How to Get the Most Out of Your Garage Sale

Garage sales are just as much a staple of American life as apple pie or baseball. Garage sales are one of the last authentic bastions of capitalism still remaining. They’re a great way to make some extra money, and bargain seekers often walk away from local garage sales with incredible deals. This article will provide some practical garage sale tips that will help you maximize your efforts when putting on a garage sale.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Items to sell

1. Take the time to plan out your garage sale. Clear your calendar for whatever weekend you’re going to put on the sale, and make sure that you give yourself about a week to two weeks of time to prepare for it. Make sure that the day of your garage sale doesn’t fall on a major government holiday or some type of significant school-related holiday (spring break, etc.) Make a list of the items that you want to sell, so that when the big day comes, you won’t be scrambling for things to sell. Go through the different rooms of your house and make a written note of the items that you want to sell, and then you’ll have your “inventory list” ready for the day of the sale.

2. Once you have your list, go ahead and come up with a valuation for each item. Determine what price you believe would be good to sell the item for. Be mindful not to overprice (for obvious reasons), but also not to under-price, because remember—garage sales are all about the haggling.

3. You may want to joint-venture with your neighbors and see if they would like to hold garage sales on the same day. There’s definitely something more exciting to bargain-hunters about a neighborhood garage sale versus an individual garage sale.

4. Promote, promote, promote! Make sure that you advertise your garage sale well in advance. Put curbside signs out in conspicuous places (obeying all local ordinances, of course) so that they pique the curiosity of passers-by. Also advertise on local bulletin boards, local newspapers, word of mouth, etc. For the street signs, make sure to include directional signage that clearly guides the visitor to the sale. Use neon signs (green, orange, etc.) with THICK black markers. Make the letters thick and the arrows very thick; nothing is more aggravating than an unreadable sign.

5. Do your best to present your items in a clean and organized manner. Make sure that your items have been wiped off and/or cleaned, and are not dusty at all. Place like items together so that your presentation has a visual coherence. Use tables when at all possible; placing items directly on the ground is not very appealing. Also make sure that the tables you’re placing your items on are clean as well.

6. Make sure to keep a good track of the money. Appoint someone to be the “cashier” for the event. Get plenty of change for the sale; make sure you have a lot of one and five dollar bills, and get about ten dollars in quarters as well. This will help tremendously, especially as the foot traffic increases during the sale.

Tips & Warnings

• If some of the items simply aren’t moving too well, be willing to reduce the price.

[vintage]

on 8/7/2009 good article 5*

[NatalieJ]

on 7/17/2009 Garage sales are a lot of work but worth it when you clear out your items and have extra cash! 5*