How to have a new/used craft sale with multiple ladies?

[lvlabs]

I know many paper crafters have organized sales for fellow crafters at schools, civic centers, etc. I think it's a great idea to enable us to even swap our things we think are blah to yeah!

I've searched on SCS but can't find any helpful info of how to organize one. Some me point meant the right direction via blog or a post on SCS?

[cbet]

I haven't organized one of these, but I've been a part of garage sales with multiple sellers and I would think some of the tricks we've used would work for you:

Each seller prices their own items; they each need a code to add to the price sticker to show it's their item (we just used initials). Everyone checked out/paid at a single location and at that spot, we pulled off the price sticker and added it to the seller's tally sheet. Then at the end of the day, we just totalled up everyone's $$ and paid it out.

Now, these were sales that included maybe 5 people at the most and not a lot of $$$, so it won't be so easy with a larger group. If you have it at a location where you need to pay rent, you'll need to decide a fair division on that (if someone's only bringing in a few items, should they pay the same amount as someone who's selling a small store's worth of items?). And you'll also need to be sure that the person or people working checkout are trustworthy. It would be pretty easy to just lose a sticker here and there, if you know what I mean.

Thinking about this some more, I think I'd want each person who was selling to have an inventory list of what they brought to the sale and what they were pricing it at, just as a double-check at the end of the day.

[xayide2]

The tally sheet is a must for a central checkout for multiple sellers. Try really hard to enter everything. Several times when we had a multi-family yard sale, there was always extra money in the box when we divided up the cash. (aside from the starting cash box amount). The only fair thing to do was divide it proportionally between the sellers on who had the most stuff sold on the tally sheet on down. Unless you sold everything of yours and you know you have all your cash.

It's annoying to try and figure out who an extra $30 goes to after everything else is added up.

[missiowa81]

The former owner of a stamping and scrapping store in my town holds a "rubber rummage sale" twice a year. She used to hold it at her store; now it's held in the community center at a mobile home park. I think she said over 30 people are planning to participate. Merchandise is not limited to rubber stamps, although there are usually several tables of nothing but stamps.

The process:

Sellers are assigned a number in advance. Any item they want to sell needs to be in a plastic baggie (or other clear packaging), with an index card that has the seller's number and the price on it. If the item is a stamp, she asks that you stamp the image on the index card so that people can see what it is.

When something is sold, the cashier keeps the index card. After the sale is over, she sorts the cards by the seller number and tallies each seller's cards. I think she keeps 10% of the proceeds to pay for her time organizing the sale and to pay for advertising (and I suppose the room rental now that she no longer has a store).

At some point after the sale, the sellers come back to get their money and any of their items that did not sell. They also get back their cards for the items that did sell.

[lvlabs]

Thanks ladies. I'm hoping to use our school gym and also getting a teacher to help so maybe less red tape. Thanks again. ***tina

[turki]

I have only been to sales of this type that were hosted by local scrapbook stores. Most of these were central checkout, but one runs it that each seller must run their own table. Each seller put out their stuff, and each seller takes the cash directly. They sellers pay a fee to the store that hosts it to cover advertising; in your case it would be to cover any costs to rent to space as well. I'm not sure who provided the tables, the store or the seller. When I heard that the store was changing from the central checkout to this format, I was skeptical as to how well it would work, but it has been very popular and well attended.

Just something to consider. It takes the responsibility of the money off of you. It's one thing if there's $30 dollars more in the cash box than there should be, but what if there's $30 dollars less?