Garage Sale Mobile Tips

Garage sales get all sorts coming through to pick up a bargain. This can be part of the fun – you get to meet new people in your neighbourhood. But you also get the rip-off artists who make a habit of stealing from garage sales.

• Don’t get distracted when you’re paying. Make sure you keep the note they gave you in sight while you get the change so you can’t give them change for a $10 only to have them say that they handed you a $20.
• Watch out for people who open boxes to make sure that they actually put the item back in again.
• Beware of price tag switchers. These people will engage you in conversation or distract you by bringing along a fidgety child and waiting until your eyes are elsewhere and then switch tags.
• Some con artists will try to “help” you by adding up the price of several items they are buying… which is always short of the real total. Make up some excuse for checking each item (e.g. “I’ve got to tick these items off because I’m selling some things for my friend and I don’t want to rip him/her off.”). Use the line about the “friend” if you don’t want to lie (e.g. if you are running a church garage sale!) – your other half or your child is the “friend” you’re referring to.

 

Congratulations if you’re expecting a new baby. If this is your first child and you’ve been to antenatal classes, you have probably been confronted by one of those lists of “what your new baby will need”. This is usually followed by looking through a few department store lists and boggling at the price of everything. This new baby’s going to cost how much?

• baby baths
• potties
• clothing of all types, shapes and sizes – don’t buy too many “newborn” sizes, as babies grow like mushrooms.
• back packs and front packs
• soft toys
• buggies, prams and strollers
• high chairs

• car safety seats
• bottles
• dummies
• cot mattresses – the jury’s still out as to whether fumes from old mattresses causes “cot death”.

Most of us are keen to find ways to make extra cash in these tough economic times. Holding a yard sale is one way of doing this. But how do you go about doing it if you’ve never done it before?

1. Allow plenty of time for the sorting out process. You won’t be able to hold a good garage sale this Saturday if you’ve only thought about it this Monday. 
2. Be realistic about what old stuff of yours is saleable. Things that are broken or tatty won’t sell. Instead, look for things that are in good condition but that you haven’t used. How about books you’ve read once and don’t want to read again, kitchen gadgets you haven’t used for over a year, clothes that don’t fit any more and toys your children have outgrown?
3. Be organised. Garage sales are sometimes called tag sales, which gives you an important clue: put a price tag on anything – don’t think you can get away with just putting all the $2 items on one table, the $10 items on another and so forth. Things will get muddled from one to another as people handle things. Label everything. Colour-coded dots can simplify things.
4. Consider joining forces with a friend when you hold your garage sale. This not only gives you a better range of items for sale, but it also gives you more hands to staff the tables, etc.
5. Get proper publicity – good signs and advertisements in the right places. A cardboard sign written in marker pen on a lamp post just can’t compete.
6. Have a good cash float on hand, as you will need to give change.
7. Set your alarm clock early on the day. Eager beavers will be there earlier than the time you’ve stated on your advertisement, especially the professional dealers.
8. Conscript your friends and family to help, even if all they do is provide you with a hot drink at strategic moments – you don’t want to leave your sales table unattended.
9. Be open to negotiation. So you aren’t going to get the $50 you wanted for that exercise machine. At the end of the day, $30 is better than $0 and an unsold machine.
10. Don’t let buyers into your house – it’s just not prudent. You don’t want to unscrupulous people the chance to case out our house or a chance to accidentally on purpose slip something you don’t want to sell out where they can buy it. Keep a yard sale in the yard.
11. Provide plastic bags for people to fill with clothing – this has the added advantage of getting rid of those shopping bags you keep meaning to recycle but never get around to.
12. You may be able to make a little extra by selling hot coffee or home baking during your sale.
13. Time of year is important. If your town gets an influx of new university students setting up for rooming together, time your garage sale to coincide with the beginning of the semester – these students will always be on the lookout for cheap furniture, crockery and the like. If you plan on holding a pre-Christmas garage sale, have some Christmas-themed items for sale: Christmas trees, Christmas tree ornaments, wreaths, cards… The same goes for other important holidays and celebrations.

So you’re in the process of writing up your signs (and all the other bits of publicity) for your garage sale this Saturday. What time of day will you have your sale going for? Here are a few thoughts:

• Some people will turn up before your set starting time. If you set 8:00 a.m. for the start time, they will start showing up at 7:00, especially if you’re holding an estate sale – the antiques dealers and second hand dealers will turn up to bag the best bits. Factor this in by making your start time an hour later than you really expect to start, or by setting your start time at some ridiculously early hour (e.g. 6:00 a.m.) and be ready for them.
• Don’t stop your sale too early. Some people will be doing the rounds of the garage sales and have a number of sales they’ve planned to visit. If you finish too early, these folk may skip you out and you will miss the chance of a sale. Also, on Saturdays and Sundays, some people have sports or religious commitments first thing in the morning and won’t start coming out to garage sales until midday.

