Looking to raise some extra cash from a garage sale this summer?
Here are a few things you can do to ensure your garage sale is a success:
Advertise. Taking an ad out in your local newspaper is an expense some people may not want to incur, but a well-worded listing in the garage sale section of the classifieds can really drive traffic to your sale. Items people are always on the hunt for: baby & kids items and clothing and furniture. Don’t forget to share the details of your garage sale on your local online forums, such as Craigslist.
Put out lots of signs. Not everyone will pick up a newspaper and you want to grab impulse shoppers in your neighborhood, so make sure you place large, easy to read signs that give all the pertinent details for your sale: Days, times, and location.
Prepare everything well in advance. My top tip: Mark your items for sale as you’re clearing out your closets. If you wait until all of your wares are piled high in your garage, it will be a daunting task. Clean up dusty items and make sure you have all the parts and pieces so you can get the most money for your items. If you’re holding a sale with friends and family, be sure to use different color stickers or initials on the price tags so that you can make sure each person gets paid for the items they sold.
Consider offering coffee and treats. In the early morning hours of the sale, you may want to consider selling coffee, soda, or treats like doughnuts or cookies. This is a great way to bring in some extra money from the sale, and is a great project for an older child who wants to help out at the sale.
Have plenty of change available. Always have plenty of change. It’s almost a guarantee that someone will stop in and buy a dollar’s worth of items with a $20 bill. Be ready.
Forget about the sunk costs. You’re looking to move this clutter out of your garage. While it’s natural to want to make a little bit of money from your sale, you need to be realistic about what you can really get for an item, so don’t obsess about how much you paid for an item originally.
Be willing to deal. Garage sale shoppers are looking for a bargain. You’re looking to get rid of your stuff. Be willing to make a deal. I will sometimes tell folks they can have something for a lower price if they take another item off my hands.
And last, but not least, be smart. Don’t leave your money unattended. If you can, you may even want to carry it on your person in an oh-so-fashionable fanny pack. Don’t let people into your home to use your bathroom, etc, and keep your home locked unless you have a family member inside.
Garage sales are a lot of work, but they can really help you clear out your clutter and raise a bit of spending cash.
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Also: for pity’s sake, wash clothes and make sure all pieces of a set are together. I stopped by a garage sale this spring which actually had clothes in my daughter’s size (it gets harder to find kids clothes at garage sales as they get bigger), except that there were all these random pieces of pajamas. I asked the woman about it and she said, “Oh, I couldn’t find a lot of them. I’ll probably find the other piece when I go back in my laundry room.” Um, yeah, then why are you selling *half* of a pair of pajamas? If something had happened to one piece of a set, OK, I could understand that, but this is just laziness: either find both pieces or wait until you do to sell stuff.
Oh I hear you! That drives me crazy! If the stuff smells like cigarette smoke – that’s a HUGE turn-off!
Great tip on scanning the whole sale first!
Great tips! If you have a valuable item that wasn’t sold in your garage sale you can always sell it in your own online garage sale. GarageSaleHomePage.com is a free place to sell your stuff and you can post it for as long as you need.
Great job and good luck!
Garage Sale Guru
You can also list stuff for sale online on http://www.privategaragesale.com
It’s totally free, you get to keep all the money.
This one won’t work for everyone but one of the best sign ideas we have is to take a large sheet of wrapping paper and cut it the length of our car.
The we spray paint on the back side (it’s white) with black spray paint, HUGE SALE with an arrow. We drive our car down to the nearest intersection, which happens to be the major highway through our city, and park it. Then we tape the sign to the car. We did have to get permission from the neighbor to park it on his lot but it brings in LOTS of traffic.
We also don’t put a lot of info. on our signs. We put out a lot of signs but all they say is SALE in large letters with an arrow. If you put a date on it then some people won’t stop by. If it says Thurs.-Sat. and it’s Sat. afternoon some won’t stop thinking everything is picked over.
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