Want a quick drop off?  Here’s how!

Prepping at home:

Sort clothing by gender and size. Zip tie, bag, elastic band, or tie a ribbon around each size.

Make sure all of your toys work.  They need fresh batteries.  If you can’t make them work at home do not bring them to the sale.

Sort all of your books into one bin, all of your puzzles, into another, all of your toys into another, etc.  This will help you get your items into the floor faster if they are bundled together by kind. Grab a babysitter: Drop-off is really chaotic.  It goes much faster if you don’t have a little person vying for your attention.  Also, there are lots of large pieces of equipment being assembled, it is not the safest place for your little.

Loading your vehicle:

Pack the large and bulky items first and fill in with your lighter items. Try to keep everything secure!

Arriving at Drop off:

Once you arrive at drop off go to the drop off table and check in.  Once you have been assigned a drop off table you will start unloading your car.  Start with the clothing and accessories first since they take the longest to go through.  We have rolling racks you can put your clothing on but they must remain in the building. Once your clothes are unloaded you can then start to bring in your other items. After you have emptied your vehicle you need move your vehicle and park your car in the parking lot so that other vehicles can complete their drop off.

Inspection:

Once the inspection starts- get moving!  Don’t hang out at the table and watch inspection! Once items have been checked get them out onto the floor!  Standing over the inspectors creates stress for both parties.  Our checkers will review with you all of your rejects at the completion of your drop off.

EASY PEASEY!

What to Expect at Drop Off

Pre consignment sale “Sweep”

Here are some places to find hidden treasures to help beef up your consignor check and clear clutter!

Dress-Up Box: Check your dress up box.  I know I always find stuff hidden away in there that no longer fits and can bring in some cash at the sale.  I also seem to find random pieces of toys and games in there as well so it is a great place to check out!

Video/Game Cabinets: My son is a gamer and quickly tires of a video game once he has mastered it.  These are great items to put in the sale!  Also, check out your DVDs while you are in here. Each sale I manage to find DVDs that we no longer need/want.

Craft Supplies: I am a crafter,  I love to craft.  I recently went through my craft supplies and realized that I have way more than I need and certainly many items that I will just never use.  I put it all together in bags and sell as a lot.  I put stickers together, papers together, glue together, etc and price them to sell.  These are treasures for other crafters and homeschoolers!

Kitchen Cabinets: If you make your own baby food, the supplies you need to make it are great sellers!  Bullets, storage containers, etc. sell well!  Children’s dishes and cups and placemats and cutlery are also sellable. If you’re selling sippy cups take the silicone valve out.  Bottles sell well but again- you need to take the silicone valve out.  You may also find breast milk storage containers and bags in your cabinets!

Linen closet/bathroom: You can consign Infant’s/ kids towels towels, crib sheets, stools, potty chairs, bath tubs, and bath seats.  You cannot consign bath toys because they tend to grow mold.

The Garage: Bikes, scooters, skateboards, helmets, recreational and sporting equiptment can be found here.  Make sure you check this area out for some extra money in your check!!!!

Backyard: This is the motherload!!! Outdoor toys are the hottest items and the most in demand at the sale! Sandboxes, water tables, slides, kids’ picnic tables, swings, climbers, and playhouses are huge sellers!  If you’ve got ‘em, sell ‘em!!!

Commonly Overpriced Brands

There are many items that come to the sale that are current in style and in great condition but don’t sell.  Overpricing can be one of the reasons it is left on the rack.  Below are some of the more common brands that are overpriced and some suggestions of how to price these items.

Basic Editions

Wal-Mart’s store brand runs from $3.00 to $8.00 on average (dressy items and sets may retail for more).  Our Suggestion: Bundle pieces within the size and style and/or price low, $2.00

Carter’s

I know everyone loves a Carter's set. The MSRP for Carter's is high but Carter’s stores and outlets frequently have storewide sales with up to 40% or more off the retail prices on inventory. There are also Carter's brands available at discount store like Wal-Mart and Target (Just One You, Just One Year) are priced much lower than in Carter’s retail stores. Consignment sale shoppers are savvy and they have a hard time paying high prices for items they know you purchased at a steep discount. Even if you paid full price for an outfit, price it the same as a basic brands.

Circo

Circo is Target's store brand. They make great clothing at a fantastic price. People like to stock up on these basics, especially when they go on sale. You are going to want to keep prices low on this brand given the bargain price to being with, and the sale price that can't be beat. Keep the prices at $2.00-$3.50.

Old Navy

Savvy shoppers know that Old Navy has frequent sales on children’s items, and the clearance racks are chock full of amazing deals. For these two reasons, you do not want to price your items at 30% of MSRP because everyone knows, you never pay retail prices at Old Navy. Shoppers are going to pass over your Old Navy items if they are priced too high. Our suggestion is to keep it between $2- $6. 

Pottery Barn Kids

People love Pottery Barn items, they just don't want to pay a bundle for them, especially at a consignment sale. Despite the fact that PBK doesn't run frequent sales or offer steep discounts, their items do not follow the usual room decor and furnishings does not follow the usual 30%-50% rule of higher end brands. People want an amazing bargain with PBK so we suggest you stay in the 20% – 25% range or less if you don't want to store it for the next sale.

