Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Yard Sale Tips

Yard Sale Season is here! We have seen signs all over and recently participated ourselves. I thought I would share some of our best tips to help make your sale successful as well for our Talk About It Tuesday post.

- Join in with neighbors if you can. Larger sales draw larger crowds.

- Find out which days are most successful in your area. Here, it happens to be Thursday. Other areas it might be Friday or Saturday.

- Start collecting your items. We began right after Christmas by pulling aside decor we didn't use this season and then went thru our home room by room. If you have an area where you can temporarily store your items, pool them in one space.

- Give yourself plenty of time for pricing. Price low, but leave yourself a little negotiating room. I've found that all yard sale shoppers are eager to find a bargain and they love to have your price reduced.

- Gather tables from friends and neighbors and showcase your treasures. We have a few tables of our own and we borrowed two from a friend. We also created one additional table by using sawhorses and placing a sheet of lumber on top. This worked especially well for items that were too heavy for a card table, such as dishes.

- Get change before your day begins. I like to have $100 in a variety of bills. And, as I gather more cash from sales, I take larger bills inside for safekeeping.

- Gather any unsold items and take them to your local Goodwill or Salvation Army. What better way to recycle? Don't bring unwanted items back into your home.

If you have additional yard sale hints, we would love to hear them. If you have an upcoming sale, we wish you the best of luck!

- Julie

8 comments:

  1. Don't do yard sales over here, more likely to load all the moveable stuff into the car and go to a Car boot Sale, where everyone sells their stuff all together in one place, usually a car park or a field. Means you can't sell the BIG stuff that way, BUT some of your tips are good ones to keep in mind for car boot sales as well.

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  2. Greast ideas. I love yard sale season!

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  3. I'm having a garage sale with a friend in a few weeks. I can't wait to get rid of all that junk collecting in my basement, and making some extra money! Good tips, thanks!

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  4. Great tips. I'd add to think about Craigslisting items or selling clothes on consignment leftovers. Often, it is overwhelming to do that with everything but there might be a few good items you'll want to do that with. Also, know what you could sell something for on Craigslist so you don't slash the price at it at the end of the yard sale just to clear it out.

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  5. MAKE SURE YOU PRICE THINGS!! My MIL and I frequent garage sales, and if we go to one where the people couldn't be bothered to price things, WE LEAVE. It's a waste of time trying to get the attention of the person hosting the sale to haggle. Also, don't price used children's clothing for a dollar a piece, especially if it's heavily worn. If you do, it won't sell. I sell the most when I put my children's clothing up for fifty cents per piece.

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  6. Signs put on the roads leading to your house should have HUGE LETTERS! I suggest just putting 'SALE' as big as possible with a large arrow and leaving it at that. You can't sell to people who don't come to the sale!

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  7. Very good tips!! I'm going to have to come back to this in a few weeks to review again when we get ready to do our sale :)

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