Garage Sales in a Land that Doesn't Have Them

It's been a perpetual garage sale in these parts.  We had our first moving sale two weeks ago, and a second one this past weekend.  I helped a friend last year by hosting a sale in our yard (I sold a few things of ours, but mostly it was providing the space).  And, so, I present to you the things I have learned about a garage sale in Peru.

Kid section.  All of the display tables were presold to friends who let us keep them a little longer.  I could have sold them 10x each, if not more, based on how many people asked about the shelves.

• Most Peruvians don't know what a garage sale is.  It's just not something that happens here.  There isn't a strong second hand market.  While second hand items are not unknown, it's not a land of thrift stores or resale shops.  People tend to buy things and use them until they are worn out, or give them to family or friends vs. selling to strangers when they are done.  Peru doesn't have as much of a consumer culture as the US, and so the concept of someone changing their decor just because they want to isn't as common.
• Items that are new and unused are popular (there is a bit of a stigma against used items), but kitchen goods sell well, as does furniture (which is either cheap and thus falls apart quickly or really expensive for the good stuff).
• Many people asked why we were selling things- when we explained we were moving back to the US they were fine with it and stepped right in.  I wonder how they would take a Peruvian selling things just because- would it be with suspicion (what's wrong with these items) or would they be ok shopping.
• Literally, garage sale is translated "Venta de Garaje" but "Gran Remate" (big sale) is probably better.  We have old signs we are reusing that say the former and it's working out ok.
• Because garage sales are not a common thing here, there isn't a general understanding of how they work.  So part of the garage sale is basically teaching the shoppers what to do.  Some of the funny things that have happened:
• Peru has a bargaining culture, but less than we expected when we came.  You might haggle a little bit, but most of our purchases are done with whatever the posted price is. One shopper came to me and said that she would add up all of her purchases first and then figure out what she wanted to pay me overall, because she was Peruvian and bargaining was what she did.  So, that's how we handled her order.  Then, the next day, she came back with two face products she had bought and told me they were bad (I don't think they were actually bad, but they were chemical-smelling) and because Peru doesn't have a culture of returns, she told me that she didn't need her money back but would instead purchase other things.  The problem is, we had sold a ton of stuff, so there wasn't enough she wanted to buy that she hadn't already purchased.  So she got some new items and has 10 soles of credit she is going to come back to spend her credit in the next day or two.
• One shopper bought about 5 items and paid for each one as he decided he wanted to purchase it.  (Most shoppers asked if they could set aside what they wanted and I have a space designated for holding items for current shoppers.)
• The guy who stopped by with his motorcycle and trailer because he saw "Venta de Garaje" and thought we were selling a garage (or renting out the space).
• We have official sale days- first we did both all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon.  But we noticed that the traffic was much higher on Saturday, so garage sale #2 was only on Saturday.  We still got a lot of shoppers coming by on Sunday #2, and I'm happy to make a sale whenever I can, so we kept selling.  The Monday and Tuesday after our first sale saw more in total sales than all day Sunday.  
• We've been taking things in and out at night/morning- people can't believe we are leaving some of the big stuff in the yard.  (For fear of it getting stolen...I'm guessing that someone would have a hard time putting our dryer over the 7 foot spiked fence.)
• Peruvians aren't keen on putting money down for large items (like our couches or refrigerator).  I made copies of receipts to give the people who put money down, but it's a relatively low trust culture.  This means that despite a ton of people looking over our things, we haven't pre-sold any of our large items that aren't ready to leave except for a washing machine to another expat.  I'm hoping that either some expats who are moving here buy our appliances or we have at least one person for every appliance and large furniture item that shows up on the day we have posted as the day they can leave.

Looking in (the for sale items are inside our fenced front yard)

Action shot from day 1.  Most of this has been sold.

Friend came over and had to expand into the carport area because our stuff filled the front yard.  Now we are down to a box or two.

We've done great on our sale- I pre-sold a lot of items to our friends who were willing to pay in US dollars and wait to get their items until we were close to leaving.  All the smaller things that are left in the sale are either items that I am willing to take home with us, give away, or lower the price.  So we are just down to three appliances (fridge, stove, and dryer) and two large furniture items (couches and dining room table/chairs) and our latex bed toppers.  The latter might be hard to sell here because no one knows what latex is and I don't know that they would be willing to pay what we are asking (which is a great deal for latex but expensive for here).  So we'll have to see what we sell and what we do with this stuff if it doesn't sell by when we leave.  (I'm hoping we don't have to slash the price too much as this is our money to pay for new carpet back home.)

We are moving into a furnished flat across the street for our last week in Arequipa, and I'm really thinking that was a great idea.  It will allow us to have a week to get our big stuff sold and out the door and we don't have to change anything about our neighborhood or normal haunts.

Stove.  Still for sale.  Pricing model changed to price the stove/oven and the gas tanks separately because no one understood the original price included two gas tanks and a hose and regulator (because stoves here run on propane tanks.)

So....here's to selling the rest of our stuff!