Garage Sale Advice

[bears]

Our neighborhood is having a yard sale and everyone in my house is excited to participate. I've pulled everything out of the attic that will be donated--mostly baby/toddler toys, clothes, and gear, but also some household stuff.

I'm open to any and all advice on how to do this. I think the neighborhood will be marked and advertised, so I don't need to worry too much about that. Mostly I'd like to understand pricing, negotiating, how much change to have on hand.

We plan to do something fun together with any money that is earned. I'm mostly excited about getting the crap out of my house.

[starburst604]

We did one a few years ago with our 2 neighboring townhouses and it went really well. Be prepared for people to just stop and pull in as soon as you start putting stuff out, even if you advertise a later start time. There are people that live for these! we made up Venmo QR codes to post on the table and had some fives in ones handy to make change for cash. Do you plan to divide up exactly by who sells what or are all of the neighbors going to just split it evenly? It might be hard to keep track with that families involved, but since it was just three of us, we kept track and divided it up by what was ours.

[bears]

Apr 20, 2024 15:38:21 GMT -5 starburst604 said:

We did one a few years ago with our 2 neighboring townhouses and it went really well. Be prepared for people to just stop and pull in as soon as you start putting stuff out, even if you advertise a later start time. There are people that live for these! we made up Venmo QR codes to post on the table and had some fives in ones handy to make change for cash. Do you plan to divide up exactly by who sells what or are all of the neighbors going to just split it evenly? It might be hard to keep track with that families involved, but since it was just three of us, we kept track and divided it up by what was ours.

Neighborhood advertises, but people will come to our house so all the payment is separate. I didn't even think of Venmo because I'm an old lady.

[starburst604]

Apr 20, 2024 16:04:54 GMT -5 bears said:

Apr 20, 2024 15:38:21 GMT -5 starburst604 said:

We did one a few years ago with our 2 neighboring townhouses and it went really well. Be prepared for people to just stop and pull in as soon as you start putting stuff out, even if you advertise a later start time. There are people that live for these! we made up Venmo QR codes to post on the table and had some fives in ones handy to make change for cash. Do you plan to divide up exactly by who sells what or are all of the neighbors going to just split it evenly? It might be hard to keep track with that families involved, but since it was just three of us, we kept track and divided it up by what was ours.

Neighborhood advertise, but people will come to our house. I didn't even think of Venmo because I'm an old lady.

Ok that makes it easier for you. The seasoned yard salers will definitely try to haggle on price, so just have a lowest acceptable price for higher cost items that you’ll accept. If there will be a lot of clothes, you can do something like fill a shopping bag for $5 or $10 rather than try to count stuff, or just make everything one price to make it simple. We had a separate rack for “nicer” clothing items that we wanted to charge more for.

It was so nice to unload a bunch of stuff all at once and have some money in our pockets after!

[wanderingback]

Ive never done a garage sale but I would prob just group stuff together. Like bin of clothes $1 each piece Kitchen stuff $2, etc. I would not have the patience to price things individually.
I donate or put stuff on buy nothing so I would be doing this to get rid of stuff and a few extra bucks would just be a bonus. If people negotiate then I would accept their price! I would do QR code for electronic payment and then also go get some change too.

[VillainV]

Apr 20, 2024 16:04:54 GMT -5 bears said:

Apr 20, 2024 15:38:21 GMT -5 starburst604 said:

We did one a few years ago with our 2 neighboring townhouses and it went really well. Be prepared for people to just stop and pull in as soon as you start putting stuff out, even if you advertise a later start time. There are people that live for these! we made up Venmo QR codes to post on the table and had some fives in ones handy to make change for cash. Do you plan to divide up exactly by who sells what or are all of the neighbors going to just split it evenly? It might be hard to keep track with that families involved, but since it was just three of us, we kept track and divided it up by what was ours.

Neighborhood advertises, but people will come to our house so all the payment is separate. I didn't even think of Venmo because I'm an old lady.

