Here’s a guest post from Kelly at Childcycle:
As a mom of two young boys on a tight budget I was surprised to see how limited my options were for selling my kids used goods.I love to garage sale and love a good deal but am not a fan of devoting a whole weekend to holding a garage sale. I tried Kijiji and found it a bother with lowball offers, people not showing up and strangers coming to my door.Consignment stores, I thought that was the answer! My bubble was burst when I brought in a stroller car seat combo into a local longtime store. I saw the same stroller being sold for $200 in the store. The store offered me $75 store credit or $50 cash! I thought to myself, hold on I OWN this! Why are they getting more money then I am for it?I did some research and discovered Consignment sales! The more I read the more I love the idea.I pitched the idea to my best friend Chelsea and Childcycle was born!
Our goal at Childcycle is two-fold:
We wanted to save parents time and money buying children’s items.
– We do this by hosting over 50 sellers and vendors in one space twice a year. So instead of heading all over the city to different garage sales, wasting time and gas money we offer it all in one 10,000 foot indoor space.
– We are set up just like a store with everything sorted by size/gender or category. Saving parents time by allowing them to go right to what they are looking for. We also have a computerized inventory system that allows shoppers to pay all at once at the end of their shopping. This sale is
the first that we will be will be accepting Debit, Visa and MasterCard as well as cash.
– We take parents from tummy to teen and in between, featuring maternity wear, infant gear, toys, sporting goods, books, shoes, clothing and so
much more!
– One of our BIG pet peeves is going to “sales” and getting home with items that are stained or ripped! So we screen all items that are
going onto our sales floor! We don’t want anyone getting home and being disappointed!
Secondly, we wanted to offer sellers a safe, stress free way to sell their goods.
– Sellers sign up online and from home they enter their inventory into our system.
– They print the tags and attach them to the items.
– They drop them off at the sale site.
– All that’s left to do is pick up any unsold item after the sale and wait for their cheque!
For the above steps the seller would earn 65 % of what their items sell for ( let me remind you that I was offered 25% cash from the consignment
store for mine!)
Sellers also have the option to volunteer and can earn either a volunteer presale pass which allows them to shop before anyone else or
and extra 5% of their sales.The volunteers allow our sellers to sell their items and not have to be with us for the whole sale!
We know parents are busy and feel that Childcycle gives parents the best of both worlds by getting a fair amount for their items and not giving up their free time!Chelsea and I realized more then anyone, how hard and overwhelming it is to be a new parent so we started our “new parent presale” We offer the first 50 new parents that sign up the chance to shop early with one guest.We also realized that there are a lot of sellers who wanted to donate their items that do not sell. So we decided to team up with a small local charity called “The Refuge”. Located in Riverwoods Community Church, they are a bi-weekly support group and mentoring program for young mothers and their children. They offer opportunities to connect, build relationships and to teach new life skills.
We hope you will join us for our next sale May 25th and 26th at the Glenwood Community Centre. Childcycle – Where buying and selling
make Cents!
Volunteer Presale -Saturday May 25th – 8 A.M.
Charity Presale fundraiser Saturday May 25th8:30 A.M.
New Parents Presale Saturday May25th – 9 A.M.
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Public Sale Saturday May 25TH 10 A.M – 4 P.M.
Discount DASH Sunday May 26th 9 A.M. – 12 P.M.Many items marked half price!