If you love it so much, why are you selling it?

Posted by Meghan in Hey Sellers | Comments Off on If you love it so much, why are you selling it?
27April2007

One of my pet peeves about going to sales is the “personal attachment seller.” I own many items that I love, but I don’t expect anyone to have the same feelings about something that I cherished for years. I love the sentiment, but once an item is chipped, stained, torn or dirty – please don’t expect me to pay for your sentimental value. I don’t care if you spent $100 on something; you treated it like crap, it’s not worth $3 now.

People get these weird ideas about pricing based on their personal feelings about the item. Here are three examples …

  • “I could sell that on eBay for $60, so I want to get at least $30 for it.” If you could sell it on eBay, why don’t you? It’s not THAT difficult. I’m not going to pay extra because you’re lazy.
  • “Oh, I really loved that. How much do you want to pay?” If you can’t take the time to price something, I don’t have the time to play games with you. I understand that you want a fair price, but I am not about to fall into the web that you weave. If it doesn’t have a price and you want me to guess what I think you want, you will be disappointed with my offer. Most times I will put the item down and walk away.
  • “That was a gift, so I want XYZ dollars.” First off, why are you selling something a friend or family member gave you? Secondly, your yard sale isn’t a retail environment. I didn’t get up at 7:30 in the morning to go to the mall. Lastly, why would you think I care that you received it as a gift? For F*CK sake, just re-gift the item like everyone else.

When either of us has a yard sale the main goal is to make items “GO AWAY.” To make this happen, I tend to price low so I don’t have to drag it back in the house. If you are going to yard sales every weekend, it’s a good idea to try and pare down collections so you have space for more items. And if you want to make things go away, price them at what people are going to want to pay at a yard sale – don’t mark them up based on reasons that don’t matter to anyone except you. (Or if you want to overprice something, go ahead, but spare us the explanations!)

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