Staffing an Estate Sale: Roles, Crew Size and Pay

The roles an estate sale needs

Every estate sale, whatever its size, has the same five jobs to cover: someone runs the sale, someone controls the door, someone takes the money, someone watches the floor, and someone handles the items that have been sold but not yet left. In a small apartment sale one person may hold two of those jobs. In a large house each may need two or three people. A sale where any one of them is nobody's job is a sale where it is not being done.

• The lead. Usually the owner or a senior staffer. Makes pricing calls the floor cannot, handles the family if they turn up, deals with complaints and injuries, and holds the keys. The lead should not be tied to the register.
• The door. Counts people in and out, holds the entry limit, manages the line and the numbers, and checks bags on the way out where the company does that. The door is the single most important post at the opening and the most overlooked afterwards.
• The cashier. Takes payment, writes receipts, records what sold and for how much, and keeps the tag stubs. On a busy day this is two people: one at the register, one wrapping and bagging.
• Floor staff. One per zone of the house: answer questions, watch for theft and damage, restage as items go, and negotiate within the policy the lead has set.
• Holds and pickups. Someone who tags sold furniture, keeps the hold sheet honest, and manages the buyers coming back with trucks so that they do not carry a dresser through the crowd at eleven in the morning.

Before the sale there is a sixth job, pricing and staging, which is a different skill from working the floor and is covered below.

How many people a sale takes

There is no formula that survives contact with a real house, but there are rules of thumb that companies tend to arrive at independently. Count the zones a shopper can be in without being seen from another zone, and put one person in each. Then add the door and the register, and then the lead, who should be free to move.

The first two hours of the first day need the most people, and the last afternoon of the last day needs the fewest. Many companies staff the opening fully and let people go after lunch on day one, then run a smaller crew on discount days. Scheduling that way is what keeps the payroll inside the commission. The guide to managing the opening rush covers what those first two hours actually look like.

The door, the line and the opening

The door person is on post before the first shopper arrives and stays there until the crowd thins, and their job is fairness and count. Fairness means the order people arrive in is the order they go in, which is why numbers exist: a paper list at the door, numbered tickets handed out at a stated time, or a digital line where shoppers scan a sign to take a number and their phone tells them when they are up. Sales listed on this site can run that digital line free, and it takes the argument about who was here first away from the door person entirely. The shopper-side guide to how numbers and lines work shows the system from the other side of the door.

Count means an entry limit. Walk the house before the sale and decide how many people can move through the tightest hallway without touching each other or the merchandise, post that number, and hold it with a clicker: one in when one comes out. The door person also needs a plain script for the questions that repeat all morning, and the authority to refuse entry to somebody who is drunk, abusive or carrying a bag the company does not allow. The liability and safety guide explains why the entry limit is a safety measure as much as a courtesy.

The checkout

The register is where the money is, where the record is, and where shoppers form the second line of the day. Put it near the exit, with a table long enough for a wrapping station beside it. One person takes payment and writes the receipt; the other wraps, bags and pulls the tag stubs into the box that becomes the settlement statement. Cash is counted by two people at open, at every handover and at close, and the float and the takings never sit in an unattended room. The cash and card handling guide goes through the mechanics.

The cashier holds the discount policy for the day and does not vary it. If a shopper wants a lower price than the tag or the posted discount, the answer is the lead, not the cashier, because a register that negotiates is a register that cannot be reconciled. Write the sold-tag rule down and post it: an item is sold when it is paid for, a hold is written on the hold sheet with a name, a phone number and a time, and a hold that passes its time goes back on the floor.

Floor staff, and the days before the sale

Floor staff are the company to every shopper who never reaches the register. They answer what a thing is and whether the price moves, they notice the woman putting a brooch in her coat pocket, and they re-space a table as it empties so the room keeps looking full. Give each person a zone and keep them in it; a floor person who drifts toward the interesting room leaves the boring one, and the boring one is where the theft happens. The security guide describes exactly what they are there to prevent.

Floor staff need three things in writing before the doors open: the discount policy and how far they may go without the lead, what they may say about the family and the house, which is nothing, and what to do when somebody is hurt or something is broken. A floor person who is asked whether the owner died in the house should have an answer ready, and it should be kind and short.

The days before the sale are a different job. Pricing wants people who know what things are and what they sell for locally, and who can price a whole kitchen in a morning without agonizing over any one item. Staging wants people who can lift, who will not put the good glass on the wobbly table, and who can make a bedroom look like a shop. Many companies keep a small core crew who do both and add sale-day staff who do neither. The pricing strategy guide covers what the pricing crew is being asked to do.

How estate sale staff are paid

Sale-day staff are most commonly paid by the hour or by the day, at or a little above what local retail pays for similar hours. Some companies pay a small bonus tied to the gross or to a clean day with nothing missing, and some pay experienced pricers more than floor staff. Pay is set locally and varies with the market for part-time work in your area, so ask what comparable work pays near you rather than looking for a national figure; there is not a reliable one.

How you classify the people you pay matters more than what you pay them. Sale-day workers who come when scheduled, work the hours you set, follow your policies and use your equipment look a great deal like employees to a tax authority, whatever the paperwork calls them, and treating them as independent contractors can carry back taxes and penalties. The rules vary by state and are enforced differently in each, and this is not legal or tax advice: ask an accountant or an employment attorney in your state before you hire your first person, and ask about workers' compensation at the same time, since a staff member who falls on the basement stairs is a claim either way. The licensing and insurance guide covers the insurance side.

Whatever the arrangement, pay on time, in full, on the day you said. A crew that has to ask for its money is a crew that works your competitor's sale next weekend.

Finding, briefing and keeping a crew

Good sale-day staff come from a few places: regular shoppers who already know how a sale runs and are pleased to be asked, retired people who want two or three days a month, the friends and relatives of staff you already have, and dealers who know merchandise. Dealers know merchandise best and have the most obvious conflict of interest, so decide before you hire one whether staff may buy from the sale at all, and if so, when and at what price. A common answer is at the marked price, after the public, on the last day, rung up by someone else. Whatever your answer, put it in writing and tell the family what it is, because a family who sees a staff member walk out with a lamp will assume the worst.

Feed them. A crew that gets coffee at seven and lunch brought in at noon works the afternoon; a crew that has to leave for food comes back late or not at all. Rotate people off the door and the register at least every couple of hours, because those are the posts where a tired person makes the costly mistake. And at close, count the cash with two people, walk the house together, and tell the crew what the day took and what tomorrow needs. People stay with a company that treats a sale day as a piece of shared work rather than a shift. Put the guide to working with grieving families in every new hire's hands.

What to do next

Write your post list, your discount policy and your staff-purchase rule down once, and hand the same sheet out at every briefing. If you want more sales to staff, list your company here free: leads and sale listings are free, with no per-lead charge, no listing fee and no card needed to join, and every sale you list can hand out digital line numbers at the door. Families who describe their estate once are emailed to the five nearest companies, and other local companies can see the request too. The guides on running a calm opening and liability and safety pick up where this one stops.

Frequently asked questions