How to Make the Most Money From Your Garage Sale

Bright signs can draw customers to your garage sale.

Garage sales usually have most of their items inside a garage, with some items outside, as opposed to yard sales, with items out in the yard. Given the amount of work involved, put on the best garage sale you can to maximize your sales.

Things You'll Need

• Pricing labels or tags, color coded
• Banquet style or patio tables
• Clothes racks or clothes baskets for each size and gender
• Signs
• Free bottled water in a cooler

Instructions

1. Plan your sale around an extended forecast for good weather that will draw as many people as possible. If the forecast falls through, move the sale completely inside the garage or take up your signs and post a postponement date on the outside of your garage door "due to bad weather." Make any postponement decision based upon your ability to store the items until a later date.

2. Publicize the garage sale using online sites, local papers and bulletin boards around town. Traffic is essential so you have to draw people to your sale.

3. Prepare your items with the same philosophy you'd apply to selling a car or riding mower. Clean it up, make sure it works and if it has any problems be sure you post its condition on the item or tell interested buyers. Avid garage sale-goers are skilled at browsing for finds and negotiating the very best price, so you must be ready to show your items at their best.

4. Organize the sale, setting up tables that group like items together, such as kitchen and dining items. Place books in clean, easy accessible bins or crates. Clean and cluster the tools and sporting goods. A tennis racquet hidden under a stack of blankets is not the best way to sell the racquet to a potential sports fan.

5. Mark items with color-coded stickers if you're having a multi-family garage sale or if you're separating profits for individuals in your family. Keep a log with a sticker of each color at the top of the columns, one column for each person's earnings. If you have a bulk price on certain items, make sure it is clearly marked. For example, if all hardback books are $2, put a sign to that effect on the crate of books and place a blank color-coded sticker on each book to indicate who gets the money should it sell.

6. Negotiate flexibly to sell items that have mechanical problems, as any cash for them is better than throwing them away. Many people buy electronics, yard equipment, phones and other items that aren't operating properly because they have the skills to repair them.

7. Take a few minutes and reorganize items that become disheveled as the sale progresses when there is a lull in traffic.

Tips & Warnings

• Obtain any required permits for having your sale.

• Place clothes on a rack or sort it by gender and size in plastic bins or crates.

• Offer bottled water, especially if your sale is on a hot day

• Allow customers to test electronics, TV, radios, and appliances on an electrical outlet nearby.

• Put up eye-catching signs with clear directions to your yard sale.

• Avoid having your sale on weekends with major holidays

References

• University of Florida IFAS Extension: Garage Sales
• New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension Service: Garage Sales: Cash not Trash