How To Have a Successful Garage Sale in NY

 It's Garage Sale Season,

 Are You Prepared?

How To Have A Successful Garage Sale.

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By E.A. Kogward

INTRODUCTION

A Garage Sale, Yard Sale, Tag Sale or are all the same.  Basically it tells the buyer's you're selling stuff out of your house, yard or garage.   Need to make some money, you can sell old junk you don't need anymore.  Some people make a living working Garage sales.   Some are looking for that special item they can resell in their store or online.   Others sell collect junk and collectibles and and use a garage sale a the beginnings of an online or brick and mortar store.

People are hoarders they don't want to part with anything.   Every year tons of good sellable merchandise just sit in attics, basements and garages until either people move out or die.

Junk companies get rich doing three things. They charge the homeowner to clean out the basement. They then sort the items and sell anything of value, and lastly they recycle any metals and electronics before carting what's left to the dump.    Truth be told they should pay you to take away that trash.

Keep in mind the ordinary garage sales makes $100 - $200.  That's $100 -$200 more than you had yesterday.  Sort out those items, do your homework on what its worth and don’t let people take advantage of you.  Then turn your garage sale into $300 - $500.   The more merchandise you have that people want the better you will do.  Of course larger ticket items like furniture, Jewelry and electronics will raise your average sale.  

There are 5 parts to a successful garage sale.

1. The Merchandise
2. Pricing
3. Advertising
4. Layout and organization
5. Atmosphere

Merchandise

Where  are you going to find merchandise to sell in a garage sale. Not enough,  people won’t stop and look.  You have to have items people are interested in.  What do you have around the house to sell. One person's junk is another person's Treasure.  Clean out your attic, your basement, under your bed, in back of closets and cabinets.  There's always something sitting there you don't need or use anymore.  Check with friends and family members who don't want to take the time to have their own garage sale.   Aunt Sara passed away. Don’t miss that chance to took at the junk your cousins are throwing out.

Before you Throw anything out.  Take a look at who may want to buy it. Don’t throw out that box of old fireman patches Dad kept in the basement just because you think it’s junk. Why would anyone pay for these?  It was just a Hobby of his.

One NYFD patch old for over $200 dollars.  The average patch sell for between $5-$15 each.

Look up items on ebay.com see what other people are selling them for.  More importantly do an advanced search , click on completed and sold.  Now you have an idea of what people actually  paid for it. You would be surprised at what items will sell for to the right person.  Those old cassette tapes that no one ever listens to anymore, now a growing collectible.  Everything has a price even junk. Any money is some money and better than no money.

Pricing

Anything you own that is usable by someone else is sellable.  If it is in reasonable shape and someone can use it, it's sellable at a garage sale.

First organize all your items you're thinking of selling into Categories : Clothing, Jewelry, Personal items, Kitchen & Bath, Knick knacks, Toys, Baby, Tools, Media ( books, music, movies), Electronics, Seasonal, furniture, collectibles and other items.

Once you have have separated  what you have to sell, you need to grade the quality of the item.  Is it brand new,  slightly used or worn.  Does it have a collectible value?  You should know that most people will not pay more than half of what they can buy it in stores. So consider that when your pricing it.  

Use these 5 grades when pricing your items. Lowering the price 50%(half), for each one.

Example

• Shoes original cost new $100.00
• New unused  $50.00
• Near mint $25.00
• Excellent  $12.50
• Very Good  $6
• Worn  $3

• Video Game sells in store today for $20.  (even though you bought it for $40 two years ago)
• New  $10
• Mint  $5
• Excellent $2.50
• VG   $1.25
• Worn $0.65

Remember that some items have collectible value.  Check out what it sold for recently on ebay and charge 25-50% less.  

Advertising

Signs are the most important part of advertising a Garage Sale.   Signs should be big enough that you can read the address from your car.    They should lead people from main streets in the direction of your garage sale.   

So what should you write on a garage sale sign.  Tell them with big bold letters your having a “Garage Sale”, “Where” and “When”, “A Web Address if you have one”.  Don't forget to add a big Arrow in the direction they should go.   Be careful to the point the right way.!

How many sign you use matters , too few and nobody may see them.   Each street leading from the main road to your home should have a sign on the corner.  If you have to drive half a mile down the road, post signs on every intersection with an arrow.  This way people know they haven't passed the turn.

Post signs on main roads leading to your neighborhood, post them on poles outside the supermarket and everywhere near by people gather.

Newspapers used to be the only place to advertise a garage sale.   There maybe some local papers that people still read in your town.  Don’t spend a lot of money on ads.  If you do get a newspaper or pennysaver ad,  make sure it comes with an online listing for no additional costs.

Free Advertising on the internet.   If you already have a website of your own you only need to add a page to it to advertise your garage sale.  If you don’t, consider a free web page or blog.  Each post on a blog is one web page.  You only need one for a Garage Sale.   I suggest either www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.org .   Both are totally free and easy to use.   They give you a website address for your site or you can buy your own dot com name.  It is not necessary .

Do a Google search for "Garage Sales". What you find is Gsalr.com , www.Craigslist.com, www.garagesale.com, wwww.garagesalefinder.com . All of these are free classified ads online for garage sales.

Use Social Media to advertise that Yard or Garage Sale.   Almost everyone today has a at least one social media account.  If you’re on Facebook, Twitter, G+, Pinterest, Tumblr, Linkedin, or any other,  then take advantage of it.   Post a link to your web page on your Facebook or other site and ask your followers to pass it on.   Talk about what you're selling with your friends, post pictures and build excitement.  

Too be continued in part II of “How To Have A Successful Garage Sale!”

Have a professional Design your flyers starting at $5.00

My Collectibles for sale