If you do Venmo, make 100% sure it has shown up in your account before they walk off. It’s really easy to think you paid, when you haven’t actually completed the transaction.

Mark everything clearly. People will cover the tag with their finger and ask “how much do you want for this?” to see if you’ll go lower. Going lower is fine, and I think if you want to get rid of stuff you’ll end up making deals anyway.

Make pricing easy on yourself and price at whole dollars so you don’t have to deal with coins. Even if it means “3 for a dollar” pricing, or throwing things in for free. Have singles. Maybe have used paper or plastic grocery bags on hand if you’re selling a lot of smaller items.

I like to have music playing on a Bluetooth speaker. If it’s hot out, buy a case of bottled water, soda, freeze pops, etc and sell those too.

[heygrey]

I love having yard sales and have made bank on them in the past. My mom always managed the float and I think she had $80-100 between smaller bills and change.

Clean your stuff up and organize it nicely. If stuff is coming out of the attic, dust it off, make sure everything is functional. If you have kids toys that require batteries get a cheap pack and include them. If you can borrow some folding tables and have a garage, you can lay everything out ahead of time and carry the tables out in the morning. Clean tarps on the ground work well too.

Make sure your prices are clearly displayed. Some people enjoy haggling, others do not. You'll lose sales from the does not crowd if they don't know what price you want.

Don't feel like you have to negotiate right away. If it's 8am and I just opened, nah. If it's noon, I'm pretty much willing to give it away.

The kids might like to have a snack stand/drink cooler to make extra money. Cold bottled water for .50 is a hit on a hot day.

[thebreakfastclub]

My neighborhood does a garage sale yearly. My tips are to be ready early for those who are looking around prior to the start time, and have low expectations on what you'll sell vs the work you put in.

[RoxMonster]

I have done several garage sales over the last 10 years. I usually wear a fanny pack with the money in it. That way I don't have to keep track of it or worry about it wandering off and it's also hands-free. We had a LOT of clothes, and made up huge signs posted around the yard that said "All shorts are X$, all jeans are X$ etc" instead of individually pricing each item. We did the same for other similar items like a sign on a table that said "All paperback books 50 cents" or whatever.

Like others have said, people WILL show up early and start shopping. We've had people show up an hour before our posted opening time and it was a bit stressful because we were trying to get everything set up and pulled out while they were trying to look. I find a lot of people who are serious about getting there that early have specific stuff in mind they're looking for though and usually don't stick around too long.

For negotiating, I usually looked at how much total stuff the person was buying (I was a lot more willing to cut a deal for someone buying 20 pieces of clothing instead of 1-2) and also time of day/how much I hated keeping the item if it never sold. This last garage sale, we also did 50% off all items for the last 3 hours of the sale to get rid of stuff.

If it's going to be hot and you have something like this available, we put up one of those pop-up tent type things they use at farmers markets to shade us and had camp chairs and a table set up so we could eat lunch and what not. Every single time, we were busy like 8-12 and then it got a lot more sporadic after that.

[sadlebred]

Plan to be completely set up an hour before the actual start time and for about an hour after the posted end time. Towards the end if you want to get rid of stuff, tell everyone it's X% off of everything.

[mpc]

I like to price ahead of time. I buy those stickers that already have prices on them, and I go one box at a time, take stuff out, price it, and put it back. It always go much quicker than I expect. And yeah, do a set price for some stuff, all clothes $1, all books 2 for $1, etc. Everything is half off after noon. I start with something like $20 in ones, $20 in fives and $20 in 10s. People surprise me with how often they have small bills, at least when garage sale-ing. Good luck

[midwestmama]

As others have said, grouping items or having a set price for item categories is helpful and easier. Make sure to have a pricing key list for wherever you will be sitting/standing for ease of reference.

If you can, set everything up the night before and then just move items/tables into your driveway in the morning. Always good to open early, as usually you will make a few sales.

In the last few times I've done a garage sale, it seems that an item or two is stolen, so if there are any smaller, high-priced items, I would put those closer to where you will be sitting/standing so you can keep an eye on them if you are worried about theft.