Do you have garage sale tips for me?
Question:My friend and I are gonna hold a garage/yard/rummage sale next month for fun and to make a little money. I was wondering if you have any tips for me? I go to these alot with my aunt, but I haven't done my own in a while, since I was a little kid. We were thinking to sell lemonade/water/koolaid and I thought maybe even muffins or cookies for 50 cents, or a bag of cookies for a couple dollars. I'm going to ask my family and a couple of my close friends to give me any stuff they want to get rid of, and I hope my friend will too, so it should be a big variety of stuff. We can figure out how to organize it all, so that's not a big deal, but what are some special fun and unique things we can do that will have people coming by the dozens and buy loads of stuff? Anything is appreciated!
Answers:
Saturday is the best day. Best hours from 7:30 am to 3pm. Advertise in the local paper. Or place a free ad on www.craigslist.org . Find the city nearest to you and place an ad under garage sales. (its free) Post on bulletin boards in grocery stores near your house. Start out high on your prices! You can always lower them.. Say you want a $1 for an item. Start out at $3... they will offer you .50 cents... you counter offer with $2... they counter with.75. you counter with $1... they buy it. If you really want to get rid of junk take whatever they offer... Advertise as multi-family garage sale.
dont sell n e thing u still want
Put up posters around the area, about a week before you intend to hold it, start posting leaflets though doors is another good way.Tell all your friends at school etc , put leaflets in shops at bus stops etc.
Dr KONWITALL
Snacks and drinks are a wonderful idea. People sell bottled water, canned sodas, etc. A lot of people have hotdogs, etc. But anything would work great. In my area, Sat is the big day for yard sales. Fri is good, but you don't get the working people. I personally don't go to the 2 day sales. If a sale is Friday and Sat, I dont' get to go until sat and everything is gone. I would make it a 1 day sale. When it gets late, mark items 1/2 off. If you don't want to sell it 1/2 off, put it away.
Have a FREEBIE box of unwanted items (small trinkets). Arrange items by what they are. Make sure they are clean and priced.
Clothing should be clean and folded or hung up. Have items for kids; stickers, tattoos, face painting, balloons.
Make sure to advertise well; you don't have to list in the paper and pay. Use neon posterboard (small pieces) and mark with black marker. If you are worried about rain, cover them with clear contact paper or plastic saran wrap. Hang a day or two before the sale. Make sure to hang plenty.
Good Luck!
Don't overprice an item...a lot of yard saler's will haggle; but others will just walk away. You don't want to scare them away.
Don't put a price on anything! When they ask how much, ask how much would you pay for it. Then give it to them at that price no matter if you think it is worth more than that. You will get rid of alot more stuff(so you don't have to put it away) and make some money.
How do you get them to come to this?
If you have something nice and expensive that you are trying to get rid of make a sign saying you are going to auction it off and you might be able to get it real cheap.
Antique Vase Auction starts at Saturday at 123 main st. stop in for details.
Then auction it off!
The newspaper is THE advertising tool.
Have a raffle for a really nice item or a specialty bakery item (a really fancy cake or pastry).
Run it for two consecutive days if you have enough stuff to sell. Advertise, advertise, advertise. Be sure to run it in the paper -- many people map out their yard sale route the night before based on the paper.
The more organized it's laid out the better luck you'll have. Get out early the second morning and mark all your yard sale posters as "Sunday (or whatever your second day is) everything 1/2 off" or "Prices Reduced" to help move the remainder of your items. If you do your second day on Sunday and post signs near a church with a large congregation you're sure to get a big turn out.
Be sure to start both days early. Between 7 and 8 is typically ideal.
ADVERTISE !! In your local paper, list the big stuff, like Appliances, Furniture, Tools. Make flyer's and post them at the laundromat, telephone poles etc. But please remember to pick them up after the sale. Baked good are great, set up a table close to the stuffed animals and kid toys. Have plenty of wal-mart bags handy, people feel the need to "fill-up" a bag of bargains. ORGANIZE ! For example, all jeans on one table, all t-shirts on one table, all Nick-knacks on another and so on... and leave plenty of walking room between tables. MAKE BARGAINS... You'll hear people call their friends from their cell and tell them to hurry and check out your sale. Good luck. I hope its a success, I have a couple every year. This is how I send my kids to camp, then get to re-organize their rooms after I've sold all of their junk and old clothes.
Advertise that you will have all this stuff. An idea for advertisement is to put an ad in a local paper or you can hang up signs around your neighborhood. Also all the stuff that you don't sell you can sell on eBay or you can sell it to a local resale shop. You also may want of think about hanging a few signs in stores that there will be a yard sale with all this stuff. One last thing that you can consider is if you have a lot of stuff you might even want to take it to a flea market. A lot of people go to those. Also if your community has a community yard sale you may want to have a yard sale that day when everyone is out and looking for bargains. Also they will be tired and hungry so your food sales are probably going to do better in a flea market or community yard sale!
Good Luck either way, I hope you have a fun time!!
lots of Table space!
try to spread your items out...
The cleaner and spaced out your items are you will have a better chance of an item getting noticed and taken...
Presentation is everything...if things are thrown in a box, I wouldn't want to buy any of it. Right pricing is a must...you CAN bargain with people but don't ever let them go w/o the product because then everyone is unhappy. The only thing that can be organized is a 25 cent box. Also, lemonade, or something cheap like iced tea is really good for the people visiting. Just make sure that kind of thing is out in the open so they can see that everything is made safe. Put larger ticket items (bigger items that are worth more) where customers can see them from the street. This will lure them in!
Make sure you have lots of stuff out for people to take the time to stop by.
As everyone has said, advertise. Make you neighborhood signs in the shape of arrows pointing the way, this way, anyone can follow the arrows without having to get out to read the address, which is usually written too small and too light to read when driving by. For Colorado, Friday is the main day for sales, odd isn't it. Post a free listing in Craig's List, you can even do it daily until the big day, but don't start until a week before. Have a small box of free junk to lure others in too.
People are always looking for a deal even when its at a garage sale. put what is the same in same area like cloths etc. and eye catching signs try bright green signs and give directions and place signs at every turn to get them to where you are and place them at intersections and some people like prices as they are shy and others will offer a price good luck and greet your customers and talk to them they buy more, also direct them to another sale
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