I’m taking a short break from room by room decluttering to talk about a timely topic... Garage Sales!
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Newsletter Topic of the Month
Garage/Yard/Tag and Estate Sales…tis the season!
I get asked all the time if garage sales are worth it and…guess what? We just hosted a whopper! $3,000 in two days! There were multiple participants, but here are my takeaways if you are considering holding a sale! Here is what I learned and will share with you.
Besides merchandise, you need to think about all the stuff you need to have a sale. We already owned a lot of tables, so I didn’t have to rent any. We also were able to borrow A-boards for our signs from a realtor friend and that makes signage so much easier. Advertising was all free online and social media. I did buy a few inexpensive clothing racks, more on that later. We also have a lot of parking and easy access.
If you can, let some friends know you are holding a sale and invite some others to participate. This will spread out the workload, and attract more buyers, when you have a bigger event. Be SURE to have some rules. Participants can’t just drop off their stuff, they need to come over for set up and pricing. Seriously, this is a must! Otherwise, you are doing all the work so they profit, and you will be EXHAUSTED. Make sure they understand that they need to help, and even work the sale or cleanup. This is a huge amount of work, you will be exhausted already, don’t let others “pile on”.
Advertising is important. I joined several free yard sale/garage sale groups and posted there. I also posted in community pages that allowed it. I shared on my socials and tagged each participant in the sale. Helps if they do it too. Friends with big reach volunteered to share for us. Post photos, and a video, if possible, you can also post it on Marketplace. If folks share from your post, any updates will automatically update everywhere…. This way you could update nightly if you chose. We posted 2 full days before the sale and commented daily and changed photos to move it up in the feed!
Quality and condition of goods matter. Dirty items, broken items, etc.…clean them up and present them well. If it’s broken or damaged, say so clearly. Put things that are questionable in the free box! We had so much stuff we ran out of table space. We put stuff out all day long the first day, and a big batch of new stuff on day 2 and we told everyone that, and a lot of people came back and bought more!
Create “zones”. Like items together. If it has a cord, loop it and tape it so it’s not falling all over the place. Tape sets together (we use a lot of painter’s tape, make sure the tape wraps all the way around to overlap the tape, so it sticks. Painter’s tape is great, but off brand options often have less tack.
We don’t put items under tables, people just don’t see it. If you do, remind shoppers to look around. If you have driveway area, spread bigger items out there.
Price EVERYTHING. Sales go better if you price it all, no one has to guess or ask the price. We got a very inexpensive price tag gun and tags on amazon for clothes. That was a game changer.
We had a LOT of very nice quality clothes, and they sold very well. Here’s why. We organized them by type (men’s, women’s, kids) and by size with divider tags (purchase very cheaply on Amazon or make out of cardstock or cardboard). I got very creative with making racks. (See photo) I used two large recycle bins and closet rod I zip tied onto the bins, and two step ladders with a metal pipe. Be sure to zip tie the pipe or rod to the supports or it will wiggle all over the place. We had one small table with folded boy’s items, we tried to keep it neat and easy to see sizes. Often, I go to garage sales and see piles of clothes on tarps….no one even tries to see what is there. We told everyone hangers were NOT included.
We heard all weekend long how ORGANIZED our sale was. That’s how we made so much money. The effort is not that much more! But the money is!
Make sure you have shade. We used a pop-up tent to stay cool on 89-degree days! Plenty of change, a cash box of some sort and a way to track sales. We had 5 households. We used a gird form (see photo) that we had each household’s name on. Each household was assigned a color of painter’s tape, that corresponds to the grid. We marked sales by each household per buyer and then gave them a total price and had a breakdown for later to total sales. I have tried a lot of versions over the years, this one is BEST! Easy, fast and accurate. I had the most items, so I didn’t tally mine in the end, just the others, and paid them out at the end. Try to have a cash app available for some. We had several hundred folks through, and maybe 8 used Venmo.
Learn a lesson from me here…NO HOLDS. While I was holding something for a guy to go to the cash machine, he called his wife, came back and bought one item, but not the expensive one. In the meantime, someone else wanted it, so I lost that sale. I like to be helpful but trust me. No holds. Another guy asked me to mark some lamps sold, he would be back in 30 minutes. He did not come back. Luckily, they sold later. Just say NO to holds.
Negotiating. I hate this part. There are people that just love to haggle. If you don’t want to do that, put up a sign at the checkout table. “Prices have been set to sell, no negotiations” or something like that. I had a handful of folks badger me on already GREAT prices, and it irritated me to no end. People will give you sob stories, trust me, I’ll share that at the end. One day one, I did zero negotiating in the morning. Afternoon, I might be flexible on some odd items. Second day, we considered offers, but didn’t advertise that. If they asked, we did what we felt was reasonable. Most of our folks did not dicker a lot. We did half price the last hour. This can depend on how much you have left to sell.
