to prevent sellers from leaving early. One show organizer “fined” me by charging my credit card $500 for leaving early. I talked my way out of it by saying I’d sold everything I brought - almost true, and then sold the table to the guy behind me.
A lot of the club sponsored train shows have closed box rules. No sales until the show starts. Some of them even make everyone - buyers and sellers stand outside and then rush in at the opening. Some allow sellers to set up and are policed by rude Nazi-like characters who walk around buying items they want while screaming at sellers who offer items to other sellers. Some of them even go so far as to scream at you if you stop to say hi to someone you haven’t seen in a while.
Think I am kidding? I once sold a man a train, then while I was buying something from the seller next to me he stood there with the train he bought from me in one hand shaking his other fist at me for trading early with the other seller.
Sad.
Terry
July 1st, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I have lived in a lot of different places in the USA and I have never before heard of early admission charges for either garage sales or estate sales…but that could very well change.
LOL @ Terry’s collector show war stories! They sound so entirely true although my areas of experience are different from Terry’s (Terry is the toy guru and other than a few toys that tie into my collecting interests in the movie & TV memorabilia department).
In my experience if the show has nationwide and international appeal (an example of this is the Austin Record Convention for vinyl, CDs, and music related items in Austin TX), the people who will pay for early admission are most likely foreign collectors & foreign dealers who are not setting up to sell at the shows. These folks have already paid for plane tickets, car rentals, hotel rooms, meals out, etc, and perhaps also the salaries and the same expenses for helpers/employees so a little more money for early admissions to them is just the cost of doing business at that show.
US dealers are the least likely to pay for early admissions while US collectors may or may not pay…the early admission lowers a collector’s budget for items to purchase at the show while with dealers it’s all about being pennywise and pound foolish. In my experience, the cheap dealers are usually the ones who mark things sky high and don’t offer discounts to anyone.
The stories about dealers trading around with each other before the collector’s show is officially opened regardless of whether the show has an early admissions policy is so utterly true…if collectors knew this, many of them would stop attending! I have helped out many dealer friends attending various collector shows and can tell countless stories of trying to set up a table and being unable to do so because of pushy grabby dealers behind the tables, rooting in boxes and bins trying to get a look before I have had a chance to properly set up. With these obnoxious guys (never once have I encountered a woman who behaves this rudely and desperately) I used to tell them that those boxes of things they were rooting through were already presold to a collector (a close friend of the show runner and promoter) or better yet the guy who ran and promoted the show who would be coming to pick them up sometime after the show opened. One thing you never want to do as a dealer or collector is offend the show’s promoter, unless you want to be kicked out of that show for life
Oh and if I were to attend a show with an enforcer who bought something from me or the dealer I was helping who then turned around and chewed me out for trying to deal early, I’d turn the Little Hitler into the show’s promoter…this works unless the Nazi in question is the spouse or child of the promoter
If you want to see a hilarious film about collectibles dealers and their bad sad behavior you must rent “Comic Book Villains”. I wish so much of it weren’t so true but it is.