Not many garage sales are held in the evening, with the exception of tag sales and car boot sales at “twilight fairs” for schools and charities. To avoid competing with all the other garage sales, you could try to hold your sale in the late afternoon/evening. On the other hand, most people prefer to do other things on Saturday night (including you!).

Here are the 10 best buys I’ve had at a garage sale.

1. Clothing. If you’re built on the smaller side, you’ll often find good used clothing at garage sales that someone else has decided to get rid of because they don’t fit it any more. If you’re not a fashion slave, the garage sales of those who are can be very rewarding indeed. Some of the best finds to date was a black turtleneck pullover and a black leather driving coat.
2. Children’s toys. I might not have thought much of that pig knitted out of polyester yarn, but the children just took to it and now the very idea of getting rid of Pinky is unthinkable.
3. An old set of semi-circular enamel saucepans that can be pushed together so they use less space on the top of the stove – a very efficient way to cook several dishes at once.
4. A duvet cover with matching sheets and pillowcases. The floral pattern may not be to everyone’s taste, but it is to mine.
5. Garden tools, especially the shovel. Garage sales are always great places to pick up equipment of this sort.
6. Two wicker chairs with very faded cushions. They’re perfect for the porch in the sun – you can tell this because the cats take them over all the time. 
7. A pair of red sparkly high heeled shoes. They were outrageous “showgirl” shoes, but for 20c the pair, how could I resist, especially as they were in my size?
8. A non-electric whistling kettle. So somebody was upgrading to an electric kettle that switches itself off. This one’s great, as it can work on gas or even on an open fire/barbecue if the electricity goes out.
9. Books. I love old classic detective novels by Dorothy Sawyers and they often turn up at tag sales, as do other good deals. As the saying goes, you can’t judge a good book by its cover.
10. A guitar. The strings were missing when I got it, but they’re easily replaced.

 

If you want to know everything there is about creating first-class signs for your garage sale and have them done professionally, this is the site for you. And sassysigns.com isn’t just for those holding a garage sale – this site can be used for creating signs of all kinds, from FSBO home sales to awareness promoting signs (e.g. for the Breast Cancer Walk).

Holding a garage sale is quite a process. If you’ve never tried it before, you might be quite surprised. This is a rough guide to getting organised for holding garage sale. Exactly how long each step will take you depends on you and how much of an organised person you are.

1. Decide to hold the garage sale.
2. Start finding items to be sold. Be realistic about what’s good for selling and what’s not. Obvious rubbish won’t sell. Nor will anything broken, so be fairly ruthless.
3. Mention your garage sale to your friends. They may have some items they want to sell and might be able to help out.
4. Set the date. Check everbody’s schedules so you don’t end up holding it on your daughter’s best friend’s birthday – if you want your daughter to help out.
5. Decide on how you’re going to price everything. You will not get the “brand new” price for items, even if the item is hardly used, so be realistic.
6. Start considering the logistics of the sale. Do you have enough display tables? Plastic bags? Can you duck into a carport or rig up an awning if it rains? How long will you let your sale run for?
7. (At least a fortnight before). Start your publicity in the form of word-of-mouth, flyers and posters in corner store windows.
8. Organise friends and family members to help out. You may have to work in shifts if some members of the family have sport or church commitments over the weekend.
9. Make signs. Good quality ones get better results. Remember to list the date, place and time.
10. (A week before). List your upcoming garage sale in classified advertisements and in online channels.
11. Price everything. Use sticky labels. Don’t use the “everything on this table $10; everything on that table $5” method or try to rely on your memory. 
12. Get the cash float. Have enough handy to give change from a $100 note – you never know! Find a handy place to put the cash float. You don’t want to be ducking in and out of the house to get change, so have it handy to where the garage sale is set up.
13. Organise an extension cord so buyers can try out electrical items and see that they work.
14. If you’re holding the garage sale over the weekend, start putting your signs up on Thursday. If you do it on Wednesday, you may annoy a few people.
15. If you plan on selling baking or coffee at your garage sale, do the baking the day before. If you’re super-organised and have been freezing muffins for sale well beforehand, defrost them the night before. Make sure you have ample supplies of paper cups, milk, sugar, tea and coffee if you’re selling hot drinks. If you’re having an old-fashioned lemonade stand in summer, make up a jug or two and refrigerate this the night before. 
16. (The night before) Get everything ready to put out first thing in the morning, then go to bed early after setting your alarm clock. Six o’clock in the morning is a good time for you to start setting up.
17. Get up, set up tables and prepare for action! People will always turn up early – be ready for this.

The golden rule for garage sales is not to be over-optimistic and unrealistic. People visit garage sales to get bargain prices, so you can’t expect them to cough up the same amount as they would in a shop. 

Estatesales.net is a US-based site dedicated to estate sales. Estate sales held by individuals as well as companies are listed on the site, and the site also allows estate auctions to be listed. 

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.

• 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.