Pricing…we shot for 25 to 33% of new prices in many cases, but sometimes that felt high, so we adjusted. Remember, the goal is to sell things. If I set it out for a sale, it is NOT coming back in my house or garage. This rule does not apply to clothes or shoes. You will never get your money back. In my markets the clothes and shoes ranged from $3 to $7 each, specialty items or luxury brands higher. Listen to buyers for the first hour, if your prices are high, you will hear them chattering.
Make your signage COLORFUL and fun. I’ve had a few sales over the years, people always comment on my signs. “Your sign was so good we had to see what you had”. There were three sales on our road including ours, (who knew?) and many commented about how nice and noticeable our signs were. I print them out in Canva for 11 x 17 in color (local office store if you can’t print that size). We cut them apart and layer them over some freezer paper and cover with clear packing tape in case of rain. They come off the A boards nicely. Canva has a free user as well, and many pre-designed templates. Update your info, and you can have a local office store or printer print them out any size you need. Make sure to have enough signage, that’s large enough to read and doesn’t fall down or over.
When the sale is over, there is the aftermath. Most garage sales never come close to selling out and we were no exception. I chose upfront to host a “free” sale at the end and the other households agreed. We pulled a few things we would donate elsewhere. 24 hours prior, I posted on my local Buy Nothing page. Our sale ended at 3, and we set the free event from 3:15 to 5. After 2, everything was 50% off, from 3 to 3:15 we pulled anything not “free” and then let the melee begin. And holy crap, it was insanity. I had posted that we were having a sale, but that this was free for our community. I added in all caps that this was for neighbors to take what they needed and wanted, and NOT for resale. Be sure to have help here, because some folks will take tables, hangers and things not in the sale. You will need to direct and remind folks. Sadly, we had two groups who came with 4 to 5 adults in multiple cars and took everything they could get their hands on. I don’t know if they even cared what they were taking. One group I finally said to “thanks for coming, you have taken plenty and you are free to go”. They had been told no keeping the hangers and wanted to argue with me about it! Seriously. The next group was already amassing a huge pile and shortly it was as big as large as the first group. The woman approached me and thanked me for my generosity, (the first group was not vocally appreciative). She told me where all the stuff was going, and why they were taking it (a bit of a sob story but I bought it). Not much I could do at that point, and I reminded myself what didn’t leave, I had to manage. In the end, I found out the main woman was a known reseller. Both felt icky but live and learn. Both groups filled an SUV which took away from others. I would have had 6 to 8 loads in an SUV to donate, now I have one, maybe one and half, so it’s all good. But it didn’t feel good at the time. This is hard to manage once it starts, so use caution. I expect that people will be kind and appreciative of a gift, but that is often not the case! Fortunately, many others were incredibly gracious. And a lot of my neighbors found new things for free!
In the final tally, I spent a lot of time and energy on this and made good money, but if I count my time, I made about $15 an hour! So, choose wisely. Was it worth it? Yes, in several ways. But know what you are in for! And I likely won’t do it again, but was a huge push for me to clear out and I am so glad about that, but going forward, when the donate box is full, out it goes!!!
And for those who haven’t heard me talk about the donate box/bin, I keep a bin in the closet for things that need to be donated or gifted on buy nothing. When it’s full, that means drop it at the thrift store or give it away. It keeps all the stuff together and not getting mixed back into the house, and when full that’s your cue to take it to the donation center or post on buy nothing if you prefer.
For those new to “buy nothing”, search on Facebook for ‘buy nothing’ with your town name and pick the one group that is in your area. You can only be in one. The site was created in my neighboring town and is now international. The goal was to keep items out of the dumpster and landfill and meet your neighbors. It’s called the gifting economy, where you can ask and offer, but no strings attached, all things are given freely! Check it out, I love it and gift a lot of things to my neighbors.
Where we are, yard sale/garage sale season is Memorial Day to Labor Day. You see one randomly here and there, put the PNW has rain, and a sale in the rain is a huge loser!!
So happy selling if you choose to do so! I hope these tips help.
Have a topic idea? Area of struggle? A fun tip? Send it in and I may make it the topic of the month. Email me at hello@judygranleegates.com
Join in the conversation at Facebook group – Declutter and Resize – Bigger Living Smaller Space
Product(s) of the Month:
Here are links to a few things we used that were super inexpensive and made a big difference for us! I paid for these items as the host, but you could ask each party to pay a portion.
These racks were inexpensive and worked well. Pro tip, leave the wheels off, and put some heavy stuff on the base to make them sturdier, we used boxes and added some clean cans of paint!
This clothing tagger saved a lot of time and headache. Tape and clothes don’t always work. People change the prices. This was fast and easy.
Tags, but you could cut cardstock into small pieces (that takes time, so we opted for these).
This tape had a color for each household. The host should use blue as they will generally have the most items, and you can easily find blue tape almost anywhere.
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