Garage Sale Mobile Tips

Yardsalequeen.com is very informal, bright, cheerful and chatty and makes a fun read even if you aren’t planning on either holding or visiting a garage sale. Each page is packed with personal stories and anecdotes. And the site has a real sense of humour, which is one of the most likeable things about the site. 

Often, one single household by itself doesn’t always have enough unwanted goods to really hold a worthwhile garage sale. In this case, clubbing together with another household to run a combined garage sale is often a good way to go about it. Two families means twice as many hands to actually run the garage sale – a real bonus. 

Garage sales are great places for those who want to get fit. No, I’m not talking about the benefits of walking from sale to sale and toting your new-found treasures as a form of exercise –although it certainly counts – but the great deals you can get on exercise-related equipment. How many people do you know that have unused exercise equipment sitting around their homes? Right, now think of how many people there must be trying to sell off unused equipment by having a garage sale – often at prices far below the bought-new price.

• exercise machines of all shapes and sizes, including older exercise bikes. If it still works, it can still get you in shape, even if it does date back to the 1980s.
• exercise DVDs and videos. Check them over to make sure they’re not scratched before you shell out your cash.
• exercise-related books: the actual exercise regimens never go out of date, even if the pages are a bit dog-eared and the models demonstrating the routines are wearing hideous leg warmers.
• balls of all types. From Swiss exercise balls to little squash balls, as long as they’re still inflated/inflatable, they’re bound to be a bargain.
• weights. Dumbbells never go out of date. If you’re really lucky, you can find some from a reputable brand that can easily be added to. 
• workout wear made from fleece.
• specialty shoes, such as football boots. This especially applies to children’s sports shoes.
• any specialist sports gear, including golf clubs, hockey sticks, tennis racquets, etc. Finding a good deal at a garage sale might even trigger a new sporting interest.
• reflective gear for running and walking in the dark

• Used general-purpose exercise trainers. If a pair of running shoes look a bit down at heel and have signs of wear and tear on the sole, they won’t give your joints the protection they need. The imprints made by other people’s feet will feel weird. Only buy used trainers if they’re hardly worn.
• Videos, tapes and LPs that you don’t have players for anymore. Sure, you have memories of doing the Jane Fonda workout ages ago and you’ve decided to go retro for your workout, but if you can’t play it, you’re wasting your time.
• Lycra clothing. If it’s been worn a lot, it will have stretched and sagged irreparably. You may be lucky, but you may not. Avoid anything with holes in. The same applies to swimwear – never buy used swimwear in a pale colour, as it will become see-through as soon as it gets wet.
• Sweat bands: These are probably packed with someone else’s sweat and grime. Ick.
• Half-used protein supplements. If you really can’t resist it, make sure you (a) read the package carefully and see exactly what the supplement’s supposed to do, (b) check the use-by date.

Garage sales are great – you can find nearly anything under the sun in them at absolute bargain prices. However, while most of the finds at garage sales are worthwhile buys and well worth snapping up, there are some items you should stay away from – if they’re put up for sale at a yard sale at all.

1. Firearms. It’s better to get these from a proper dealer, especially firearms you need a licence to buy.
2. Child’s safety seats. You don’t know the history of these if they’re just put up with a sticker on at a garage sale. If they’ve been in an accident or are over a certain age, they shouldn’t be used as they are unsafe.
3. Safety helmets for bikes, motorbikes or horses. Once again, if these have taken a blow in an accident and done their job, they won’t be able to do the job effectively again. And with garage sales, you just don’t know where they’ve been.
4. Electric blankets. These need to be properly checked to ensure that they’re safe. If you see one for an absolute steal, get it properly checked out before you use it. Otherwise, buy something else – a hot water bottle, a wheat-pack or a good thick blanket.
5. Ancient and mysterious garden chemicals. If these are being sold off in a garage sale as part of someone’s estate, they are likely to be very old and they could contain substances that are now in the banned list.

Some items are easier to sell than others at a garage sale – trust me on this! You may not find a buyer for a life-sized polyresin statue of Elvis (but you might – you never know!) but some things, you are almost guaranteed to find a buyer for… almost, anyway.

