CB Tech yard sale teaches business skills

MOSES LAKE — The sale in the conference room at the Columbia Basin Technical Skills center looked like just another yard sale, with clothes and dishes, linens and shoes and the quirky stuff that shows up at yard sales. It was actually a business venture for the entrepreneur class.

“A yard sale is a business,” said entrepreneurship and marketing instructor Melody Jenson. A successful yard sale requires the same effort as any successful retail business – evaluating merchandise, knowing the market, pricing, advertising. The class runs its own business, as it happens, the Pallets & Pipes boutique right next to their classroom.

Pallets & Pipes is a resale boutique, where the class sells donated items, upscale jeans and prom dresses, jewelry and makeup, home decor and more. The class is always looking for donations, Jenson said, to ensure they’ve always got something to sell.

“I’ve just stood in awe of the support of the community,” Jenson said. Along with all the merchandise donations, businesses have donated materials like shopping bags, aprons and publicity.

The community has been so generous that there was overflow that wouldn’t fit in the shop, which led to the yard sale. The class had to attack it like “any business venture,” Jenson said.

Students had to inventory and evaluate the merchandise, unpack and arrange it all and run the cash box. The store was open too, and students were manning the cash register there.

And if customers were hesitating, Jenson used that most ancient of merchandising techniques. When it came to price, “we’ll negotiate,” she said.

Pallets & Pipes opened in early April, and is designed to teach students the nuts and bolts of running a business. “They’ve been taught customer service and display,” said Mike Butcher, a substitute teacher for the class and one of the yard sale shoppers.

The class had to learn how to use the store’s small space, a former conference room, to its best advantage. The students have learned to assess the potential merchandise as it comes in, sort and price it, display it to its best advantage. They’ve talked to realtors about location and the right kind of building, small business owners about opening and operating costs, bankers about financing. They’ve learned how to run the cash register and count back change.

Last week the class went to the Silverwood Theme Park and met with the marketing team, Jenson said. They learned how the park is promoted, she said, and what goes into marketing decisions.

Pallets & Pipes is open from 8:30 to 10 a.m. and noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, and will be open during the summer session, through July 6. It will be open the first Saturday in June and July.