Garage sale tips

Those of you who regularly read my blog know that I LOVE garage sales! Well, I thought I would use the knowledge I have acquired from many years of garage sale-ing (that’s what we call it but I’m not sure how to spell it!?!?) and give you some garage sale tips in case you might be planning to have one and you’re not familiar with how they work.

GETTING PEOPLE TO THE SALE

1. Large and/or colorful signs work well to draw traffic to your garage sale.

2. DO NOT write a bunch of words (street address, directions, items for sale, etc.) on your small sign – it CAN’T be read while driving past it in the car!

3. DO write garage or yard sale on your sign in large, bold letters.

4. Arrows pointing towards your sale work just as well if not better than writing your address on the sign. (This is especially true if there are several signs on the same street corner – people are NOT going to remember all those house numbers and street names!)

5. If the customer needs to make a turn to get to your sale make sure you have a sign on that corner directing them to turn.

6. If your sale is deep into the neighborhood (i.e. you have to pass a lot of streets before getting to your sale) you should put signs up occasionally saying “this way” or “up ahead” or something so that the person knows that they are going the right way and they don’t give up.

AT YOUR SALE

7. Be friendly! Smile and say hi! It’s so much more welcoming than being ignored.

8. When someone purchases something, pay attention to them and say thank you. I went to a garage sale recently where I wanted to buy something and the lady sat there talking on the phone. I walked up to her with my money and she took it and never looked at me or said a word to me. How rude!

9. Have things clearly marked with a price (as much as possible). There have been many times that I might have bought something if it had been marked but I will pick up several things and nothing will have a price so I leave. People don’t want to keep asking, “how much is this?” over and over again so if you can’t mark each thing come up with a price list or group things on your tables by price or something.

10. Expect people to offer less but realize that you can say no. For some that’s the fun of garage sales and some people will mark stuff knowing that they will be offered less. So don’t be afraid to say no but mark stuff knowing that will happen and be willing to negotiate.

11. Organize things on tables and racks – don’t just throw stuff all over the driveway or set it out in boxes for people to dig through. If people have to dig through an entire box of junk to see what’s in it they probably won’t look. If it’s laid out nice and neat then they can see it all and find exactly what they want.

12. Please, please, please don’t sell stuff that’s just gross (e.g. old dirty mattresses, old dirty pillows with slobber stains all over them eewww!, clothes with stains – and I don’t just mean a little stain here or there – I mean gross stains! or anything else that’s just gross – you get the idea).

13. If you have something that’s worth a lot of money or that you won’t sell for fairly cheap you may be better off putting an ad in the paper for that item. Not many people go to garage sales to find something they will spend $500 to $1000 for!

14. And last but definitely not least – please put prices on things that are reasonable FOR A GARAGE SALE! I can’t tell you how many garage sales I’ve been to where people expect to sell something for the same price they paid for it brand new. I’ve even seen stuff priced higher than what it would cost for a new one at the store!!! It’s frustrating to walk up to a garage sale and see things marked for five dollars that you would find marked for a quarter or a dollar at other garage sales.