A garage sale is a great way to make some extra cash while also decluttering your home. However, just because you’ve decided to host a garage sale, this doesn’t mean that it’s bound to be a success. Remember, every unsold item is a missed opportunity and, even worse, it goes back inside. Seeing as how it’s often hard to decide to part from them the first time around, it just puts you through the ordeal once more. So, to avoid this unfortunate scenario, here are the top 7 tips for a successful garage sale.
1. Accept the Idea
The first problem with a garage sale lies in the concept that you’re selling items that you hold dear to you. This doesn’t seem that big of a deal when you first come up with the idea but once you start going through the inventory, you’ll find that every single item somehow seems hard to part with.
So, even before you decide to go through with it, open your closet and start sorting. Get everything out of your closet and put it in three piles:
- Keep
- Sell
- Trash
Once you’re done, you’ll have the inventory of your garage sale. It will also help you declutter the place and keep your home tidier than before.
2. Set a Date
To host a successful garage sale, you need to set the right date. Ideally, it will be Friday, Saturday, or Sunday morning. That way, the majority of people will be able to attend without disrupting their schedules.
Also, if you want to maximize your profits, you can schedule it for the first or second weekend of the month. After all, people are more likely to conduct impulse purchases when their paychecks have just been cleared.
The timeline is also important. Morning is great for attendance but if you’re hosting in the summer, the earlier you start, the cooler it will be. In other words, you’re making the overall experience more pleasant for everyone.
3. Set the Price
Now, you need to keep in mind that you want to group items by categories. After all, you’re not running a store, you’re hosting a garage sale. So, you want to group items, for instance, group adult clothes into one pile, children’s clothes onto another, coats into a third, etc. Then, set the price for each pile (for any item from the pile). This will make it easier for you to memorize the costs and easier for your buyers to budget.
When it comes to jewelry, this is where things get a bit tricky. Sure, a trinket or two (especially arts and crafts) can go on the pile but if we’re talking about precious metals, this is never a good idea. The right way to do this is to find a renowned gold buyer from Phoenix because expensive jewelry should always be sold in specialized stores. A pawnbroker and a garage sale are not the way to go.
4. Make Everything Transparent
Why piles, why set prices? Well, the simplest explanation is that you need to make things as simple and transparent as possible. You want to group these items and put up a massive sign that will make it easier for people to understand how much these things cost. Also, using round numbers can help them with math (and you).
Another thing you need to consider is that you might have a lot of people on the premises at once. The less active effort you have to make, the better. No, you don’t have the time to haggle with every single one of them. It’s also far better if they can just find the answer that they’ve been looking for on their own, without overreliance on you.
5. Make Bundles
There are some items whose value doesn’t exceed $1. So, what are you going to do, take nickels and dimes? Well, you could do that but it’s far easier to group these items into bundles. Why not offer 4-5 such items for $2, instead of ending up with a ton of change? Needless to say, this will also help maximize your profit. After all, even some of the world’s largest retailers are doing it.
If you want to invest a bit more effort, you can also try to upsell and cross-sell. Being a veteran salesman will help but even if you’re not too good at this at the moment, you could take some time to develop these skills. All you need is a bit of practice.
6. Prepare the Change
Once you start selling, you’ll have plenty of change on hand, however, you need to be prepared for your first few customers, as well. What if none of them has any change? You need to have enough small bills for any situation. While this seems like a trivial thing, skipping this step may make you lose a sale or two. This is something that you just can’t afford. A missed opportunity this early can make you a bit tilted, just keep in mind that it’s about the volume of trades.
7. Advertise
While curb appeal is generally the way to go with garage sales, the truth is that promoting it a bit might be even better. So, start with social media. This way, you’ll reach people nearby (since you’re likely to be followed by at least some of your neighbors). Hanging a sign in advance is also known to help. Distributing flyers is also a sound plan, seeing as how it’s a highly localized marketing method.
Just make sure to form the basis of your marketing around curb appeal. After all, visits to a garage sale are spontaneous decisions. People see you selling and they pull over. So, try to figure out how you’re going to approach this matter.
Read Also: How to exit navigation on Google Maps?
Wrap Up
In the end, a successful garage sale is in everyone’s best interest. It helps you earn money and clean your home. To the community, it provides an opportunity to mingle and get some great items at a bargain price. In other words, it’s both pragmatic and a ton of fun.
