Monday, July 26, 2010

How to have a Successful Garage Sale

This weekend, we had a garage sale and made close to $1000!!  That is the most I have ever made at any previous sale, so I'm going to share with you some tips on how to make YOURS a successful one!

Tip #1 - Have it two days.  I had mine on Friday, where I made most of my money, and also on Saturday.

Tip #2 - Advertise in the Newspaper, Craigslist and anywhere else you can.  Yes, people DO read the paper, and I did pay and extra $5 to have two stars in my add to make it stand out.  It paid off.

Tip #3 - Signage.  Have plenty of signs out, either make your own or do like I did, and buy them at wal-mart.  On Saturday, someone not only took my sign down, but used it for themselves by crossing off my address and adding part of their own!  I had NO traffic, until I had my husband go check the signs, and sure enough, the one pointing onto my street was gone.  Luckily we had extra signs from a previous sale which he quickly put out, and the people then started coming.  SO signage is EVERYTHING!!

Tip #4 - Use 1 and 2 gallon ziploc type bags to bag like items in and put a price on it.  This way people won't be nickle and diming you to death, but will buy a bag of stickers or a bag of pooh toys all for one price!


Tip #5 - Group like things together.  I had all of my candle items together, my linens together, crafts together, Easter items together, etc.


Tip #6 - If you have alot of one item, set them all together and print out a price big enough for people to see what that price is.


Tip #7 - If your kids want to help, have them man one table with their items on it, or have them sell lemonade, cola or water. Many people will buy from them, especially during these hot months!

Make sure you line your things up along the driveway, if it looks like rain keep any paper items inside the garage, and have tarps to cover things you do not want people to look at, like the bikes and lawnmower...  It took me a couple of weeks to price everything, but it was worth it.  I had many people tell me this was the most organized sale they had ever seen! 

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