Yesterday was a cold, windy, rainy day. I was wearing my winter coat and gloves, and I was still cold. Really cold. I thought the garage sale was going to be a total failure, as no one would want to come out in such yucky weather. But I was wrong. So many people came!! And they bought so much stuff!!
My total profit for the day was $358. Not too shabby!
Now that I have managed to have a few successful garage sales, here are my best garage sale tips for you:
1. Have your sale on Friday. At least around here, Friday is the day for garage saling. Since our Saturday sales have been a flop for the past two years, we decided to do a Friday only sale yesterday. It was nice to have it all over and done with in one day.
2. Low prices! Price everything super cheap, and you will sell a lot more. Getting rid of a lot of things at low prices is much better than being stuck with everything because it was priced too high. If in doubt, mark it down!
This year we had 50 cents a piece on all clothing (mostly childrens clothing), with a few specially marked pieces. People were walking out with sackfuls of clothes. I know some of those 50 cent items could have been priced higher, but I just wanted to sell them. If people feel like they are getting a good deal, they will buy more. We had several people come to our sale today who have been to one of our sales in the past, and they remembered getting good deals with us. You can start to develop a good reputation among garage salers if you continue to offer good quality stuff at cheap prices. Then they will come back every year, and tell their friends about you!
3. Have your sale early in the garage sale season. I think this was a huge part of our success today. There were a handful of other sales in town, but we were not competing with any big neighborhood sales. Plus, die hard garage salers are eager to get out and find deals after sitting at home all winter.
4. Sell a lot of stuff. If you are going to price everything low, then you will have to sell a lot of stuff to make money. Therefore you need to have even more stuff available for sale. I am always eager to declutter my house and get rid of unused items, and I do not hesitate to get rid of stuff. I'm not sentimental at all when it comes to stuff and would rather pass it on to someone who will use it. If I haven't used something in the past year or I see no possible use for it in the future, I put it in our garage sale.
It also helps to include things in your sale that you know are popular with the garage sale crowd. We have discovered that small size women's clothing does not sell well. However, plus size women's clothing is actually a pretty good seller.
Baby items in good condition sell quickly at garage sales. We are not planning on any more kids, so we are getting rid of all of our baby items once we are finished with them. No reason to have them taking up space around here. I am also "retiring" from my Stampin Up business, so I sold a large number of stamp sets and supplies that were also popular sellers. Plus it is always amazing how much junk people are willing to buy! Our biggest sale of the day was a bowl full of (mostly worthless) pocket knives for $20.
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