Garage Sale Mobile Tips

You are probably not holding a garage sale just for the fun of it. Yes, garage sales have their fun sides, but you are probably having one to get rid of clutter and make a bit of cash at the same time. So you need to protect your cash.

• Don’t have a cash box that can be reached easily by your customers. Sneaky people will help themselves while you’re looking elsewhere. Keep your money in a carpenter’s apron or a fanny pack – or even cargo pants, if you’re desperate.
• Some buyers will wait until you’re distracted to switch price tags. The best way to avoid this is to make sure that you have plenty of helpers – and prime them up that con artists are about.
• Some con artists will fluster you by asking for change for a $100 note. Be prepared for this and you won’t be flustered. The more “sorted” your cash float is (this is why a carpenter’s apron with lots of pockets is ideal), the less flustered you are likely to get, and you have less chance of making a mistake.
• Don’t drop the price just because you think someone is hard up and you only think this because of their appearance or means of transport. They could be putting on an act to play on your sympathy and score a massive discount. It happens. Haggle, yes, but don’t be foolishly kind.

 These are the people you don’t want to come to your garage sale, as they are con artists.

• Helpful Harry/Harriet. Helpful Harry buys several items and tries to save you the bother of tallying it all up by giving a total – which is wrong. Check everything – get out the calculator do double check if needed.
• Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo discovers this character attempting to walk out with several small but valuable items that “just happen” to have fallen into her umbrella. Real-life versions of this character have things “accidentally” slip into bags, pockets, drawers or boxes they are buying. Just check inside to be on the safe side.
• Pat the Parasite. Pat the Parasite asks for help carrying things to his/her car. Pat will return later in the day claiming that you didn’t bring everything that he/she paid for and will you hand it over now, please. Of course, this is a lie and if Pat gets away with it, they will then help themselves to something else for free.
• Ma Baker. This one doesn’t teach her four sons to handle their guns, but brings children to garage sales. She waits until you nervously distract Little Darling away from the glass figurines to make her move: switching price tags.
• Marvie the Magician. Marvie the Magician gets out a $100 bill and waves it in front of you, asking for change. He then tucks it away while you get out the change. You hand the change over, in a fluster, he hopes. He also hopes you will forget that he hasn’t actually handed the money over. Always take the money before you give the change – and have enough of a cash float to change $100 so you don’t get flustered.

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.

 

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. 

If you’re a student or some other young person setting up home for the first time, then garage sales are great! You can get most of the things you need really cheaply at garage sales. Who cares if they aren’t always the most up-to-date or the most fashionable? Some things never really pass their use-by dates and garage sales are excellent places to score these.

• A bed with a decent mattress – can be hard to find at garage sales, but you never know.
• Bedding to go on ditto. This is usually easier to pick up. Get pillows, sheets, pillow cases and blankets as the bare minimum, plus a cover of some sort.
• Cutlery: at least two knives, dessert spoons and forks for everybody in the household, plus four teaspoons.
• Crockery: a dinner plate, a bread-and-butter plate, two bowls and three mugs per person. Garage sales often have complete sets for sale, so keep an eye out for these.
• Glassware: two or three tumblers per person. Plastic cups are OK, but glass is classier.
• A table – and remember a tablecloth can cover a multitude of sins such as white circles, burn marks, chips, paint splashes and the like.
• Chairs – one per person, plus two more for guests. Again, garage sales often have these – usually a bit old and battered, but nothing a bit of paint won’t fix.
• Chests of drawers to put your odds and ends in.
• At least one clock.
• Mirrors
• Cooking stuff: at least three saucepans, a wooden spoon, two or three sharp knives, a salad bowl, a chopping board, a kettle, a mixing bowl and a cheese grater. Plus anything else you can think of.
• Towels and tea towels. You can never have too many!

A garage sale usually is held to sell off unwanted items. However, you don’t just have to sell second-hand bric-a-brac and clothing at a garage sale. With a bit of planning ahead and some know-how, you can sell a few other things and get some extra cash. A few ideas just to get you started:

• Do you have a fruit tree producing surplus fruit? Then sell the fruit – or get really organised and make jam for sale. Homegrown fruit usually tastes better than supermarket fruit, so this usually sells well.
• The same applies to homegrown vegetables. Now you know what to do with that zucchini surplus. 
• If you don’t grow vegetables or fruit, how about bunches of fresh flowers? 
• Plants themselves can sell. Raising houseplants in pots is simple, and they often sell well at garage sales. In early spring, you can target home gardeners by raising vegetable plants from seed and selling off the seedlings ready to plant – lettuces, cabbages, pumpkins, tomatoes and zucchini work brilliantly – owners of conservatories and glasshouses, take note!
• Home baking also sells well at garage sales. Make sure the table displaying these is not in full sunlight for food safety reasons, and make sure you cover each cake or tray of muffins with cling-film.
• If you paint, take photos or do cross-stitch, you can put some nice framed examples up for sale.
• Home-made clothing (which can include screen-printed T-shirts, knitted sweaters, beads, you name it) can also go on sale at garage sales. This can be a good way of testing the water for a hobby you want to turn into a cottage industry.

Signs are all-important for any garage sale. Apart from classified ads in newspapers and online noticeboards, signs are the main way that people get the news out about their garage sale.

• Make plenty of signs. You will need one to put outside your front gate, but you should also make one or two to place further down the road. This will catch the eyes of motorists, who will get enough time to stop. If you live on a quiet street, make some signs to go on lamp-posts in a main street nearby so you expose your publicity to a higher-traffic area.
• Your sign should be of reasonable quality. A scribble on a torn-off bit of brown corrugated cardboard isn’t quite enough. If you have to make your own signs, use a decent piece of cardboard – they’re not that expensive – and take some care with the lettering. You can get signs printed. Occasionally, you can find deals where if you list your garage sale via a certain channel, you’ll get a sign (usually just saying “garage sale” as part of the deal. White, pastel coloured or fluorescent cardboard makes a tidy, eyecatching look.
• Make sure that your sign is readable from a distance! 
• Your sign should list the date, time and address of the sale. Signs can also include a brief description (in a few bullet points) of items that will be sold (e.g. clothing, furniture, sports gear).
• Have some signs for your actual sale, e.g “Clothing $2 a bag” “All pot plants $4 each” “Blue sticker items $1”. 
• If your garage sale is in aid of a charity, include the name of the charity on the sale. This can induce more philanthropic people to come to the sale.

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. 

If you are holding a garage sale as a way of clearing up someone’s estate, you may be wondering if certain items that Grandfather used to own are antiques or not. If so, you don’t want to sell them off far too cheaply. Sure, your garage sale will make some dealer’s day, but you would probably prefer to get a fair price for the item – and your late grandfather would have preferred that too.

• War memorabilia such as uniforms, weapons, other paraphernalia and especially medals
• Old coins
• Jewellery – if you really want to literally sell the family silver
• Furniture, especially if it’s been old as long as you can remember. This is especially true of wooden furniture
• Fur coats or anything else made of fur. Make sure they’re not moth-eaten.
• Clothing that looks old-fashioned. The care label may give you an indication of the age, more or less – if there is a care label. 
• Odd old ornaments that you suspect may be antiques. They may not be, so don’t be over-optimistic.

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!).