Consignment Sale Re-Cap

I am so so pleased with my last two consignment sale experiences! Between the two JBF sales that I did in October I am coming away with a little over $400! Combine that with my checks from the two spring sales I participated in and I've made over $700 in consignment sales this year!

After I had Naomi I knew we wanted another baby so I saved most of her clothes, towels, blankets, hats and all of her toys. Then when we had Mr. Mason come along we were over run by pink! Luckily all baby toys are pretty gender neutral and all of our baby equipment like the swing and pack & play was all neutral colors as well so we are able to re-use all of that. I saved a few things to make a baby clothes quilt for Naomi's 1st baby someday but a lot of the stuff I decided to add to the sale.

So along with all of her old things plus about $50 in other items that I have collected from garage sales and thrift stores for really cheap I made about a $350 profit! I keep track of the items I buy for re-sale on a handy dandy spreadsheet that my husband helped me make a few years ago. That way I can keep track of what I spend vs. what I sell it for and how much my profit is for each and every item.

I found that grouping items together into outfits and packs and pricing them relatively low really helped. For example, I priced a group of 5 onesies at $5 with the option to go 1/2 price on the last day of the sale. Most of those sold at full price making me $.65 for each onesie! At a garage sale I would have stuck a $.25 price tag on each piece so I definitely raised my profit margin by doing the sale! I also grouped together towels & wash clothes or a bag of various bath toys. People like getting the most for their money.

I had over 255 items in the system and ended up with about 75 items at the end. What to do with those 75 items you ask? Well I have already listed a few things on eBay at fixed price listings and the rest is going to my local consignment store. I get 50% of whatever the items sell for there and they are on the floor for 6 weeks and donated after that if they don't sell which I am totally fine with. Most of the time I use the money I make at the consignment store to buy other items for re-sale or clothes for my kids.

I have already started buying for the spring sales for 2012! Much to my dear husband's dismay I store the clothes and other items I find in bins out in the garage and then when the time comes I destroy my dining room for about a week with tagging and hanging all of my items! I can't wait for the spring sales! My goal is to take 500 items to the next sale I participate in and not invest more than $.50-$1.00 for each item.

Stay tuned for the next couple of weeks, when I get back from vacation I am going to do a post on how I dress both of my kids for "free"!