Garage/Yard Sales: Preparation Is Key

If you are at all like me, you have a ton of kids' clothing and other worthless stuff laying around your house taking up space. You are also probably wondering - Hmmm, what should I do with it?? Sure, you could donate it to the Goodwill or other charity. You could even just haul it off to the dump. However, before you consider just trashing all of it, why not try a garage sale? After all "One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure."

However, before you just throw everything onto a table or your driveway, there is some prep work that you need to do. I am actually having one here next week and have begun my work. So, I will start to make some posts about what I am doing to get ready, so that you can have a successful sale yourself!

1. Pick the good day(s) and time. This all depends upon where you live. In my area, Friday nights and Saturday mornings are the best times for sales. For other regions, it my be a Wednesday. You can easily look in your local newspaper for listings to see what is the norm for you.

As far as the time of day and length to run your sale - that is really personal preference. However, if you are going to have it on a weekday, try to run it into the evening so that you can catch those people who have to work as well.

2. See if you can have a neighborhood sale. Many times, when you can post a neighborhood or subdivision sale, you can have a larger draw, as people know that they can drive to one area and hit several sales.

If you are participating in one of these, I recommend a Seller's List. This is where each household participating provides their address and the types of items they have for sale. It would be available at the entrance of your neighborhood - by the signs - for people to grab to see where they may want to go shopping.

Example:

123 Main: Kids' items, furniture, housewares, misc.125 Main: Tools, sporting goods, linens, misc.

3. Organize your items for display - and do so neatly. If you walk up to a sale and everything is literally thrown onto a table and you can't even see what is for sale, more than likely, you will turn and walk away. Taking the extra time to have several tables and items split out can yield you even more money.

I have the following tables/locations for my sale: Home Decor, Electronics, Housewares, Linens, Toys, Baby Items. They are all on their own tables and set up nicely on the table so that my customer can easily see what I am selling.

Another plus of having a nice display is more appeal. It comes across to the buyer that you take pride in your items you are selling, showing that you took care of them when you own them.

4. Make sure your items are clean. When you are pulling your items out to set on your tables, be sure it is clean. Nothing is worse than picking up a plate with food on it, or a picture covered in dust. Just taking a few minutes to wipe the dirt off of something, or wipe down the smudges can earn you a little extra money.

5. Launder and fold/hang clothing items. If you are selling clothing, be sure to take the time to launder everything before you sell it. Would you really want to purchase a coat that you can tell a 2 year old enjoyed his chocolate ice cream cone before Mom put it up for sale? Probably not. However, if it was clean, you may have more interest.

I take the time to wash and fold all of my items. I display them nicely on a table and fold and sort according to size . This makes it very easy for my buyers to find what they are looking for. Plus, it is clean and they are more willing to purchase.

As far as outfits go, I take the extra time and press everything. I know, ironing is NOT fun. However, a nicely pressed outfit could bring you $1-$2 more. So, it is worth it.

I also HIGHLY recommend to hang outfits. This helps you in more than one way.

ONE: It helps your customers to look through all of your items without rummaging through a table resulting in a mound of wrinkled clothes.

TWO: It can increase the value of the outfit. By hanging an outfit all on on hanger or grouped, it makes it worth more to the buyer. It also helps you as all items are already together at the time of the sale and you aren't looking over 3 tables trying to find the matching hat or socks.

THREE: People feel like they are shopping in a store rather than a garage sale.

6. Clearly mark all items with a price tag. While you may be willing to negotiate your price, having your entire sale marked "Make Me An Offer" can turn many people away. Most need to know what you are asking.

If you hang a few "We Negotiate" signs, then people will see you are asking $10 for that side table, but know that you may be willing to wiggle a little on the price.

If you are not sure what to price things, you can go and check out Ebay or Craigslist so that you can be sure you are asking a fair price for your items. Just be sure you don't under price your stuff!

Those are the first 6 steps in getting ready for a sale. I will have more as I move closer to "G-Day", but thought I'd share what works for me thus far. Happy Sale-ing!!