OK–you finally finished your Spring Cleaning. You spent days sorting and purging through your belongings. You threw a few things out and even repaired one or two items. But, what will you do with everything else you uncovered and discovered? If you’re willing to invest some time and energy, why not have a garage sale?
Garage sales are a great way to get rid of things you no longer want, need, or cherish. But, is it as easy as just dumping your stuff on the lawn and waiting for customers to drive by? Not if you want to make any money, it isn’t. Besides having decent-quality merchandise, the key to a successful garage sale is being organized.
Here are 3 steps for making your garage sale organized for happy customers and optimal sales:
Step 1: Pre-Sale Organizing
• Select a weekend for your sale and make no other commitments on those days. You WILL be exhausted. Ask friends and neighbors if they would like to join you. It is a perk to be able to split advertising costs and have someone watch over your area while you’re grabbing a snack or running to the bathroom.
• Have you ever been to a garage sale where the items had no prices on them? One way of making ‘Garage Sale Day‘ organized is to create a pricing system. This makes the selling easy for you and the buying easy for your customers. Purchase colored, circle-shaped labels and designate each color to be a different dollar amount, for example blue = $.50. Use white circle labels to write an amount such as $5.00. Make signs that describe your pricing system and post them around the area of your garage sale so you don’t have a constant stream of customers asking you about prices.
Or, try these pre-printed labels. See the color-coded pricing chart I created for my last garage sale here.
Select one area of your home to be the staging area for pricing items and one area (most often the garage or an underutilized room) for storage of the items once they’ve been tagged. This last space will enable you to see exactly what you have and allow you to group ‘like-with-like’ such as toys, books, kitchenware, etc.
• Start saving grocery bags as well as heavy-duty shopping bags. Your customers will appreciate your preparedness and it will be easier for them to carry their new-found treasures off your property.
• Some of these new-found treasures will be breakable. Start saving newspaper, old wrapping paper, and bubble wrap. These packing materials will help your customers get their breakable purchases home in one piece.
• Borrow and gather folding tables, card tables, crates, workbenches, and other horizontal surfaces for displaying items.
• Check with your town regarding permits for having a garage sale.
• Advertise, make signs and post them on nearby streets facing oncoming traffic.
Step 2: During-the-Sale Organizing
• Post your pricing system signs around the area of your garage sale.
• Wear clothes with pockets. Pockets come in handy for holding some of your garage sale supplies such as pens, markers, and extra price stickers.
• I know they’re not so fashionable but wear a fanny pack! Your money will be close to your body without spilling out of your pockets. Wear a pack with two compartments–one for bills and one for coins.
• Know exactly how much money you started the day with so you’ll be able to calculate exactly what you earned.
• Set up your belongings outside by category–all toys together in one spot, all office supplies together in another area. Group ‘like’ items to the best of your ability. If a customer is looking for baby toys and they’re all in one place, it is very likely that they’ll buy more since everything they’re looking for will be right in front of them.
• Have at least one other person working with you. It is difficult to sell merchandise, wrap breakables and field questions by yourself. Take turns helping customers, straightening up merchandise, and taking breaks.
Step 3: Post-Sale Organizing
• Bring everything that was not sold into the garage or another room to make final decisions on whether or not to keep unsold items.
• Throw out anything that became damaged or broken as a result of being in the garage sale.
• Donate the ‘leftovers’ to a charity of your choice.
• Clean your lawn/driveway of any debris from the garage sale.
• Count your money and determine your profit. $$$
• Create a list of all supplies used for the garage sale and keep it on your phone or in a paper file labeled ‘Garage Sale.’ Order in dinner and put your feet up. Now you’re ready for your next garage sale–job well done!
What the best thing you ever bought at a garage sale? I’d love to hear about it!
Stacey is a Professional Organizer, Virtual Organizer, and Author in Bergen County, New Jersey specializing in home organizing, time, and paper management. She is the author of The Organized Bride’s Thank You Note Handbook: Let Systems and 101 Modern Sample Thank You Notes Take You From Overwhelmed to Organized.
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Oh, Stacey! I totally relate to this post. We had our eagerly awaited tag sale a few weeks ago. I was SO ready after having collected things sitting around since the winter. The last sale we had was five years ago. I did the color coding system that time. But this time I opted to price every item and make a few signs for things where the price was the same for a specific category. We had lots of tables which I covered with plastic table cloths to make things look nice. As you suggested, like was grouped with like. In some cases, I used open bins with signs attached to categorize items like “Art & Craft Supplies” or “Linens & Decorative Pillows.” People appreciated the organization, that items were priced, and the signage. My husband, daughter and her boyfriend all helped. And as you said, that made a huge difference having extra hands and people to help or talk with people. I love your idea of the “fill a bag for $1” after a certain time. When we have our next sale, I’ll definitely do that. Great idea! We also had a “free” bin, which worked out well. And we played music to create a fun, festive atmosphere. It definitely took planning and organization, but I was happy to do it. When it was over, whatever didn’t sell, we put in the car and donated it to Goodwill. As it turns out, they are open until 8pm on Sunday nights.
It sounds as if you had a fun, organized, and successful garage sale! I saw the pics and videos you posted on social media. It looked like you and your family were having a blast. If I lived closer, I would have come!
The best thing I ever bought at a garage sale was a rocking chair which we still have in our living room over 15 years later.
Thanks for sharing, Janet! I’m sure that rocking chair had a history before it came to your house and now you’ve given it a new chapter–the story will continue with your family.