Make It Look Like a Grocery Store
While your yard sale is outside, you can still make all the items look tidy. Rent or borrow tables to put items on. Group items that are similar together. Put the bright, colorful, and big-ticket items near the street to draw more people in, and group things of the same price together in a “50 cents” box or all next to each other.
Make sure every sale item is clearly marked, especially if it’s in good shape or clearly priced well below market rate. Make sure you walk through to keep things organized but do always have someone to watch your cash box while you do.
Turn the Sale Into a Party
Those who have fun will stay longer at your sale. Supermarkets and other stores play music for this reason: they have found that customers will stay longer and spend more when music is playing. Bring out the radio and turn on a little music or put on a fun playlist to go through a speaker. Be sure to go around to talk to people rather than sitting in a lawn chair glowering!
Bring out a cooler full of teas, soda, and water for sale, and let your kids help provide these to your customers. This encourages customers to stay, and your kids can learn how to start saving money and putting it in a checking account or savings plan while they’re young.
Pick a Good Price
People go to yard sales to find a good deal and save money, so you should never try to sell any big-ticket item at a yard sale unless you want to take a huge loss. If you have something worth a lot, sell it by itself online. For your garage sale, stick with low prices and be willing to offer a deal. When the sale is almost over, consider making everything half off to move more of the items.
Having a successful garage sale means you get rid of items that are cluttering up your home. Even better, they give you extra money for the short term or something more when you’re saving for retirement. Even with interest rates low right now, you’re still better off turning that old bike into cash than leaving it in the garage.