Just Between Friends Sale

Today I wanted to share my thoughts on the Just Between Friends Consignment Sale. I figured I would share a quick post here, because it is a national consignment sale, so this may be helpful for anyone who has been contemplating giving it a try. If you have never heard of the sale or want to find one by you, check their location finder. They have them in most big cities and almost every state.

 

I have sold a lot of Myles' outgrown stuff on Facebook, consignment stores, Craigslist, etc. but I still had most of his 2t-3t clothes and a ton of books/movies/toys pilling up in our garage. We talked about having a garage sale, but we really didn't have anything else to sell besides Myles' things. So when I got an email about the upcoming sale I thought why not give it a try this year.

With this type of sale, experiences will vary greatly; even the same person could have a wonderful experience one season of the sale, and a not so great one the next. So these opinions are from just this one sale I participated in. 

It does take a decent amount of time to prep your items for the sale. It also takes some money because you need to print your tags and have your own hangers, safety pins, tape, bags, etc.  I have to say that the tag system is very easy and I had no problems with printing out my tags. I feel like the time spent prepping your items isn't any more than it would take to get a garage sale together or sell your items online through Facebook or Craigslist. It may take more time initially, but then the JBF and workers take care of the rest. I started prepping a couple weeks before the sale, so that I could spread the work out to about 20 minutes a night. In that way, it didn't feel like it took up much of my time at all. 

If you don't want to volunteer, the only thing you have to do with your items is drop them off and pick them up. The incentive to volunteer is getting a higher percentage of money from your sales and getting in to pre-sales. I signed up for a 4 hours shift just one day and I was then able to get 5% more money back and have early access to the regular sale/last day 50% off sale.

I am a numbers person so before I get into how much I made, I want to share the types of items I put in the sale and how many of each sold. 

Clothes: Sold 76 of 117

Shoes: Sold 8/11

Books: Sold 12/12

DVDs/Music: 7/11

Toys: 15/21

Other: 6/8

Bikes: 2/2

Booster Seat: 1/1

Total: Sold 126/182

Out of the total sold, 98 were full price sales and 28 were half price sales. 

This is the total of the items that I had in the sale: $666.00

This is the total of what I sold, BUT not taking into account the 50% off items. So I actually made $406.00

This is how much I made taking into account all the fees and %s. If you don't volunteer, you get 60% and if you do, you get 65%. Also there is a $13.50 cosigner fee. So the check I got in the mail was for $251.  Even at the 65% I made more than I would have at my own garage sale or selling online.

 With this sale, you get to pick your own price when tagging your items. They do give you a guideline sheet, which is very helpful, but in the end, you decide on the price. Items at a huge consignment sale like this will be priced higher than garage sales and online selling. There are a couple of reasons for this. 1. They are very picky with the items they sell. There is an inspection process that keeps only good condition items on the sales floor. 2. The convenience of having 1,000s of items all in the same place. For those reasons, the prices of my items are more than I would be able to sell them for on my own. Therefore, even with only getting 65% of my sales, I made at least the same and probably even more than I would have trying to sell on my own.

Whenever I sell anything of Myles' I always recycle the money for the next things he will need. We are currently working on his 5t wardrobe. I waited to shop until the 50% off day and since I volunteered, I got to shop the night before it was open to the public. I bought around 30 items (including 2 pairs of shoes), all in great condition, for $47! I told myself to keep it under $50 and I managed to do so. The remaining $200 is being saved for future purchases.

So all in all in this particular instance, the money we made was well worth the time/effort put into selling at JBF. I will most definitely do it again. 

Have you ever consigned at a sale before?