Many consignment store owners do estate sales on the side, both so they can get first pick of potentially valuable items, but also as a way to make some extra money on the side. Even if you don’t decide to put on estate sales, they can be goldmine sources of new inventory for your store.

Because the term “estate sale” gets tossed around so easily, the first thing you should know is that a true estate sale happening when one member of a family has just died. If you are buying at the estate sale, that means you may be able to get stuff that would otherwise never have been offered.

But if you are selling at the estate sale (ie, managing the sale) you’ll need to be clear about what your responsibilities are. Do you want to be responsible for getting rid of the dozens of boxes of old memorabilia that may be worthless. Are you hoping to have dibs on a few documents worth $10,000 in a far corner of one of the boxes?

In fact, that’s ultimately the most noteworthy thing about running an estate sale. You’re going to need help, and a lot of it. It can take three to seven days just to get ready for the sale, and then when the sale happens, it will happen fast. You’ll need one person exclusively working the cash box and to write receipts, then you’ll need as much as one person per room in the house. There can be theft at estate sales, and you do not want already upset family members getting even more upset because something has been stolen. So do whatever it takes (hire friends, or smart and responsible teenagers) but make sure there are a lot of eyes on the scene. This also helps with sales, especially if your staff is even a little bit familiar with antiques and used goods.

Even if they dont steal, it is also quite common for estate sale visitors to switch price tags, so they can get an $80 vase for 50 cents. Doing a walk-through of all the items the day before the sale with your staff can help a lot with this, and also save your a couple hundred questions during the sale itself.

Another big difference with estate sales is advertising. You’ll need to do more than the usual pinned up sign at the nearest intersection. Buy ads in the local newspapers including the time, date, address and what’s going to be for sale. Then put up signs in a five mile radius, pointing people to where the estate sale is. Put a few extra signs up at major intersections as needed.

If the sale is large, or parking is going to be an issue, you may also need an extra person just to handle parking. They could also help a few people carry things to their cars.

With all this work and staff, you may wonder if you’ll earn any money at all. Well, consider that the usual cut for an estate sale operator is 10 to 30% of gross sales, and you may begin to see some hope. The real benefit to these sales, though, is that you aren’t wedged into an auctions price spikes and dives, and, above all, that you get to be the first eyes on the scene, so you can hand-pick what you want. As with any sale, and an item, expect some estate sales to be a headache that barely breaks even. But once in a while, ka-ching — you’ve found the mother lode.

Consignment sales can be very erratic. One day you will sell $50 worth of stuff, and the next $1000 worth.

And that $1000 may happen inside of one hour, while all the rest of the day you had nothing to do but polish furniture or fold clothes.

This can be particularly true for consignment stores that sell high-priced items, like furniture. If you have even a few really valuable, museum-quality pieces, it is not impossible that you could bring in an entire month’s worth of sales in one day.

To make up for how up and down things can be, some consignment store owners find it better to track sales on a weekly basis instead of day by day. You’ll need some way to track each sale of course, and it will probably make your CPA happier if you do track sales on a daily basis, but for inventory projections and sale planning, look at your business on a week to week level rather than a day to day level.

That said, there are trends in consignment sales, and while every store is different consensus among consignment store owners does sound a bit like this:

- Thursdays and Fridays are typically the strongest days of the week.

- Mondays are the worst. Some consignment stores find it gets so bad that they just close on Mondays. If you are in an area where a lot of other stores are closed on Mondays, this might not be a surprise to your customers at all. It would also be nice for you, because you’ll get a day off during a business day, which gives you an opportunity to run errands during business hours. A word to the wise about this theory, though: Just because the store is closed does not mean you won’t have work to do.

Holidays tend to work out like this:

- The week after Christmas may be huge for you, because many people have Christmas money to spend and want to make the most of it. Its also a nice opportunity to nudge your sales just one more bit before the year closes out.

- Don’t feel too bad if you close the store for July 4th and Labor Day. These holidays tend to be very quiet anyway, especially if you do not live in a tourist town.

- Do stay open for Memorial Day.

The best months of the year are, in order:

- April and October

- May and November

- June, September and December

- March and August (back to school sales help here)

The worst months are January, February and July. So there you go: do well enough to take that Caribbean cruise for two weeks in early February, and rent that cabin in the mountains for two weeks in July.