Recently I posted on Facebook that I thought there should be an official garage sale handbook that all people should have to follow, because in my experience, most people's garage sales are deeply flawed and well, quite frankly, a waste of my time to stop at. So here I present to you some tips on throwing your next garage sale.
1. Do not advertise your sale as being huge because I will be expecting something truly huge and will most certainly be disappointed. Two tables of stuff Goodwill would throw away if you donated it does not a huge garage sale make.
2. Consider advertising your sale if you are selling kids clothing/items. Though this isn't necessary, consider the following. The people you want to come to your garage sale are people with kids as they would be most likely to purchase your items. Now, if most people are like me, they can't call up a babysitter every time they want to go to a garage sale, so they end up schlepping their kids with them. Do you think most people are going to drive around aimlessly looking for garage sales with kids items with kids in tow? Probably not, so by advertising, you would make such people aware of your sale and they can then stop (or not).
3. If you do advertise, be specific. I can't count the number of times I have seen the words "kids clothing" in an advertisement for a garage sale. Do you have boys clothes? Girls? Both? What sizes do you have? Again, for someone going to drag her kids with her, this is helpful information, as I likely won't go to a sale unless I know it at least has the sizes I need for my son and daughter.
4. Try to be organized. My time is precious and there is nothing more annoying to me than sifting through tables of clothes where boys and girls stuff is mixed together and all sizes are mixed together. Some people get annoyed by this. Therefore, you might sell more if it were more organized. Also, take the time to price your items. Having to ask about prices is annoying and being told, "ummm, I don't know, like, $.50 a piece" is even more annoying. You don't know? It's your garage sale.
5. Though it is hard, try to look at things as an objective third party that might be shopping your garage sale. Consider what you would be willing to pay if you were them and what condition you expect items to be in.
For example, though I know you are deeply attached to your children's clothing and it is hard to part with all the memories and you want to get the most money you can out of them to make it worth parting with them, let's be reasonable. I was recently at a garage sale that was charging $2.50 per item of clothing. Depending on the item, such as a nice dress for church, that would be ok. But keep in mind, this is a garage sale. You are selling used stuff. So for everyday t-shirts and pants, this is not ok, at least not with me. People can go to Kohl's and get new stuff on clearance for their kids for about $3.50. And when something is faded, stained, or torn, it's not worth anything even if it is name brand.
On that same note, I was also at two garage sales recently that were selling clothes that looked like they were from the late 1990's for about $2.00 a piece. I'm sure that these clothes were very nice back in the day, but I think it's time to move on.
6. Be clean and odor free. Would you want to go to a garage sale that looked so unsanitary that you felt as if you needed a shower afterwards? I went to one recently that looked like everything had been stored in their dirt floor basement for years. It was so filthy that I didn't want to touch anything. Again, look at things objectively, is that how you want to make people feel? Take the time to clean up your items or just consider saving everyone the gross factor and not having a sale at all.
On that same note, I was at a different sale recently in which everything looked clean, but had a funny odor to it like it had been sitting in boxes in the garage getting wet for that past couple of months. Again, not the kind of thing people want when they go to a sale.
So to recap, here are the basic guidelines for a successful garage sale:
1. Do not refer to your garage sale as huge.
2. Advertise your sale.
3. Be descriptive in you advertisement.
4. Have everything sorted and priced.
5. Price your items reasonably.
6. Don't sell dirty or odorous items.
It all seems like commonsense ideas, but trust me, you would be surprised.
Sincerely,
The-Annoyed-Garage-Sale-Going-Mom
Soooo agree!!!!
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