Yard sale, real estate sale, flea market or whatever you call it, a garage sale is a real quick way to dispose of those things — old furniture, electronics, clothes, antiques, etc. — you no longer needed, and at a profit.
There are lots of people out there who are willing to lay down some good cash for those things in your home you considered “junks”. Instead of disposing them all to create more space for yourself and your family, you can easily create a mini auction sale – a garage sale in your neighborhood, and you’d be surprised to see others willing to pay for your “junks.”
There are thousands of others making garage sales with the things they no longer needed, and there’s a chance you’ve come across one or two of such events, so what we are suggesting is not something new. Just about anyone can clean out their home and set up garage sales, but not everyone can do it profitably – at least not comparable to how our pros can.
While Garage sales may not be a new idea and just about anyone can do it, you’ll need a few ideas and suggestions from sales pro – if you really want to make some good money from your garage sales.
We talked with various garage sales pros, picked their brains on how they make massive money from junk sales. We’ve compressed everything we learned into this long simple post, and as you read this, we know your garage sales will not only be a success but a profitable one too. So let’s get started with the tips.
Obviously, you’ve got to get your junks in place
Preparing for a garage sale can be really stressful especially when sorting through your things. To avoid procrastination, set a day aside and use it to walk through your rooms collecting those items you no longer need. To make it easier, you can ask everyone – kids, spouse – to get junks out themselves from their own stuff.
Where should you organize your items for sale? You can do this in your garage as the name implies but if you have a good, nice space with shade, you can also make use of the space – shopping under the sky is something most of us love and I’ll like to try out, so if you can take out the hot sun, then under sky will be fine.
Now don’t heap all your stuff in one place and let buyers sort through them, that will only frustrate them and chase them away and waste your time too. Sort out all your stuff and place them “kind of kind”. DVDs should be grouped with other DVDs and shouldn’t be mixed up with other stuff. You can do this yourself with the kids or get a friend to help.
After sorting them out, you should clean them of any dust or dirt – no one will want to go near am item covered with dirt.
Partner with others
Partnering with a friend or a neighbor in a garage sale is never a bad idea especially if they are willing to work with you.
If you can’t find a lot of junks to sell, you can check on your friends or good neighbors and see if they will be interested in selling those things they no longer needed. Most will readily agree because they want more space in their homes like you do or because they are interested in earning a few bucks. The reason doesn’t matter. Get together with them and ask them to sort out those things they no longer need and bring to the designated place, and all of you can sort them out.
Start your sales on a Thursday or Friday
It’s normal that garage sales should be held on weekends for an obvious reason: people are free from work and will have more time to go through your collection. But most experts we talked to seem to disagree with this normal custom.
They all agree that the best time to open your shop should be on a Thursday or Friday and run it all through the weekend. There are good reasons for that.
Running your sales on Thursday or Friday help reduce competition. There are many other people organizing garage sales right there in your neighborhood and across the country than you’ve ever imagined and they all open on weekends. You’ll have more competition on weekends than on any weekday.
Antique resellers are your best customers, and they will pay higher than regular collectors. Most of these resellers shop on weekdays to avoid competitions from other resellers. So opening your sales on weekdays will help you sell more and at a higher rate too.
Don’t add price tags
You might be tempted to put a price tag on all your items as they do in supermarkets, but hey, yours is a Garage sales so that won’t be necessary.
In fact, garage sales pros are strongly against price tags and for two good reasons: undervalue an item and price tags can be easily switched.
It’s obvious that you can easily down price an item because it does not mean anything to you but that doesn’t mean the same item does not have a value to someone else. So putting up a price tag may lead to loss as some buyers may be willing to obtain those junks at a higher price than you originally intended.
A woman once priced an item for £5 in her garage sales before a friend convinced her to remove the price tag. She was reluctant at first, but with a little pressure from her free, she consented. She was really flattered when a buyer, a man priced the same item for £400! She had to sell it to him for £300 because obviously the same table meant nothing to her and does not have a use but to the antique collector, it meant everything.
Not all buyers are honest – that’s the truth, and while you’re not looking they can easily switch the price tag on an item with a lower price. This will lead to less profit at the end of the day.
