Hosting a Garage Sale: Tips & Tricks

 

I have to admit, I LOVE garage sales, but usually I’m the buyer, not the seller.  In May, I reversed roles and actually had two garage sales of my own. I made over $1000 between the two sales, and got rid of multiple truckloads of furniture and “junk.” And of course, I learned a few lessons along the way.

 

Have a Garage Sale: 9 Tips & Tricks

1. Make AWESOME signs. And display them all over the neighborhood.

2. Hold your garage sale on Friday & Saturday.  Friday afternoons are prime time for garage sales!

3. Location, location, location. The first garage sale was at my friend’s house in a really nice neighborhood in a larger town. And we had SO MANY SHOPPERS who were willing to pay a little bit more.  The second garage sale was at my sister’s in a smaller town, and not only were there fewer shoppers, but they were thriftier, too.

4. Price things to sell (LOW!) Ask yourself what will make you feel better? Making a TON of money? Or getting rid of a TON of stuff?  Both? Then price low! You’ll get rid of more and still make a amount of money!

5. Have lots of change on hand. Especially dollar bills. And if you have a lot of items that are a quarter, have quarters, too! I don’t think we used any dimes, nickels or pennies, though.

6. Use a notebook to keep track of sales. When you’re doing a sale with others (which I definitely recommend) you need to keep track of who sold what. We made columns in a notebook for each of us and just wrote down the amounts for each transaction.

7. Price everything or nothing. I suggest pricing everything, but I hate pricing things, so I usually end up with some priced and some not. An article I read suggested not pricing anything. That is very rare in our area, so maybe it is a regional thing. But I know that if you price some things and not others, you’re way more likely to sell the things that are marked! People just don’t (or won’t) ask for prices on things that aren’t marked.  I think they believe that the unmarked goods just aren’t worth the effort (or price!) if they have to ask.

8. Advertise on Craigslist and your local Facebook swap groups. We posted some pictures on Facebook swap a few days before and made it very clear that we would not have any presales or sales through swap. We did not post prices or the address. The day of the sale, we updated the post with the address.

9. Have your garage sale early in the season. People are more excited for garage sales in the spring after a long, cold winter.

Both of my garage sales were held BEFORE I started my #konmari process, so I may end up having another one before the snow flies!