1. Baby clothes. Babies need lots of clothes and they grow out of them quickly.
2. Chinaware such as plates, cups and dessert bowls. You may hate the colour or the pattern, but the chances are someone else will love it or not care as long as it’s cheap.
3. Cutlery, for the same reason as above. If you have a full matched set, it’s a sure-fire winner.
4. Drinking glasses, wine glasses and the like. 
5. Things you won as a prize or had given as a gift that you haven’t used and don’t want. These are usually snapped up if they still have the original packaging on them. The same goes for items you bought in a fit of temporary insanity.
6. Good quality tools. Is there a single household that doesn’t need a good screwdriver, hammer, saw and monkey wrench? If you have a dozen duplicate tools lying around, sell them!
7. Furniture. Tables, chairs, sofas and desks are often snapped up by young folk setting up home on their own for the first time as well as those hit by hard times and in need of furniture.
8. Children’s bicycles. Children learning to ride don’t need the latest whizz-bang thing with spring suspension and 24 gears – just something the right size with two wheels will do.
9. Books, especially classics. Some people make a hobby of going around tag sales just to hunt out second hand books.
10. Jewellery. You may not like it any more, but somebody will, even if they buy it for a child’s dressing up box. Don’t sell anything really good quality at a garage sale without doing your homework, though – have it valued first, at the very least.

 Wise people know that canny shopping is the way to make the money stretch further during tough economic times. If you can find what you want at a bargain price, well done! Many people already know that buying second hand is a good way to pick up a bargain – but buying at a garage sale is even better for finding a good deal, as it cuts out the middle-man known as the second hand dealer.

1. You expose your items for sale to a much wider audience – even today, not everyone has a computer or access to the internet. And not everyone who does have internet access goes on Ebay.
2. You don’t have to take umpteen pictures of whatever you want to sell.
3. You can alter prices, offer discounts and special deals without any hassle or penalty.
4. You are less likely to have timewasters who are just nosey and end up putting your items onto a watchlist. Anyone who has a look at what you’ve got on offer is more likely to actually buy when you can see them face to face – nosey timewasters are likely to be embarrassed if they don’t buy.
5. You don’t have to compete with half a dozen similar or identical items listed in the same category.
6. No shipping hassles!
7. Both the buyer and seller are protected. They hand over the cash; you hand over the cake mixer. If they don’t hand over the cash, you keep the item. Simple as that. What’s more, buyers can see any flaws, etc. straight away (or they may not notice them, whereas you’d have to mention these flaws if you were being scrupulously honest on Ebay)
8. You don’t have the bad experience of someone making a time to view your whatever-it-is only to not show up after you’ve taken half an afternoon off to be there for them.
9. You get face to face interaction – a very important part of building community and being in touch with your neighbours.
10. People who come in to have a look at, say, a sofa, may also be attracted by some of the other items that catch their eyes.

We're all finding things a bit tight at the moment with the recession, which means that now is the perfect time to hold a garage sale. You might think that seeing as there's a recession on and everyone's feeling the pinch that nobody's going to turn up and buy your old odds and ends – who's got spare cash to spend on quirky curios?

Well, you're half right and half wrong. Yes, the recession may put off some of the people who treat garage sales as a form of entertainment – retail therapy on the cheap, so to speak. These people may decide that they need to rein in their spending a bit. But other types of folk will still come along – or start coming along.

The first type of folk are the professional second hand dealers. These people are always hot on the trail of any garage sale to pick up the hidden treasures, and the recession won't put them off. If anything, they may be hotter on the hunt than before.

The second type are those who are feeling the pinch and are looking for furniture, clothes, books and gadgets at a cheaper price than bought new items, or what they can find in second hand shops (you should be able to figure out why things at second hand shops cost more if you look at the previous paragraph). These folk will start hitting the garage sale trail in the hopes of a bargain – yours included.

So what are you waiting for? Drag out your old treasures from the attic or basement and off you go!

If you have an iPhone or Android compatible phone, you can now view garage sales locally on your iPhone through the brand new mobile web app provided by Garage Sale Mobile. It is easy, all you have to do is visit http://garagesalemobile.com/ on your iPhone or Andoid web browser. You will get a very friendly interface to view garage sales close to you, just like you already love on Garage Sale Mobile. If you want to see what the mobile version looks like, take a look.

By the way, if you are interested in a good book about garage sailing, check out Everything You Need to Know about Garage & Yard Sales: Be Better Organized, Have Fun, and Sell More.