Garage sale
This weekend we had a garage sale to help underwrite the cost of a new computer for our family room upgrade. We made it a family project, which portends a certain amount of chaos and doom.
Various cast-offs were tossed in a room and we shuttled them out to the curb Saturday morning. Unbeknownst to us, neighbors had advertised a block sale for the same date and time so we benefited from some extra traffic early in the morning. Unfortunately, these neighbors didn't actually conduct a block sale, so many of our customers, in search of a bazaar, stopped at our house, took in our paltry wares, and asked in an accusatory tone "where's the block sale?" After more than a few of these encounters, I became less customer-focused and barked "this is our sale, we're not part of the block sale."
We soon learned that most people's price point at a garage sale is $1. So books, DVDs, and little toys did well. The customer we "delighted" most bought a plastic cow for a quarter, which had been given to us by a neighbor who didn't sell it at her garage sale. Some nice grandparents strolled by with their two young grandchildren, bought some of our higher-quality books and DVDs, so I did my only cross-sell of the day and encouraged them to buy a Mr. Bean DVD because I thought they looked like Britcom-ers. Hours later our son told me that the Mr. Bean DVD didn't work, so I recoiled in horror thinking that these nice people got home and thought I deliberately scammed them.
Traffic slowed, the till was low, so Greg replaced our child-made faintly written posterboard signs with official Garage Sale signs from the hardware store, strategically placing one near Denny's down the street. Perhaps not surprisingly, steady traffic ensued. I did some segmentation of our customer base, and hereby present my findings in the interest of advancing the science of sidewalk retailing:
1) Dollar Generals come with no intention of spending more than $1, and satisfy their recessionary consumerism with the purchase of a book or toy for $1 (60% of customers).
2) Voyeurs drive by at 1 mph and look out the window to see if it's worth getting out of the car, then decide to keep going (15%).
3) Silent Lookers actually get of the car, look disapprovingly at merchandise, and drive off without a word (10%).
4) Extreme Bargainers offer an insulting fraction of marked prices (5%).
5) Smooth Salers actually look at merchandise, offer a compliment or two, and if they purchase something, happily pay price as marked (10%).
Our shoebox was stuffed with $1 bills. Clouds came, we called it a day, drove the unsold stuff to the Salvation Army and grabbed some hot dogs at Ted's, being sure to use Entertainment Book coupons. We had re-learned how hard it is to actually make a $1, putting us squarely in category #1 above. Lesson learned.
---Allison
