You can come across some wonderful & valuable items in storage auctions, but you can get stuck with some things that are more trouble than they are worth.
Most storage lockers contain household items, furniture, tools, appliances, lawn equipment, electronics, clothing, personal items or sometimes the remnants of a failed business.
I personally use Craigslist instead of Ebay to sell almost all of these items because you are dealing locally and people can come and pick the items up, plus, its a great free resource.
Some items that are rare, expensive or unusual might do better on Ebay because it has more specific categories & better exposure.
You should have no problem getting rid of the nicer merchandise but what do you do with all of the smaller, less valuable items? On Storage Wars, Brandi Passante & Jarrod Schulz own a small thrift store. Dave Hester owns a thrift store and consignment gallery.
Owning a thrift store is the way to go if you are trying to maximize your profit from buying storage units at auction.
You can ask higher prices for each item in a retail environment. Over time & at the right price, every item will eventually sell.
When I was at my peak, buying 7-10 storage units per week, I had so much merchandise that I had sell it quickly. My employees and I would fill up two 26′ U-Haul trucks per week and then have a gigantic garage sale in a car lot that I rented on Saturdays.
I got great exposure being on a major road and we had about 800-1000 people stopping by every Saturday. With this many people picking through your merchandise, you will move a lot of items that you otherwise couldn’t sell. But surprisingly, we still had a ton of stuff left over at the end of the day.
At first, we placed an add on Craigslist under the free section to get rid the leftovers. This became a problem because a lot of people usually showed up and they really made a mess.
They would take all of the good stuff and leave other stuff scattered everywhere. I got tired of this and decided to donate all leftover items to our friends that owned a thrift store and to local charities, which helps out less fortunate people and it is a great tax deduction.
Please leave your insightful thoughts in the comment box below.
jodi criss
November 13, 2017 at 4:44 PM
Some much happening, I’m reaching out to anyone who was at the Auction at Public Storage last week and won on unit D338. I have the combination to the safe all I’m asking for is any pictures that you have and all those inside safe. Please me.