Garage Sale!

Held a garage sale on the 8th April together with Yen, Kiat, Rachel and Jyes. Jyes wasn’t able to come and help out on the actual day coz she had to bring Tandra to playschool. A pity though coz it was quite fun :)

The preparation stage: 1st we had to design & print the fliers. The most cost effective way was to get our cousins/friends to print and photocopy for us from their office (Shhh…..)

Next we had to categorize the items we have gathered. Most of my stuff is contributed by my mum’s friends and after adding on to Yen and the rest, we have a great big pile to sort out. In the end, we have 3 neat piles: One to sell in the garage sale; another would be rags (too dirty and tattered to sell) and the last was for keeping (those that we decided that we still have “feelings” for at the last minute and those we pick from each other’s pile, haha)
Then comes the labeling which is the worst part. Because it was quite a struggle what price to put on a certain item. We may feel it was worth more than a certain amount but afraid that it can’t be sold if priced at that amount. Tough task. Spent quite a while consulting each other while we priced.

We had to mingle around and promote our stuff. It was a new experience for me (Yen, Kiatz and Rach has experience in sales) Digging up clothes from underneath the pile and promoting them to our potential customers. We even had a taste of being a personal image consultant as we match tops and bottoms for them, haha.

Frankly speaking, our prices are really rock bottom low. But some of the customers still want to reduce the prices further. Eg. From $2 to $1. Tell me where you can get such bargains for a top that looks brand new huh? Huh? In addition, Kiatz’s treasured possessions: jeans and berms including authentic Billabong & Nike all selling at $5 only!

Eventually we agreed to slash the prices coz we want to avoid having leftovers. But really, come to think of it, we would have been bankrupt if this is our own store and we are cutting prices like nobody’s business.

Amazingly, we were able to sell almost half of our stuff that day. One Philippine old lady and her daughter-in-law bought $60+ worth of items! It was enjoyable serving them too. We even pick up a few Philippine phrases:

Meshando Guapo - Very handsome

Meshando Meganta - Very beautiful

Manga - Mango

Lugi - Bankrupt

Selamat - Thank you

Some phrases sounds quite similar to Malay though :)

There was another lady who came back shortly after she made her purchases. We were wondering why when she showed us the hat her boy (who was in the pram she was pushing) had picked up without her noticing. In the end, I suggested giving the hat to the little boy. He was so adorable! And he looked so pleased with himself when he touched the hat after I help him put it on.

My mum was so sweet that day. Brought coffee down for us to drink, knowing that we did not have breakfast. The coffee sure tasted good! Everyone said so. Haha, I guess it’s a combination of the coffee itself and the sweetness of mummy’s gesture.

Yenz was complimented by a lady that she can be an image consultant, haha. And some of the customers even asked us when will we be holding the 2nd garage sale! We were all dead tired when we returned home. Overall, it was a tiring but satisfying morning. Kiatz fell asleep right away after taking his lunch, haha.

Some photos to share:

Look at our pile of clothes.....like pasar malam, wahaha

Our financial manager, Mr Kiatz!

This is how we do our accounting :)

Picking bargains ourselves!