We are having a garage sale this weekend and I thought of putting some sets out. I know people go to these looking for deals. Is it worth the time since the sets I want to sale would be $50-100 each. Just curious if anyone has had good luck selling unopened sets at a garage sale. 

Just now, jayishistory said:

We are having a garage sale this weekend and I thought of putting some sets out. I know people go to these looking for deals. Is it worth the time since the sets I want to sale would be $50-100 each. Just curious if anyone has had good luck selling unopened sets at a garage sale. 

Someone (I can't remember the Brickpicker name) maybe a year or two back claimed having success doing this, but I would be surprised if this method of sales would be very successful.

Here's a couple threads with one member's results.

 

7 minutes ago, jayishistory said:

We are having a garage sale this weekend and I thought of putting some sets out. I know people go to these looking for deals. Is it worth the time since the sets I want to sale would be $50-100 each. Just curious if anyone has had good luck selling unopened sets at a garage sale. 

Make sure you post on CL that you are having Lego at your garage sale. That's how I saw Legoray01's Lego sale. Helps that he only lived 3 miles from my house too. I spent about $450 at his sale. He had really good prices for retired sets.

doing mine tomorrow

30 minutes ago, wolvergeek said:

Make sure you post on CL that you are having Lego at your garage sale. That's how I saw Legoray01's Lego sale. Helps that he only lived 3 miles from my house too. I spent about $450 at his sale. He had really good prices for retired sets.

Well, well, @legoray01 never said he had a lark during the whole story.

I've had luck selling bags of old parts and Mega Bloks found in bulk bins for $10/gallon bag. 

1 hour ago, jayishistory said:

...Just curious if anyone has had good luck selling unopened sets at a garage sale. 

All depends on your neighborhood. Will you get UMC soccer moms or affluent AFOLs there?  I know a garage sale in my neighborhood (tho, here we call it a yard sale cuz aint nobody got a garage)  it would be a complete waste of time... unless of course I wanted to have some things stolen... then it would probably work pretty well

There is no way that you can expect to get good prices at a garage/yard sale. The general rule of thumb for those sales is to charge about 30% of the original value. You're better off selling on CL.

25 minutes ago, labfreak7 said:

There is no way that you can expect to get good prices at a garage/yard sale. The general rule of thumb for those sales is to charge about 30% of the original value. You're better off selling on CL.

It all depends on where you live. Affluent suburbs will have $ to spend. It's a good place to sell Lego Friends and City sets to soccer mom's to keep their kids in line so they can shop!

I would worry about low ball offers and kids grabbing boxs. When I go to a yard sale I expect deals-75-90% off. 

You can get more on eBay, CL, etc... because you are being found by persons wanting those particular sets. In my area we would get few if any Lego buys to a yard sale.

presale to friends I have sold mostly Chima and princess, all at nice profits. don't say what can and can't be done till you do it. will do a complete wrap up when over. I'm actually heading to storage now to pick up more Chima that I thought wouldn't sell

Background : I live in a small town in rural Idaho. People do not have a lot of money, Idaho is 50th of 50 states on paying for welfare benefit, so even those that are not working do not have that flexible of incomes. I have had poor success (or none) selling on craigslist and local buy/sell/trade on facebook, only at Xmas for about a two week window has it been worth my time. I started the investing/flipping/picking game about two years ago.

purpose of the yard sale was to clean out the clutter, and roll the dice and see if could sell any bigger ticket items. Secondary purpose was to become the go-to guy for the locals that are looking for retired or hard to find sets, or just need an exclusive quicker.

Here is a list of sales, will try to put name and set number, first number in paranthesis is how much I paid for it. I am not including tax/gas etc, as a lot of the time it was from Lego store, and got 5% VIP, or a promo/freebee somewhere and it more than offset tax. yes there are better accountants than me, so just add 5-10% for costs if it bugs you.

various speed champions ($15 each (was filler on orders to get promos)) x4 -----> $15 x 4 = $60

ecto-1 ($40) ------> $50

ninjago flyers ($0) ----- $7 x 2 = $14

GI Joe (Kre-O) $15-----$30

Mega Bloks jeep ($5) ----$11

bionicle ($4) ---$7

cindi carriage 41053 ($8) -- $20 x2 = $40

minions advent calendar ($11) -- $18

my-kids-wrote-down-wrong-set  ($20)----$35

Chima 71032 ($10) -- $20

Steamroller 76013 ($22) --- $35 (to a friend)

Jr. Batcave 10672 ($18) -- $30

Castle 70143 ($35) -- $50 (to a friend)

Chima 70143 ($20) --- $25

SW grievous combo ($18, thank you target) - $35 x2 = $70

Turtle Lair 79117 ($19, thank you WM) - $80

Chima 70130 ($10) -- $15

Chima 70129 ($10) -- $15

Mega Bloks ($0, thrown in free from bulk lot) $5 a bag x6 = $30

Chima 850910 ($2.50) -- $6

Arctic Heli ($18, thank you Fred Meyer) -- $30 x 2 = $60

Elsa castle ($20 FM)-- $30

Tie Polybag ($3) -- $5

Kai Fire bike poly ($2) -- $5

brianiac ($18) - $25 x2 = $50

Call of duty set ($12) - $20

tyridium 75094 ($45) --- $79

bucket 10696 ($20) --- $25 x 2 = $50

random mega bloks ($5) -- $8

friends polybag (($0.39) -- $3 x 3 = $9

friends series 2 pet ($3) -- $7

olag poly ($3) -- $7

classic box ($10) - $15

DVD ($0, already sold minifigure and covered cost) - $5

MECHDRAGON ($18) --- $55 (highlight of the day hahaha)

kre-O crap from WM ($10) - $10

I presold some stuff that didn't all get written down. Over all I had my cost at approximately $556.50 and had sales of $1101, around 97% profit overall. Numbers were padded by having no cost mega bloks. upside is all packaged delivered on time, in perfect condition, with no fees and 100% feedback

 

summary- we live very close to a large baseball tournament going on, we timed our YS for that weekend. We live between two grade schools, so doing while school is in session will have similar results. I cleared out a TON of chima, 100% of all Mega Bloks I randomly acquired from other sales and had a hard time dumping. I was surprised how much princess and other stuff did not move. No one bought any exclusives, I had them all priced at MSRP, sales pitch was to save on shipping and no sales tax. All mine were bought during double VIP during nice promo season, I would be ok selling for little or no profit if I pick up a loyal customer. 4 or 5 people took my number and plan to contact me near christmas time.

will probably do another closer to Christmas.

what sells in my market? Deeply discounted crap, resold at discount, but at profit

 

 

 

couple of pics

Great way to clear some buying mistakes.

Resurrecting this old thread, my town is hosting a Community Garage sale in September and I was thinking about selling Lego exclusively at it.  Its at a community parking lot so all the sellers are  in the same place, pretty good foot traffic, and renting a single spot for the day is $20.00

 

Just wondering if anyone has done this recently and what your success was.

48 minutes ago, zaphoid said:

Resurrecting this old thread, my town is hosting a Community Garage sale in September and I was thinking about selling Lego exclusively at it.  Its at a community parking lot so all the sellers are  in the same place, pretty good foot traffic, and renting a single spot for the day is $20.00

 

Just wondering if anyone has done this recently and what your success was.

$20 for a lot of traffic.  Sign me up.

The wife is planning a garage sale in a month or two and I'm thinking of putting a few things out just to test the waters.

@zaphoid for $20 I agree with @LegoMan1212.  I'd be down for trying that.