Tips for Consigning

Prepping for a Consignment Sale

Do you ever find yourself in a fit of rage because you start to feel consumed by all your junk? I’ve been feeling that way lately… A LOT! It could be because I’m 4 months pregnant and have an early case of nesting kicking in or it could be because we simply do have too much stuff.

Part of our issue is that I have saved everything from kids 1 and 2 because we have one of each and I refuse to buy something twice if I don’t have to. Baby 3 is a going to be surprise so I have to hold onto everything until August rolls around (plus a few months I’m sure until I feel up to getting rid of more stuff).

We have a semi-annual consignment sale here that is huge! It just happened two weeks ago and the next one is in late September. Since I couldn’t get rid of too much I decided to go through and take inventory of what we had and at least get rid of some things to make a little extra space.

Areas I thinned down:
•    My closet – I used to do this twice a year before having kids but now it’s been awhile. I went through my closet, drawers, and shoes and picked out all the spring/summer items that I knew I wouldn’t be wearing again.
•    Saved baby clothes – our first was a girl and she got so many clothes before she was even born and all in teeny tiny sizes. Both kids were fast growers and wore those teeny tiny clothes for a few weeks at most. I realized I had 15+ sleepers and 15+ outfits in those teeny tiny sizes, so I picked out my favorites and sold the rest. I was realistic about how often I’ll be doing laundry those first few months so I saved 10 of each.
•    Saved baby clothes in the wrong season – our first was born in April and our second was born in January, this one is due in August… therefore some sizes are in the wrong season. I got rid of those items that I knew were never going to get worn.
•    Baby blankets and bibs – I’m sure you all have too many receiving blankets and bigger blankets, next to clothes it seems to be everyone’s favorite go to gift. Then the bibs, I don’t know about you but I hardly used any bibs on my kids because half the time they got food on their clothes that weren’t covered by the bib. I picked out all my favorites and sold the rest.
•    Miscellaneous household items – We always end up with random things I bought that didn’t work out for what I thought they could be used for or hand me downs I couldn’t say no to that never get used. I feel like this is a great time to purge down on all of that stuff.

The consignment sale I sell at has a great site that you can enter all of your inventory on, print your tags, and tag your own items prior to drop off. Each time I got a basket full of stuff to sell, I entered it into my inventory and set it aside. This is the most annoying part because you have to keep it all laying around in wait before drop off. I’m not the type of person to stay up late at night and get something like this done so I do it over a few weeks, turning my office into a war zone. The bright side is I always make some nice money from it so I just keep thinking of what projects I’m going to do with my newly acquired fun money.

Pricing. I’ve tried doing a lot of research in this area but don’t ever get enough information. These are my current prices I’m using and I’m selling 95% of my items (because I’d rather not go back and pick it up later I like to price on the lower side).

Kid’s outfits $2-4 (brands include carters, circo, old navy, little lass, rare editions, etc.)
Kid’s single clothing items (hats, shirts, leggings) $.50-2
Kid’s shoes $2-2.50
Baby clothing (grouped hats, socks, onesies) $1-3
Women’s clothes (single items) $4
Women’s shoes $5
Books (kid’s and adult) $1.50-3
Toys (playdough sets, trucks) $5
Video games (husband’s old ps3 games) $3
Random small household items (cat bowl, sock bun, picture frames) $1-5

So none of that really seems like a lot of money… but when you multiply those numbers it adds up quick! I sold 127 items this year for a net proceed of $291.  I’ve been really wanting to fix up our son’s room for him (the white walls in this house are killing me!) with some paint, new bedding, and a fun wall decal. I’ll get to do all of that now, pictures will come soon!

I’m already looking forward to getting rid of all of our big baby gear as the baby outgrows it. After 3 kids we have every single big item you can think of and they all take up SO MUCH SPACE!

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Africa Studio/Shutterstock.com.