SELL ONLINE

April 2024!

Should I Discount?  YES!!! 

Donate Too?  YES!!!

​Yes! Yes! Yes! you should!


Marking many (or all!) of your items to discount on our half-off day is a no brainer! The half-off sale is a wonderful marketing opportunity for all of our consignors. It is out of your house! Let us get it sold for you! The idea of half-off is NOT for you to price up your items and then sell them all at half-off. The Half-off sale is a promotion to get shoppers in the door! (And it has the super happy added benefit of getting more of your stuff sold and of us having fewer items to sort!)  Shoppers are excited about the idea that they can save big! And . . .they buy tons of full-price stuff on half off day too (40% of the things we sell on half-off day are not marked to discount!) Items that DO get donated, are first and foremost, OUT OF YOUR HOUSE, and they are helping so many families. Check out our Charity  tab for more details on the folks we help!


Our job as a sale is to make sure that YOU, the consignor, sell as many items as possible, for as much profit as possible . . .right? The way to do that is to price your items to sell well at FULL price, marking the ones that you really don't want back to discount and donate. It's out of your house! (We mentioned that, right?!) Sell those last few items at a discount and then let us donate the rest to great charities where they can do soooo much good!


New consignors are sometimes afraid to mark things to discount and to donate.  They tend to address that fear by either 1) Marking their items to discount and then raising the price of the item so high that it won't sell until half-off OR they 2) Don't mark anything to discount/donate at all.


BY FAR, the better option  is  to 3) Mark every item that you are fine with never seeing again to both discount and donate. Price the items well to sell at full price. Most will! If you do have a few items that you want to pick-up you can of course mark them to discount but not to donate.


   


Here's an example: 

This is how it might work  with 3 similar items from 3  different consignors.  We'll call those consignors  Nelly (N1), Nina (N2) and Elle (E1).  (Newbie 1, Newbie 2, and Experienced 1--get it?)


Item #1 Cute Hannah Anderson dress that  Nelly prices at $10 and marks to discount and to donate.  It doesn't sell at $10 but does sell at the half-off day for $5.  Nina prices a similar dress at $8.50 with no discount and no donate. The dress does not sell and it is sorted back into her pile for pick up. The experienced consignor, Elle, prices that same dress at $7.50 and it sells on the first night. (she marked it to discount and to donate but happily, neither will happen) 


Item # 2A brand new-with-tags Barbie doll. Nelly prices at $7 and marks to discount but not to donate. It does not sell-even on half off day for $3.50 and she has to pick it up. Nina  prices the same doll a bit better at $6 but does not mark it to discount or donate. It doesn't sell. Elle knows that there will be multiple Barbies available at the sale (she herself is bringing 6!) She marks them all to discount and donate. 4 of them are new with tags.  She prices each of those at $5 and sells 2 at full price and 2 on half-off day. The 2 used ones she prices at $3. One sells at full price and the other sells for $1.50 on half-off day.


Item #3  A barely worn Baby Bjorn  infant carrier. It sells new for around $79. You can find them online in EUC for $40-$50 and,  if it is in nearly perfect condition, it will likely sell for that at the Sail. Elle knows all this and prices hers at $39  and marks it to discount and  to donate. She wants to sell it at full price and frankly, she sort of wants to pick it up if it doesn't sell so that she can sell it online, but she weighs that against  the benefit of Drop & Go check in, and not having to come back for anything, and decides that the $6 extra dollars she might make on this one item is not a good trade when weighed against  all the other perks of donating all. The carrier sells for full price at the New Mom's presale. Nelly and Nina both price their carriers at $50. (They are nearly perfect after all!) Nelly marks hers to discount but not donate. It sells for $25 on half-off day. Nina does not mark hers to discount or to donate and it does not sell and is sorted back into her bin for pick up.  (she does  later sell it on FB Marketplace for $45 but has to meet a stranger in the Target parking lot for pick-up--she has a Mocha frappuccino at Starbucks while she waits and uses up nearly all of the extra $6 she made AND an additional hour and a half of her time!)


So there you have it. 3 consignors, 3 similar items, way different outcomes!

Nelly, our first new consignor, sold 2 of her 3 items for $30 and picked up the Barbie

Nina, our 2nd new consignor, sold none of her 3 items and came back to get them all. (She later sold the carrier for a net of $39-after the frappuccino!)

Elle, our experienced consignor sold all 3 of her items for a total of $49.50 (50%more than N1!)  And, because she marked everything to donate, she didn't have to come pick anything up and drag it back home! Huge time-saver! It PAYS to price well, discount and donate! (Incidentally, she IS an experienced consignor, so she probably also crews with us to earn a higher %, shops early to save even more $ on her purchases, and shares info about the Sail everywhere she goes so that she can win contests and earn coupons and Sail Again gift cards . . . but THAT is a story for another page!