consignment craziness

The churches in our town hold two days of children's clothing consignment sales, one in the fall and one in the spring. While I've been an avid shopper of these since before Liza was born, this is the first time I've participated as a seller. And boy, is it an eye-opening experience.

First of all, the ladies who run the Little Ones' consignment sale for the Methodist church are so organized it makes my head hurt. When the day came to register for seller numbers, they managed to handle 150 people in slightly over an hour, including the women who had been in line since 6 am or before so they could make sure they got a good spot in the check-in process. I got to the line at 9:15 (it opened at 9) and I was seller number 128 out of a possible 150 ... 10 minutes later and I would have been out of luck. Once I got to the head of the line, it was even more organized ... they even had color-coded lines on the floor to direct people to the right booths, for god's sake.

In order to keep the sale itself organized, each seller has to do things EXACTLY the same way ... the organizers dictate what type of hangers to use, how to hang the clothes on them, where to put the safety pins, even what font to use on the computerized inventory list. Anal? Yes. Maddening if you screw something up and have to fix it? Yes. Necessary if you're going to bring any sort of order to the sale of more than 20,000 pieces of merchandise? Yes.

Today's check-in of the merchandise was no different. The ladies have thought of everything, including someone to help you pile all the stuff onto hanging racks and wagons and carts and whatever else you need to get your goods out of the parking lot and into the church basement. I only had to wait in line for about 15 minutes before they were ready for me ... one lady to inspect each of my items for stains/tears/excess wear, and one to check the tag against the inventory. They only rejected two of my items, and those I went ahead and donated to the charity pile they have for after the sale. I had some seller spaces left over after my merchandise was finished, so one of my friends sent some of her baby and maternity stuff to sell, too. If every item sells for the price we have listed (which it won't, especially since the second day of the sale everything is 50% off) we'll make $296 between us. Not a bad take, considering all I had to do was spend a few hours sorting and hanging and tagging.

The real eye opener wasn't how organized the sale is, but how jam-packed with stuff the sales floor is today. For past sales I have gotten there around 10 or 12 on the first day, when things weren't so crowded you couldn't move, and I was pretty impressed at the amount of stuff available then. But people who work the sale get first crack at stuff the day before the public gets in, and people who sell at the sale get second crack a day early, so I was really only seeing the dregs of what all the ladies in the know had left behind.

Turns out, the ladies who work and/or sell buy a LOT of the stuff. For example, during past sales I've seen one or two Boppys for sale. Today there was a pile of like 10 of them. Usually I see one or two high chairs and things like Exersaucers ... today there was a pile of Exersaucers that was waist-high, and more were coming in as I was leaving. The clothes racks were so full that it took two people to hang up the new stuff coming in - one person to hold back the clothes already in place, and another to quickly jam the new stuff into the opening. I totally have to bring my camera tonight, as the place is impressive ... it looks like a Babies R Us exploded all over the church basement.

As I was checking in my stuff, I was eyeing up the other sellers' merchandise, trying to spot the good stuff. One lady in front of me had priced all of her daughter's 24-mo and 2T outfits at $1 each. That's like 1/15th or 1/20th of what they probably cost new ... even if they're not in great shape, a kid has to have some grubby clothes to fingerpaint in, so I'm definitely going to be looking for her stuff. And another lady had a foot-tall stack of wooden knob puzzles that are totally going home with me, if they're still there when the seller's hour opens at 7 tonight.

Plus, one of our neighbors sells at the other church's sale, and she ended up with an extra pass to that seller's hour ... so I get to hit both sales before the rest of the public! Heaven! Wish me luck ... I'll let you know the haul (and the damage) after I return.