After many years of having garage sales, my family and I have come up with some great tips and ideas on how to stay organized and how to make the best of your sale! They are lots of work, but with a little bit of planning and organization, it can be a smooth running process!
While many people look at garages sales as ways to make money, that is simply a perk! Your focus needs to be on getting rid of your things and not nickle and diming your customers. Faithful garage salers are looking for a deal and I can guarantee, they won’t stick around very long at a sale where things are overpriced and totally unorganized. Walking through a successful garage sale should be a pleasant experience and done with ease.
Here are a few tips on how you can make your sale SUPER SUCCESSFUL!
1. Walk through your house often. When you see an item that you seriously don’t need, pick it up, price it, and put it into a closet or box that is designated for garage sale items. That way you don’t have to spend countless hours pricing endless items when you have loads of other things to do!
2. Make sure your sale is HUGE! The larger your sale, the more traffic you will have and the more buzz it will create! People are always telling others where they have seen huge sales! So instead of just having your things(unless you have loads), ask family and friends to get in on the sale with you.
3. Masking tape is a great tool for making price stickers! Cut the masking tape into approximately one inch stickers and line them all up on the back of a cookie sheet. Once the sheet is full of masking tape stickers, write your name or initials on each sticker, making sure you leave room for the price of the item. Make sure that people don’t have the same initials or name and create confusion. Make sure that detail is worked out before the pricing process begins.
4. Create a notebook for keeping the stickers organized in. We give each person on the sale a couple of pages, draw columns down the pages to keep the stickers in a line for easy adding, and label each page with a masking tape tab with their name on it. That way when you sell an item for them, you just grab their tab and flip to their page quickly to put the stickers away. Do not put the stickers away until all of the items are added up and money is collected.
5. Save those pesky, plastic grocery bags! Make sure you have plenty of them saved so you have enough to put people’s purchases in or to wrap fragile items in.
6. Make sure you have plenty of tables. There is nothing more annoying as a garage saler to have to look at things too packed onto tables and spread all over the ground. Make sure when tables start thinning out, to spread out your items.
7. Separate your clothing tables by sizes. This makes the process so much easier when the customer comes in. They don’t feel overwhelmed when seeing a table full of clothing. Make sure that you often go back to those tables and refold items that people don’t put back nicely.
8. If you don’t want people coming and browsing early while you’re trying to set up, place a chair at the end of your driveway with a sign on it that says “Absolutely NO early shoppers!” They will stay away.
9. Make sure you have plenty of LARGE signs around your neighborhood. A sale that is easy to find creates more traffic to your sale. I always buy a foam board at Walmart, that way if it rains, it will still be holding up strong for the duration of your sale. Make sure you emphasize that it is a HUGE multi-family sale, if that is the case, and that your address and the dates are clearly visible.
10. Make sure you have plenty of change. I always keep approximately $60-$80 worth of change on hand. Don’t keep all of it outside with you. Keep some locked up in your house for use later. Make sure you write down how much change is the in the change box so you can subtract that from all your sales at the end.
11. Keep all like items grouped together. For example, keep all kitchen items together, bath, candles, clothes, shoes, knick knacks, etc. Makes shopping easier for the buyer.
12. Don’t be afraid to let the customer make offers. Your purpose is to get rid of items. Make sure you don’t go TOO low and let someone take advantage of you, but budging on the price a little won’t hurt you.
13. If you’re part of a subdivision sale, it’s sometimes a good idea to sell hot dogs and soda. If this is a yearly event, start out small to see how well things sell. If it’s good, you can expand your menu each year and test out what is a good money maker. Make sure you buy name brand items like soda and sell at reasonable prices. One year, my sister made $100 profit on her food alone.
14. Make sure you have signs posted that all sales are final, you are not responsible for accidents, and if you are accepting checks. You can even have signs that stated “You break it, you buy it!”.
15. Near the end of your sale, price reduce! Get rid of your things!
16. When the sale is over, make sure that you tell your friends and family that all of their things must be picked up immediately, or if they want the rest of their things to go to charity. That way your garage gets back to normal immediately and the stress is done.
17. Don’t be afraid to give most of your left over goodies to charity. Some of them will give you a tax write off form for your donations. Only keep things that you want to try to sell at the next sale. If it doesn’t sell after two sales, you should donate the item(s) to charity then.
I hope these tips are as helpful to you as they are to me each year! Good luck in your sale endeavors!