Janie & Jack

I love a Janie and Jack set!  Their clothing is absolutely adorable and classic.  It is also a bit on the pricey side.  For reasons we do not understand, it does not resell well.  This combined with the fact that it is a mall brand and not a boutique brand, we suggest you use 40% of retail for like new and excellent used condition items.  We also suggest keeping items under $10 to better sell your items.

Tags (descriptions are everything!)

The descriptions you put on your tags are incredibly important.  If your tag become separated from your item it is your description that will make all of the difference in reuniting them.  We CANNOT sell your item if it doesn’t have a tag!  Here is what you need to know about tags!

Correct Size:  Make sure you have the correct size on your tag.  This is one of the criteria that helps us match your item with a missing tag.

The first thing on your tag should be the brand name.  When we are looking up a tag this is the first thing we type to help narrow our search.

DESCRIPTION:  Just putting “jeans” is not very helpful when we are sorting through 65,000 items.  Skinny jeans, boot cut, blue, black, applique...these are all great descriptions that will help us match your missing tag to your item.  There are also common abbreviations to help with your description:

Item Condition

NWT – New with Tags

NIP – New in Package

Brands

ON – Old Navy

MJ – Matilda Jane

JOY – Just One Year by Carter’s

RL – Ralph Lauren

GYM, GYMBO – Gymboree

OKBG, OSH – Osh Gosh B’Gosh

TCP – The Children’s Place

When describing a color please use basic colors like; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black, brown, and beige.  Colors like burnt sienna, persimmon, harvest gold, aqua, magenta, burnt umber… these are not going to help when we search because we will never guess those colors. If we key in yellow to narrow down a search and you put “harvest gold” it won’t come up in the search so we won’t be able to find your item.

If your item has a saying on it like “daddy’s little slugger”- add that to your description if you can.  That will help us narrow the search as well.

An example of a great description:

GAP white sweater

Cardigan snowflakes

This is what your Spring 2017 tags should look like:

RI Kids Consignment Sale 1000 2 Item 1 Clothing - Girls GAP blue logo ls shirt Lavender dots   c/1000 i/1 REDUCE $3.00 CV

RI Kids Consignment Sale 1000 5 Item 2 Clothing - Boys UA black ss tech tee WORK HARD PLAY HARD   c/1000 i/2 $6.00 CV

Miracle Cleaner

MIRACLE CLEANER

So you have inspected your clothing for the sale and you noticed a bunch of stains.  Whomp, whomp. Instead of tossing them, give them one more shot with miracle cleaner!

Pink Polka Dot Creations combines 1 part blue Dawn with 2 parts Peroxide for her Miracle Cleaner.
Tidy Mom uses the same combination for her Miracle Cleaner.  Her instructions are as follows:

"Mix and pour or spray directly on stain, launder  as usual and watch it disappear like MAGIC.

I keep a bottle of this Miracle Cleaner in my laundry room to spray on stains, and it has yet to fail me. Besides usual food and other mysterious stains that appear on my family’s clothes, I have used the Miracle Stain Remover to successfully removed set in grease on a favorite t-shirt, yellow arm pit stains, chocolate, blood and tire grease when a white hat was driven over after being lost in the street.

If I’m worried about a really tough stain, like the hat or yellow arm pit stains, I will use an old toothbrush to scrub the stain remover into the fabric (you can also sprinkle with a little baking soda to make a paste for a little extra scrubbing power) and let it sit about an hour before washing. If it’s a large stain, as was the case with the dress, you can mix the formula and add it to a bucket of hot water and soak the entire garment for a few hours.  If the stain does not come out completely the first time, try it a second time, but it has worked the first time on everything I have tried."

How to Make Sets 

(and increase your bottom line!)

There are many tricks seasoned consignors have in their bag, making sets is just one of them. Making sets helps with your hanger limits and also helps increase the size of your consignor check!

Infant items should be made into outfits whenever possible.  Shoppers love a bundle at a good price. Carter’s tends to sell in sets so be sure to resell that way.  Also, Gymboree loves to sell coordinated outfits.

RI Kids Consignment requires that you have the same size and brand to make a set. 24 months and 2T are not the same size.  Also, Carter’s, Just one You, and Just One Year are not the same brand.  You need to match Carter’s with Carter’s and Just One You with Just One You. We allow up to three items on a hanger.  

• Pjs with a shirt and with shorts and pants are okay.  
• A dress that has a onesie and a sweater is okay.  
• Pants with a shirt and a hoodie are okay.

You can add accessories to these outfits such as tights, bowties and hair accessories as long as they are the same brand and coordinate with the outfit.

Make sure each piece on the hanger can be seen easily when hanging. Everything should be securely and neatly attached to the hanger. Loose items such as accessories should be placed in a plastic zip bag and taped closed. The bag needs to be attached to the hanger with your consignor number and item number written on it.

There are other items that are popular with shoppers when sold as groups.

• When making sets of books keep like themes together.  Board books about nature, or animals can be sold as a set.  Easy readers should be sold by level (1,2,3,4) and topic if possible.  If there is a series, sell the series together.
• Sets of puzzles also do well.  Be sure to once again have a common theme.  Saran wrap the puzzles together so pieces don’t get lost.
• Bags of small toys sell well. Group sets of cars, action figures, legos, or other small toys in zip-top bags. Seal the bag shut with packing tape and put the tag on the outside of the bag and tape it firmly.  Also write your consignor number and item number on the bag in case the tag gets separated from the bag.

Be sure to check out our Youtube channel for additional tips!