The future of garage sales seems assured

10:30 AM EDT on Monday, June 5, 2006

BY BILL VIRGIN
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

With Memorial Day crossed off the calendar for 2006, we're now into the prime season for what is one of America's biggest retail sectors, and its least understood.

Least understood, that is, in the sense that everyone knows what the form of retailing is, and has a pretty good idea of its importance in the commercial and cultural landscape, but no one can quantify just how extensive that importance really is.

That sector would be the garage sale.

Or yard sale, or tag sale, or rummage sale, the precise term depending not just on whether the sale itself is in a garage or spread out on a lawn or in a basement, but where in the country it's being held (the favored term can differ by region). For simplicity's sake, we'll stick to garage sale.

You can scour the Web and find plenty of advice on how to run a garage sale, and strategies on how to shop garage sales. Hard data and detailed history on garage sales, however, are hard to come by.

That's not surprising, given how widespread and decentralized the garage sale sector is. They're not run by companies, and there's no industry trade group, so there's no industrywide database to consult. While some municipalities or neighborhood associations require permits for garage sales, many don't, so that avenue is out for measuring the extent of the industry.

The closest one can come is an article on the Web site family.com that gives an estimate of 6.5 million to 9 million garage sales a year generating revenue of $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year (the article has endnotes on sources but no specific source attached to those numbers).

The article also tries to trace the garage sale: "In 1950s and 1960s America, increased affluence led many consumers to accumulate household goods in excess; concurrently, increased home-ownership created the venue from which to sell these goods. Suburbia became the fertile breeding grounds of garage sales, where unwanted items found new homes at the hands of housewives. A postmodern adaptation of the mid-nineteenth-century charitable fair or bazaar, the garage sale tapped a national romanticism toward history and nostalgia for used goods. During the 1970s, garage sales exploded into mainstream consciousness, earning a permanent place in American iconography and legitimizing the concept of profiting from discarded goods."

That timeline sounds about right, based on personal experience. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a great time to build a library of paperback books at 5, 10 and (if feeling particularly extravagant) 25 cents each, or accumulate kitchen utensils for one's first post-college apartment.

As for the size of the "industry," even if we don't have solid numbers to tell us, the profusion of signs adorning what seems to be every street corner and roadside pole should be a good indicator.

But will that continue?

Competition from more organized collections of household goods by charitable organizations, as well as thrift stores, organized swap meets and eBay, would seem to be threats to draw off both buyers and sellers.

In fact, "just from my observation [the garage sale sector]does seem to get bigger every year," says John Schroeder, the Minneapolis-based author of the book Garage Sale Fever!

Schroeder cites some practical reasons for the continued growth and popularity of garage sales. One is that "aging baby boomers want to get rid of stuff," he says; in his own research, people mention getting rid of clutter more frequently than making money as a motivation to have a sale.

Another is that people are scouring garage sales for inventory for their own sales or for eBay, much as antique dealers have always done.

But Schroeder also says garage sales continue to do well because it's a different kind of retailing than store-based or online.

"You can touch the stuff, you can ask questions, you can deal with the actual owner and you can inspect the item for flaws," he says.

People go to a store or online to find something specific. People go to garage sales with only a general idea of what they're looking for. "It's the great American treasure hunt, where you can find anything," Schroeder says. As the family.com article adds, garage sales are as much social and recreational events as they are commercial enterprises.

For those reasons, the garage sale, wherever it's held and whatever it's called, would seem to have the most stable future of any portion of retailing.

People are always going to have stuff they've outgrown, no longer need, got as a gift but didn't like or can't remember exactly why it was they bought it in the first place.

And for every one of those items, there might just be someone out there who would just love it -- even if they don't know yet they're looking for it. Check this out:Garage Sale Success