What's a Children's Consignment Sale?
Can Moms Make Money Selling Their Out-Grown Baby Items?
Stay-at-home moms have probably made the rounds of several children's consignment sales in their areas. While sifting through the stores of baby clothes and gear, they’ve doubtless considered the growing stash of garage-sale bins in their own homes and wondered if consigning would be worth their while.
What is a Children's Consignment Sale?
Consignment sales offer only children’s items. Moms can shop roomfuls of toys, clothes, kid’s furniture, and baby gear. These sales are typically highly-advertised, week-long semi-annual events. The sales are generally organized to fall once at the beginning of spring, and once at the beginning of fall so parents can stock up on seasonal clothing.
Parents who participate by bringing their baby items to sell are called consigners. The hard work of organizing the items, advertising, and manning the sale is all done by the sale operators. For their time, the operators receive somewhere around 30% of the money earned from the consigner’s items.
How Consigners Make Money at a Children's Consignment Sale
Consigners set the price of every item they enter into the sale and clear somewhere around 70% of those profits. If they set their prices high, they may sell a few items, but have many left for the next sale. If they set prices low, their items will go fast and there won’t be much for them to pick up when the sale’s over. The key is finding that perfect middle ground where items are priced to sell, but also to make the effort worth your while.
Consigners can usually hope to price high-demand items such as popular toys, toddler beds, new strollers, and large yard toys somewhere between 30% to 50% of their original value. Clothing can be priced to sell somewhere between 20% to 40% of its purchase value. The range is a little higher than items are generally priced at a yard sale.
Most consignment sales offer half price deals on the final day. Consigners can opt to let their items be marked down or keep them at their original price.
Certain consignment sales offer incentives to moms who volunteer a few hours of time to man the sale or refer other consigners to participate. These incentives can show up as a 5% or 10% bonus on profits.
Additionally, consigners are typically offered certain perks like a day to peruse the sale before the general public. This benefit alone keeps many stay-at-home moms tagging their items with for every upcoming sale.
Consignment sales are a growing trend that offer benefits to both buyers and sellers. Before committing their time or buying supplies though, moms may be interested to check out the work involved in preparing for a children's consignment sale. Additionally, moms may want to look into other ways of contributing to the family budget through opportunities related to their prior workplace experience or current creative talents.
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