How to Organize a Successful Yard Sale
Each weekend, thousands of people shop at yard sales, looking for the really great bargin, or some bit of burried treasure.
What if I wanted to do a yard sale? You may ask. What do I need to do to make it successful? Is there a trick to it?
As the master of several very profitable yard sales, I will say there’s a bit of a trick to it/. But worry not; I have come to share these tips with you.
First, location is important. If you want a reallysuccessful yard sale, you need a really public place to have it in. Sometimes, yard sales can be held on street corners, or in public buildings. However, beware: don’t sacrifice everything for location. No one likes to see a rag-tag bunch of yard sale would be’s on every public corner.
Careful consideration should be given to renting a building to have a yard sale in, as rentals can be quite expensive.
Your best option, though, is finding a good place, a house, in town. Maybe if you don’t live in town, your relative/friend would oblige you at letting you have the yard sale at their house.
Second, you need to advertise. You can buy pre-made garage sale signs, fill in the blanks style, but I’ve found that a piece of poster board and a bit of acrylic paint does a much better job. Make sure you have bright colors to, and that your arrows are large and easy to understand. Most people don’t read address markings, you know, they just follow your arrows, so plain marking is impartive.
Some people even make flyers and hang these up at local hot-spots, advertising the dates, location and what’s to be sold.
This method, put with your signs, will get you the biggest consumer base possible.
Third; Organizing what you plan to sell. This can be a big hassle, and the bigger the yard sale, the more of a hassle it becomes. My recomendation is that, once you have selected what you’re going to sell, go through it, putting the items in ‘like’ catagories. While doing this, why not kill to birds with one stone and price them?
Most stores; Walmart, K-mart, or your local dollar store, will have yard sale kits, with sticker-price tags included. I personally don’t use them. A sharpie and a roll of masking tape works just as well; and it allows you more control.
A note about pricing; put the price tage where it’s easily visible and clealy understandable. This cuts down on the number of abashed people who come up to you and ask ‘How much is that?’
Fourth; Have tables. People don’t like crawling around on the ground to look at stuff, and presentation is half the battle. That means you need tables. The folding type tables work great, but you cold use any table. Even a piece of wood between two saw horses is better than putting it on the ground.
Fifth; setting up. Most serious yard sale people start at about 6:00 A.M. If that’s too early for you, try for 7:00, but don’t go any later than 7:30, or you’ll loose a lot of valuable customers. Most yard sale action takes place in the cooler hours of the morning.
When setting up your items, always put the big stuff, the best stuff, or the things you know will sell best in front. If you have a lot of clothes, or toys, put these in the back.
Nothing repulses most people from a yard sale than the sight of a mountain of second hand clothing.
Sixth; wrapping up. By the end of the day, most of your best things will be gone. You’ll be tired, if satisfied. The rest of this stuff does not need to go back in your house. So, for the last customers of the day, why not give them a discount.
Everything must go; nothing is unnegociable.
You may know that some item is worth a couple more bucks than what they’re offering, but is it really worth putting it back in the house and saving it for next time to get those few bucks? Let’s be realistic here.
Hopefully, your yard sale will go well, leaving you with some cash, and a whole bunch of free space and happy customers.
