This morning we had a garage sale at my parent’s house, and in addition to the usual things, I sold Jason’s crib and changing table. The crib was Child Craft crib that retails in the $800 price range, under the category of best pos. We had a sticker on it for $200 for the whole set. It’s a great crib – it even converts in to a junior bed with an extender for when the child outgrows a crib.
A few people came by and were interested in it, but eventually the “right” people came by. A soon-to-be grandfather that lives around the corner from my parents came over to check it out. Then the mom-to-be came over to check it out too. I jokingly told her I could even take a credit card for payment. When they decided to buy it, we did just that! I logged in to PayPal and sent them a payment request for $200 (we were holding the crib until tonight so they could pick it up) and they went home and sent me the money through PayPal!
I also have an account through ProPay that allows you to process credit cards on the spot as if they were regular merchant payments – no different then when a cashier swipes your credit card at the store. I would have used them, but it’s a 3.5% transaction fee, and PayPal is under 2%. PayPal seemed to be the better choice for this transaction.
Garage sales have even come in to the Internet age!
14 replies on “Modern Day Garage Sales…”
That’s kinda cool. I remember the small bit of excitement i got when I received my first paypal payment. I had paid with them several times, but never received anything. It was painless and the money was just there.
Of course, this means we are on the fast track to a cashless society where one good hacker can wipe you out even quicker.
wow that is great, nice sale…
and the paypal is awesome. good work.
Ahhh but the missed opportunity a wireless connection and a laptop would’ve solved…
(Sorry it’s the geek in me..)
(Taking it further a barcode scanner and… ohhh ok I’ll stop…)
Paypal is cool!
Actually, I used WiFi and a laptop – in the garage – to send him the PayPal payment request. I only went that route because of the difference in the interest. Plus he needed to go – he had a meeting 15 minutes later – so the payment request seemed to be the best thing to do.
We (MK) use ProPay for our transactions with credit cards for payments.. I love that stuff! Was the weather nice for the garage sale? We’ve been thinking about doing that – but it’s been cold here lately and I’m not sure I want to put all that effort into a no show!
Hey, that’s cool!
Now….how do you feel now that the crib is gone? I am thinking I will never be able to get rid of ours. :'(
That’s awesome, lol…technology takes over! ^.^ … Paypal rocks, too. ^.^
next time you’ll have to create UPC labels, print them out and punch in the number after transactions so that people on the internet can see what you still actually have in stock. if you’ve got an ipaq, you can even use that to scan and automatically update your inventory. 🙂
Wow! That is awesome! I never even thought about that!
Dude, that’s awesome!
The crib being gone makes me feel … rich! 😀 It is sad to see it go, but it was time. It needs to move on and cradle and comfort another child. I’m glad it’s found a new home.
I didn’t know you could do that with paypal! How very handy!
That’s fabulous!I think it’s great – We’re total yard-salers, and I never seem to take out enough cash when we go. If only we could get EVERYONE to move into paypal mode! 😀 (Of course, that could dangerous to the bank account!)