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.