If you happen to have a garage sale, here are some tips that I have for you, after Clone 2 and I drove all over town looking for sale sites.
1. Use BIG BRIGHT or WHITE signs. Little signs don't show up too terribly well, or the person wanting to go to your sale almost has a car accident when they try to turn at the last moment when they actually notice your sign.
2. Use more than one sign. Not everyone knows your neighborhood like you do. Not everyone grew up in your house, nor do they know what streets hook up with yours. With this in mind, one sign at the entrance to your subdivision truly doesn't cut it. You really have to put up more signs that let people know that they're on the right track, or where to turn. Small things like that.
3. Don't mark things up too high. Although you may value Fluffy, your stuffed cat, you may be alone in this. If you value Fluffy so much, maybe you shouldn't sell him, because, really, he's not going to sell at $10.00 for a stuffed animal. The same thing goes for furniture, books, silk plants, paintings, etc. You are not running a high-priced art gallery; you are running a garage sale.
4. Make sure you warn your neighbors so that when the street gets full of parked cars of the people at your garage sale that they do not get irate. I'm just saying . . .
5. If you don't have much of a selection, perhaps you may want to ask your neighbors if they would like to contribute, or perhaps you should postpone a couple of weeks to give time to go through the basement and find more treasures to sell.
6. If you are actually selling a table, please don't stack lots of things on top of it. I know that you need all the room you can get, but it makes things difficult when someone actually is trying to take the table after buying it.
7. Make sure you label how much things are.
8. Lay things out or at least categorize them. A pile of muddled and mixed objects does not always suggest exploration. More often than not, it suggests scaryness and disease.
9. At least wipe objects off before you sell them. Or you could just knock down the price for them. It's up to you. As much as the person who buys a toaster oven is aware that it has, in fact, been used, they may not want evidence to that fact residing in the toaster oven. In other words, no crumbs allowed!
10. Be organized. If you're not organized when it comes time for people to pay, it will not be a positive experience for anyone involved.
*Bonus: Have fun and keep yourself cool and watered. Think of how much money you're going to make when this is over with!
3 comments:
Good advice. I agree with you 100%.
Now I have a compelling urge to go garage-sale shopping.
Amen! And I have a few more, based on years of garage saling with my mom.
1) All you need in the way of signs is one big one that says "Garage Sale" and a few small arrows pointing the way there. Arrows are my friend when I'm trying to find your house.
2) Don't price things based on how much you paid for them or how much you cared about them over the years. Price them based on what they will be worth to a complete stranger (in other words, how much you'd pay for them if you bought them at someone else's garage sale).
3) Don't sell junk. If it's broken, stained, 20 years old, or useless, throw it out. We don't want it either.
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