How to promote your garage sale
These days, you have a number of options when it comes to publicity for your garage sale. The methods you choose really depend on a number of things.
If you are selling your items as part of an organised boot sale, tag sale or flea market held regularly or as part of a school/church/club fundraiser, a lot of the publicity will be taken care of for you. However, if you’re the person in charge of the publicity (someone has to do it), you’ll have to think about how you’ll go about it. Schools can rely on the old-fashioned method of Taking Home Notes To Parents via “pupil post” as a way of generating initial interest, and most organisations use the letterbox drop method of publicity. However, for a multi-person “garage sale” you can also consider writing up an article for a community newspaper. Small local papers are usually hungry for “copy” and if you come up with an interesting and entertaining article with some good pictures, then the editor is highly likely to run the story, giving you a bit of free publicity. If your tag sale is likely to have other highlights (e.g. buskers, bouncy castles, conjurers, a band, a sausage sizzle, face painting), then mention these in the article.
Another tip for large garage sales run by organisations is to notify local businesses. For a nominal fee, the local businesses can have a “spot” where they can promote their business (note to businesses: sponsoring a school or charity garage sale is a good way of getting your name out there that is good value for money).
Individuals holding the traditional type of yard sale where it’s just one or two families selling off odds and ends probably don’t have the same “audience appeal” as the larger ones, so the options of community newspapers and local businesses won’t work as well. However, these places for promoting your garage sale work well:
If you have a particularly large garage sale (e.g. an estate sale), then it may be worth printing out A5 flyers and dropping these in letterboxes around your neighbourhood. This takes a fair bit of organisation – not to mention paper and printer ink – but does get the news out there.
- Signs on your fence and on lamp-posts. Make sure these are good quality, not just tatty bits of cardboard with marker pen. If you live on a quiet cul-de-sac, then put some of your signs on a main street nearby so you catch the eye of more people.
- Newspaper classified ads often have a section for listing garage sales.
- Some special garage sale websites have places you can list upcoming garage sales
- Networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo – announce your garage sale to the world!
- Word of mouth advertising. You have told all your friends and acquaintances, haven’t you?
- Community noticeboards outside supermarkets, etc. People do read these. Also consider workplace noticeboards, if your workplace policy allows this. Another version of this is the advertisement printed and taped to the window of the local corner store. Ask permission first.
Did you know that Garage Sale Mobile offers an iPhone and Android Application for finding garage sales on your phone?