The Secret to Consignment Sale Shopping

Spring and fall are my favorite seasons of the year. Not just because the weather is beautiful, not too hot and not too cold, but also because it's consignment sale time! As I said in my last post, at a children's consignment sale you can find everything you need for a baby all the way up to your teenagers! You can even find stuff pre-baby such as maternity clothes. And best of all you can sell your own stuff that you no longer want and get good money for it. I've shopped the consignment sales for the last 5 years or so and a couple of years ago I figured out the real secret to getting the best deals.

You have to think of a consignment sale as one big garage sale. Everyone knows that the way to get the best stuff from a garage sale is to be there right when they open, after all the early bird gets the worm, right? A consignment sale is the same way. In my below post for the Take2 sale I posted the hours they are open, they opened to the public today at 10:00am. Notice I said, "to the public" - because prior to the 10:00am start time today, there had already been hundreds of people through there that shopped at the sale and scoooped up the best stuff! As a consignor, you get to preshop the sale before the general public. In fact, at most consignment sales I've particiapted in , you get two passes to get into the consignor preshopping, so you can bring a friend!

BUT...even before the consignors shop, there is one more group that gets to preshop...the volunteers. When you volunteer for a consignment sale, you get the absolute first pick of all the items for sale. I spent 4 hours on Sunday afternoon organizing toys at the sale. I then got to go back the following day, along with all of the other volunteers, and preshop the sale for a whole 2 hours before they even let the consignors in! And when 1/2 price day comes (Saturday), the volunteers again get to have first pick of all the 1/2 price items.

I've always gotten good deals at consignment sales, but since I started volunteering to work at them, I've gotten great deals! :) Plus, there are other benefits to volunteering. At Take2, when you volunteer at least 4 hours, you get to preshop the sale, plus you get an extra 5% back on what you sell. In a couple of weeks, The Kidz Shoppe will be having their consignment sale. When you volunteer at least 8 hours at The Kidz Shoppe, you get to preshop the sale and you get your consignment fee waived.

Maybe I'm strange, but I actually enjoy the volunteer time. It's very gratifying to me to organize things and make everything look nice for the shoppers. For some reason it's easier to organize other people's things than my own! And it gives me the chance to socialize with other adults, and it gives the hubby time along with our girls, too. A win/win all the way around!

The Bargainista