I Now Own A Junk Business!!!!

[TelephoneAngel]

Boyfriend only works part time, but there are only certain things he will do, he likes being a handyman, and doing a bit of selling of "stuff" he comes across, the weirder the better.

So I decided I would set him up with stock for his own little business, I saw someone was selling a whole load of junk in their garage cheap, so now we have a house full of junk which he is to sell, we have already discovered in there a limited edition mint 45 record and a brand new pair of boots which he will sell on ebay.

There rest he is going to attempt to sell at table top and car boot sales.

There are books, christmas decorations, toys, lamps, fashion jewellery, vanity cases, all sorts of things.And about a dozen big boxes we haven't even gone through.For the price we paid, he would only have to sell all the contents of each box at £2/$3.50 (and there is a lot in each box), to make a good profit. Therefore each individual item would be very cheap, unless we went for the maximum profit we could and priced them up a bit.

So here is the advice I would like to have please -

If you go to a table top or garage/boot sale, how do you like to see goods set out?

What attracts you to buy? What puts you off?

[Becks]

Don't put all the "good" stuff out at once. Spread it out over the day so everyone gets a chance.

[TelephoneAngel]

still have some boxes to open, but found a very interesting array of stuff in them,

a 1920s hairdryer,
some victorian perfume bottles
a pierre cardin watch
a prayer book which is valued at £50 on an antique book website
some old old china (1930s)

i could get addicted to this.

i think some of this we will ebay rather than sell at a general sale.

[ArcticChicken]

My dad and my stepmom started out picking stuff up at yard sales and selling it on ebay, then they started going to auctions, then they set up a booth at an antiques mall, and now they're trying to open a store with some other vendors.

If you'd like I can ask them if I can put them in touch with you.

[taxguykarl]

i think some of this we will ebay rather than sell at a general sale.

Chances are, that will get you a better price than the flea markets. Just be sure to clarify who pays for shipping in your product description.

[Bella_Vixen]

<perk>

Victorian perfume bottles...do you have any pictures?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Do I call you Sanford? Or is your boyfriend Sanford and you are son?

Anyhow, we used to hold garage sales fairly often in my family, either at our house or our grandparents' house. If the sale was by my grandparents, there was often antique furniture my grandpa had purchased cheap someplace and then restored. Not too many of his projects went unsold.

As I remember, we tried to hang up clothing on racks or clotheslines instead of putting it in boxes, and lay everything else out on or under tables. On those occasions I go to garage sales, I don't pay too much attention to presentation; it obviously is not a retail environment. If it's in reasonably good shape and reasonably priced, I'll take a good look at it.

Regarding ebay--you're going to be limiting your reach if you choose only to sell within the UK, so if you decide to sell internationally you'll need to read up on international shipping requirements and customs forms and the like. And also ebay's listing rules if you're not already familiar with those.

[TelephoneAngel]

Hi to the people who responded and sorry I delayed my reply, I've been trying to look at how ebay opertes (told you I knew nothing about it) I have now set up an account and we are going to try to put some china on there tonight, and see what happens.

To the person who wrote about the perfume bottles, I don't have a digital camera unfortunately but boyfriend will take photos of the china in the net few days and i will ask him to take one of the glass as well.

To the person who wrote about their dad and stepmom's stall, that's interesting although I'm guessing business practices will be different between uk and usa, so thank you for the offer.