Why shop estate sales?
There are multiple benefits of shopping at estate sales, which make it a hugely popular activity that attracts large numbers of regular estate-sale goers as well as newcomers and professional resellers.
There are multiple benefits of shopping at estate sales.
Find items you can’t buy anywhere else, enjoy the thrill of the ‘treasure hunt’, save money on high quality merchandise and recycle to protect the environment.
Find items you can’t buy anywhere else.
Perhaps one of the main reasons to shop estate sales is to find items that may not be readily available in retail stores. Estate sale inventory is pre-owned and while the inventory may be nearly new or barely used, some of it may be vintage, long discontinued and difficult or impossible to buy elsewhere.
The thrill of the ‘treasure hunt’.
Estate sales usually comprise a large volume of varied sale inventory. As every estate is different, shoppers are often compelled by the excitement of finding something unexpected, rare or unique. For many it’s a ‘treasure hunt’! This variety between estates sales means that there is potential for finding items from a wide range of different merchandise categories. Predictably these categories may include furniture, home decor and other routine household items such as kitchenware, electronics and garage items. However estate sales also offer the potential to find sale items in more niche and highly sought-after categories such as fine art and jewelry, designer fashion, sterling silver, collectibles, gym equipment and even vehicles. Other than a small minority of categories that are prohibited from sale by law or require a special license to be sold, a good general rule is that at an estate sale you can potentially find anything a home owner could possess! Estate sales can be a paradise for collectors of anything from memorabilia, musical instruments and vinyl records to vintage electronics, antiques and just about anything else you could hope to find.
Save money on high quality merchandise.
Another popular reason for shopping estate sales is to find high quality inventory at lower than retail prices. This is typically the rationale for buying any pre-owned item but estate sales have the advantage over online marketplaces in that shoppers can physically inspect their purchases before committing to them. While inventory quality may vary between estate sales and from item to item, quality is generally high at estate sales because it is likely of little benefit to the estate liquidator or owner to invest time and effort marketing items that may be considered low value or unsaleable. Estate sale inventory has usually been cared for inside a home so estate sale shoppers can expect to find items in good to like-new condition. Further it is very common for estate sales to contain inventory that may be considered luxury or high-end goods, especially when conducted in upscale homes and neighborhoods. This is one reason why estate sales should be distinguished as a very different and considerably elevated experience from garage sales and yard sales. Another reason is that estate sales are typically managed by professional estate liquidators whereas garage sales and yard sales are not.
Recycle to protect the environment.
Another popular reason to shop estate sales is that it’s a sustainable way of recycling to help protect the environment.
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