While it’s not a good idea to add price tags to your items, it sure is a good idea to get an idea of what an item is worth in the market. So you don’t sell at a loss.
Before you open your garage sale, get the Amazon or eBay app on your smartphone. Both apps can help you search for similar products on their website and show you their actual price. This way you get an idea of what an item is really worth and how to bargain with a buyer.
Have it in mind that most buyers are resellers and are hoping to buy at a lower price and resell at a higher price to make a profit and as such will price your items at costs lower than what you’ve seen. Generally, it’s a good idea to price your items from £1 to £100, that’s the range most buyers expect in a garage sale. If you find an item worth more than that, you may want to put it up on auction sites like eBay or Amazon.
Get the words out
Well in garage sales, if you build it, they won’t come; except you tell them about it. Get the words out that you’re organizing a garage sale by any means.
Your first start should be your local newspaper be that’s where most buyers get information about an upcoming garage sale. Most local newspapers and magazines have space for garage sale listing. Get yours on the list.
The internet is your best avenue for creating awareness about your garage sale. There are lots of websites that allow you to create free classifieds ads that you can use to create awareness about your garage sale. Some of these include:
Craigslist
eBay
Garage Sale Gal
Classifieds
Gsalr.com
YardSales.net
Most buyers search these websites regularly for garage sales and listing yours on the website will guarantee better exposure.
You can also make use of social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, to create awareness about your upcoming garage sale. Ask friends to share with friends and soon you’ll be surprised at the number of persons talking about your garage sale.
Choose a theme for better profit
A garage sale pro once commented that giving his garage sales a theme was the best thing that ever happened to his business; it raised his profit by over 50%. Giving your garage a theme is a good way to get more buyers interested.
You can easily sort through your stuff and decide the “kind” of items that are more and use that as a theme for your garage sale. If most of your items include books, you can easily theme your garage as “book sales”.
Of course, you can sort your stuff into a kind and organized different garage sales and theme for each group if you have the time to do that. Making a theme for your garage makes it unique and stand out from other junk sale event.
Make shopping easier and fun
It has been shown by studies that soft music playing in the background of any store is guaranteed to keep customers longer in the store and even make them more willing to pay higher for products.
Keep soft music in the background, and you can make it even more fun for your buyers by offering Lemonades and cookies. It’s way better to get your buyer to interact with you while browsing through your collection as this will give them fun memories of your garage events – more so studies have shown that good interaction between buyers and sellers often make buyers more willing to pay for a product.
Create sales promo
Sales promo is a good way to sell more especially when the weekend is coming to an end, and maybe you just want to sell everything.
There are different types of sales promo that you can use to get buyers to pick up more items at your garage sale.
You can organize a “buy three, get one free” or “fill a bag and pay £5” promo. Buyers tend to buy more when they believed they are getting more for their money and even pick those items they may not need. So if you really to clean out your garage, sales promo might be your best option.
Only accept cash
Sales from the garage are small enough that your buyers can conveniently pay with cash and not necessarily use a check. Some dishonest buyers may issue out fake checks which you’ll only discover after they had long gone. To prevent such loss, only accept cash payments for any items.
You may want to get a couple of money marker from the market before you open your garage sale. Garage sales though small is a very good avenue for some people to spend fake currencies. Money markers can help you detect fake bills with a little ink, and they don’t cost much.
Keep the kids in control or out
You may want to involve the kids in fun but keeping them out and out of the way of buyers may be the best way to make some good money from your sales. Sure, you can keep them in the garage if you can keep them in control and not chewing the stuff you want your buyers to pay for – that’ll chase them away.
Safeguard your stuff
While making a little money from your old stuff is a very good idea, you don’t want a total stranger roaming your home and moving about as freely as a friend – anything can happen. Keep your doors secure and don’t open it for anyone on an excuse to use the bathroom or phone.
Organizing a few garage sale from time to time to sell your old stuff is not such a bad idea, and you’d find it a lot more fun than you will ever imagine. Armed with the tips above, you’ll be able to make the most out of any item in your garage.