A Dozen Tips For Holding The Best Garage Sale
A great way to get yourself some extra cash is to consider having a garage sale and selling all off those items you no longer need. Remember the motto; one man’s junk is Japanese Tableware another man’s treasure! To help you get started we have provided you with the top dozen tips to help make your garage sale a successful one.
1. Be clear with what you want to achieve from holding a garage sale. Do you want to just get rid of unwanted items, or are you trying to make money? This will affect how you price your items and whether or not you are willing to negotiate. If items are going into the bin if they don’t sell, then you don’t want to overprice your items as getting some cents / dollars here and there is better than getting nothing. If you are really trying to get top dollar for your wares, then maybe selling them through places such as eBay or the Trading Post might be a better option.
2. Advertise your garage sale. Use signs around the neighbourhood, advertise in the local paper, put up a note on your community notice board, etc. Make sure your signs can be clearly read from a distance, use enticing words to draw people to your sale and ensure you have your address clearly written.
3. Presentation is everything! Lay your items out so that they can be clearly seen and that people can easily walk around and look at them. Take time to carefully plan your presentation as you want people to be drawn to your sale and to stop to take a look. Perhaps sell your items in your driveway or front yard. Walk around yourself as if you were a customer. What can you see easily, what is hidden from view and what obstacles are in the way?
4. Place highly desirable items near the road in view of those driving by. People are then likely to stop to take a look around if the garage sale looks like it is fully of interesting wares.
5. Put like items together. Have a book shelf with all of the books you are selling, have a section with all of your old sporting equipment, have a table with all your old electrical items, have some racks with your old clothes etc. This way the buyers will be drawn to particular items that are of interest to them.
6. Go beyond. If selling electrical items, have a power point / extension lead nearby so that buyers can test that the equipment works well. If your wares need batteries, put new batteries in them. If you have working manuals / documents for your items, display them beside the item. Maybe see if you can get documentation from the internet else, and print these out. If an item has multiple parts / components display these so buyers can see you have all the relevant bits and pieces.