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Last month, I hosted a garage sale. I don’t know if calling it a “garage sale” is a Minnesotan thing (vs. a “yard sale”) but I think it’s general knowledge what I mean here. Anyways, the sale went well, we cleaned out a lot of things that we had collecting dust in the basement, the garage, and in our closets. But I also learned a few new things this time around.
Now I’ve had my fair share of garage sales, so it wasn’t my first rodeo. But who knew there’d be so much to learn still? Not me! So, in honor of all the things I learned, I thought I’d put together a few handy tips and tricks to help you guys when putting together your next garage (yard) sale!
Tips & Tricks for Having a Successful Garage Sale
Market your sale a week prior – List it on Craigslist, and check Facebook to see if there’s a local garage sale group that you can post your sale in as well. It’s also helpful if you post on your Facebook page on the day of the sale too. Word of mouth travels fast, and if a friend or family member sees that you will have toddler clothes, or men’s tool items, they might pass the word on to their friend or coworker who would enjoy those particular items, so be thorough with your listings and detail all the different types of items that you will be selling. This will be the main ticket to drawing all different types of customers so make it good!
Ask friends and family if they want to put in items – The more things you have at your sale, the better. It will draw in even more people and you’d be surprised at how much it will help to have a diverse group of items. Not to mention, when people drive by your sale, if they see a LOT of stuff, they are more likely to stop. If you only have a few things sitting out in the driveway, you’ll notice that the cars slow, and then speed off. Trust me, I’ve studied this!
Price your items at the price you would pay – It’s hard to price your items, because you probably want to get as much as you can for it, but at the same time, if it’s priced too high then no one will buy it and you end up giving it away for free to Goodwill. With that in mind, price your items at a price that you would be happy to pay for it. And remember that it’s a garage sale, people have different expectations than if they were buying your things at the store. They see them as used goods and typically don’t want to spend a lot on them.
Don’t accept checks – As tempting as it is to accept checks at your sale, the reality is that it could potentially end up being more of a headache than a profit. At my last garage sale, a woman purchased a lot of expensive things and then wrote me a check for them. I didn’t think much of it, until I went to cash the check and guess what, the account was closed. Now I am out both my goods and I even had to pay a $25 NSF fee. So trust me when I say, don’t accept checks.
Invest in a Square – A couple days before our sale, my husband ran out to Target and purchased a Square card reader so that we could run credit cards at our sale. This makes it super easy if people end up finding more than they have cash for. You’ll still make the sale and it’s well worth the $6.
Keep like-items together – Make shopping (and buying) easy for your customers by putting groups of items together. Arrange clothing according to sizes and gender. Put kitchen items together, home decor items together, so on and so forth.
Label sizes/gender on clothing areas – Make it as easy as possible for your customers to find what they need without having to do much work. They probably don’t have a lot of time, so making it easy to find items is key.
Display everything in plain view – If you are trying to sell furniture like a table or a dresser, avoid the temptation to place other sale items on top of them. They will just get lost in everything and odds are, they won’t end up selling. And you were likely trying to sell it because it took up too much room in the first place.
Stack price stickers in rows of $1.00 – I know, in this day and age you will probably have a calculator sitting next to you at your check out table, but mental math can be much easier and faster with this little trick. Let’s say you sold three items; $0.25, $0.25 and $0.50. Put them in a row and you have $1.00. Now do this with larger sales and your math will be super easy! You’ll just need to add up the sets of $1.00!
Have a box for your cash and make sure to have a variety of change – Have an enclosed box for your cash to avoid sticky fingers or windy weather. And make sure to go to the bank before your sale and get plenty of change;
- 1 roll of quarters
- (20) $1’s
- (5) $5’s
- (2) $10’s
Play welcoming background music – Help your customers feel welcomed by having some comfortable music playing. Don’t make it too loud (or too quiet) and don’t make it anything that would offend anyone – hard rock might seem fine to you, but others might walk in and walk out because it’s not their cup of tea. Typically a “Today’s Variety” type of station is a hit.
Check your bags/pockets before selling – I once sold a purse without double-checking the pockets inside, and it turned out that I had a blank check and some small cash in there. I would have never known, but the honest buyer ended up calling me (from my number on the check) and letting me know. She even met up with me to give it back to me. Moral of the story is to check your coat pockets, pants pockets, purse pockets, etc. before selling an item. I got very lucky!
Place hot ticket items (and men’s items too!) at the end of your driveway – Lure in customers by positioning your hot ticket items close to the road. Beyond that, it doesn’t hurt to place manly items out there as well. In my experience, it’s a little harder to get the man to stop but if you give them a reason to stop, you won’t have a problem!
Use consistent signage – If you’re making your own directional signs, make sure that each one is the same size and uses the same color both in paper with the same writing. People will count on the consistency while following your signs. Make the arrows large so that they can see them from a ways back before they have to make the turn. It doesn’t hurt to put the dates and times on the sign as well to ensure customers that there will be a sale at the ends of the signs.
This kit is only $25.99 on Amazon
If you’re really feeling the stress of prepping your garage sale, there are garage sale kits on Amazon that have all the signs, sign stakes, stickers, and everything you need to put on your sale. This is really handy if you’re running short on time and don’t want to mess around creating signs or running to the store for stickers and everything else.
Utilize neighborhood garage sale times – The traffic drawn in when large neighborhoods are having groups of sales is immense. The association usually does a good share of marketing for you too, so you might as well utilize that! Plus, the dates they choose for this are probably chosen for good reason because it has worked well in the past!
Leave a comment with your own personal garage sale tip that you want to add 🙂 In the meantime, good luck with your upcoming yard/garage sales!
Hearts,
Sarah
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Cory
I put my price tags in groups cause I suck at math, but here I was being efficient!!!! Another tip is keep small electronics close. We had someone steal a DS. Sad that you have to worry about someone stealing from your garage sale, but it happens.