Garage Selling

Yes, I do have my own garage sales. About once a year I gather up things that have run their course in my enjoyment of them, haven't sold on eBay or are just taking up room gathering dust, or all of the above, and sell them at my own garage sale.  The down side, of course, is that I don't get to go garage saling that day.  But it's nice to move some merchandise and make room for more now and then.

Let's first discuss reasons why you should have a garage sale.  If the answer is anything besides "getting rid of stuff", you will be disappointed.  You aren't going to get antique store or eBay prices at a garage sale or even close to that.  People that aren't resellers normally aren't interested in vintage or collectible pieces and resellers are checking eBay while they shop your sale to see how much "meat" is left on the "bone".

Next, let's discuss proper signage.  One of my pet peeves when looking for garage sales is improper (or lack of) use of signs.

Often, people will tape up an 8 1/2  x 11 sheet of paper written on with thin Sharpie marker.  When you're driving down the road at 40 miles per hour, it can hard to read.  If it's neon pink or green, I assume it to be a garage sale, so that helps.  But a lot of times, if it's a humid morning, the paper will curl to the point it can't be read.  My advice is to get large wooden signs painted in neon green with large letters.  I found these on the side of the road, already painted green, and repurposed for myself, just adding the lettering.  Free wood and free paint, you can't go wrong.

I hang them high at the front of our subdivision facing both directions so people can see them well in advance of the street and not have to make a break-neck turn, as I have been known to do.

Follow up your initial signs at each intersection letting your customers know where the sale is. Again, use large, bright signs.  I don't know how many times I've followed a sign into a subdivision, came to an intersection and scratched my head wondering which direction to turn. 

Another pet peeve: unless you put your address on them, limit your signs to a one-mile radius.  I've been lead on a wild goose chase many times, thinking a sale was just down a street only to find sign after sign leading me through miles of twists and turns, sometimes never reaching my destination and simply giving up.

Oh, and when the sale is over TAKE DOWN YOUR SIGNS!  I've been tricked on multiple occasions (sometimes several weeks in a row) with an outdated sign. 

And now, on with my sale. 

We just had a new, enlarged driveway put in at our house.  It makes a great area to host a sale.

My pricing method is to label things that are over $1 and anything unlabeled is a dollar.  It works out well as it limits the amount of work I have to do labeling things and when something is a dollar, people will buy it just because it's just a buck.  Again, the motivation of a garage sale should be to get rid of stuff.

I collect a lot of vintage Christmas and had a lot to thin out, so that made up a good portion of my sale.

What?! Tom selling a toaster AND a coffee maker?  Has he lost his mind?  No, I had a duplicate of the coffee maker and the toaster wasn't anything special.

I may have been a little optimistic listing records at $3, but I figured people would bargain with me, and they did.

We opened around 7:30 a.m. and had customers quickly.  The early-birds are generally no-nonsense and will scan quickly with little to say, except maybe ask if you have any gold or silver.

After the initial burst, we actually had a lull of 45 minutes without a customer.  I've never had a lull that early in the morning and I was a little concerned, but it picked up after that and stayed steady the rest of the morning.  At times, there were as many as 5 groups of people at the sale.  It's odd how they tend to show up in bunches, then you'll have nobody for 5 to 10 minutes.

I had one elderly lady who was very interested in my vintage items.  I believe she's shopped my garage sales before and if I recall correctly is a reseller at a flea market.  I had about one hundred postcards out marked 10/$1 which is a pretty good price, even at a garage sale.  She looked through them and asked if I had anything older.  I did, but those are in my personal collection. These were newer (70's and 80's) postcards that had been acquired in lots containing older postcards.  She passed on the postcards and then asked me about old photos.  Again, I have some, but I wasn't selling them at the garage sale.  This seemed to perturb her as she mentioned the last time she came to my sale, I had older items.  I believe she bought a fairly large ephemera collection from me (mostly old corporate recipe booklets and travel brochures) last time.

After she left, another woman, probably in her late 30's to early 40's, arrived.  She was very excited looking through the sale and grabbed a number of things including the toaster and some other vintage kitchen appliances.  She said she would use them to decorate her kitchen.  She was my biggest individual sale of the day at $25.

Customers dried up about around noon and the temperature was hitting the high 90's, so I closed up.

I didn't move as much merchandise as I'd wanted, but I made an acceptable dent.  My vintage Christmas was surprisingly a hard sell and I had some good items marked (or not marked as the case may be) cheap.

I donated a good portion of the remainder to our local thrift store (Encore Thrift Store) and packed up the remainder for another sale to be held this Fall. I'm hoping the Christmas items move a little better then and I'll have additional items after going through my Halloween supplies.

I ended up making $150 which isn't the best I've ever done, but (one mo' time), it was more about getting rid of items.  Plus, $150 will fund garage and estate saling for the next several weeks.

And before I go, one more tip on placement and removal of signs.  When putting the signs up, I work from my house to the furthest point.  You don't want to put out the furthest sign and not have the subsequent follow up signs in place for your customers.  Likewise, when taking down signs, I remove from the furthest point first. Again, that way you won't confuse customers who have already seen your first sign but have no follow up signs to guide them.