You’re in Brooklyn Stoop It

Be bold.  Be cheap.  Stoop it stupid.

One of the most fun ways to generate semi-passive income for yourself is to have a stoop-sale.  It can put money in your pocket, introduce you to some neighborhood friends and best of all off-load all of the no longer useful things that have accumulated in your life.  While a stoop-sale is pretty self explanatory, there are some details that shouldn’t be overlooked:

-Weed through the crap.  Nobody wants your Aunt Matilda’s terrycloth bathrobe she gave you as a hand-me-down when you were twelve.  Bag the stuff you know won’t sell and call City Opera Thrift Store for a pick up: 212-684-5344, http://www.yelp.com/biz/city-opera-thrift-shop-new-york.  They will come to your door and haul the stuff away.  Take the itemized form they give you and use it to deduct $500 in charitable donations on your next tax return.  You will not red flag the IRS for donations $500 and under.  If you claim more, it’s at your own risk.

-Use price stickers.  You can get a package of yellow circle stickers at Right Aid for $2.49.  After several (mostly unsuccessful) stoop sales, I’ve learned a bit about stoop-sale customers.  They don’t necessarily want to talk to you.  They just want to get a good deal.  The sticker lets them know upfront if they should drop cash or where they can start negotiating from.

-Be sorta organized.  The best sale I ever had included a garment rack, a $5 bin, $3 bin and $1 bin.  The jewelry was all $1 and in its own container.  The books and DVD’s were uniformly priced.

-Don’t get greedy.  This is a stoop sale, not a vintage flea market.  This is an alternative to throwing things away or donating them to charity.  Consider almost any monetary offer a miracle that someone is actually interested in your old stuff.  Unless you’ve got some fancy things that you know will get a hot dollar on eBay, reduce your expectations for funding your new laptop with the profits of your stoop-sale.

-Coordinate pricing with time of day.  You can try your luck by pricing items according to how much time is left to your sale.  For example, if you start your sale at 9:00am and are selling your blue jeans at $11, drop the price by half at 1:00pm if they haven’t sold.  You’ll find that people tend to buy multiple items if they think stuff is ‘sooo cheap’.  They sorta get ‘the fever’ for your $5 dollar jeans and then get a book and DVD to boot.  The fun never stops.

Be bold.  Be cheap.  Stoop it Stupid.