Estate Sales and Surviving Covid

Busy Bee Moving and Estate Sales - https://www.busybeemovingsales.com 615-569-4734 - Estate Sales Professionals in Nashville, Tn.

It's been three years now that I've updated this blog.  We have certainly learned a few things during this time thanks to the pandemic but we made it and yes, everyone learned a few lessons, most importantly, flexibility.  First we were met with fear and anger, then the shift of the market and now leveling out to an uptick in sales but a struggle for employees as most businesses are experiencing.

I'll never forget the first morning of our sale opening after only a 2 week break from the shutdown.  We announced that we would follow the local health guidelines for whatever area we were working out of as every county was different.  We posted signs of our new practices such as employee screening, handwashing station, masks (which we provided), social distancing and limiting the number of patrons.  We also made a plexiglass shield from an old poster I had, hand sanitizer and Lysol spray.  We also invented a term called "shop chat" where customers could Facetime us and purchase items and be given curb service.  We had no idea if anyone would even show up.  That morning I opened the door and there were about 50 people standing in the yard shoulder to shoulder with no masks waiting to come in.  Oh dear.  I quickly explained we wanted to provide this service and in order to do so we'd have to follow guidelines whether I liked it or not.  Everyone graciously complied and we had a great sale.  After 2 weeks of being couped up in the house, people were ready to get back to normal.  We did have a few use the curb service approach and many didn't come back to the sales for months.  We missed many of our older shoppers and a younger crowd surfaced.  

After the first year we noticed an increase in sales.  With the supply chain issues, we were able to sell furniture and items that were on back order.  People were buying used furniture until their new was delivered, sometimes months later.  With the supply chain issues came inflation so again, estate sales became an optimum opportunity to save money.  

There was a downside to the retail world too in the form of employment and customer relations.  We lost several of our older helpers who were invaluable to the knowledge of antiquities and due to closing down the local flea markets, it was a great loss of revenue for the vendors.  The estate sales we did were more successful due to the lack of garage sales for awhile. There was also a big turnover in companies.  Many estate sale companies decided it was a good time to retire while new ones filled the market demand.  We certainly had to cut back from our average of 40-45 sales a year to 26 in 2020,  21, and 22.  That decrease allowed us to use a smaller staff. 

We weathered through a tough year but fortunately for our company and the families that needed our services, we successfully stayed afloat. A new generation of estate sale shoppers, inflation driving more to estate sales for goods and more awareness of estate sales in the area due to social networking have all been factors in increased shoppers.