How to have a successful garage sale

Garage sale season is coming up soon here in the Northwest and I can’t wait! It is one of my favorite ways to find good deals on clothing for myself and my kids and anything else that I might need. I grew up going to garage sales with my mom and we also had an annual garage sale ourselves every year. That tradition has continued into my adulthood. Over the years I have learned a few tricks on how to have a more successful garage sale, both in your prep beforehand and on the day of your sale.

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Have signs that are easy to see and read

This is one of the most important things in having a successful garage sale. People won’t come to your sale if they don’t know where to go right?

• Make your signs using bright paper, like neon green or neon pink. These colors stand out and are very easy for people to see as they are driving down the road.
• Make them big. Don’t make them with regular sized paper, I’m talking poster size paper. As mentioned above, people need to be able to see your signs.
• Make them simple. You don’t need to have a list of items that you have at your garage sale on your signs. Simply saying “Garage Sale” or “Yard Sale” with an arrow pointing which direction to go is fine. You can include your address if you’d like. Make the letters and arrow big and easy to read too.
• Finally, this is the most important tip about signs and one that I cannot stress enough. Be consistent with your signs. Make them all out of the same color of paper and use the same font or lettering on all of them. Also, make sure to have a sign at each intersection or road someone needs to turn at to get to your house. You don’t want people confused about which way they need to go to get there. I have actually given up and not gone to sales because I haven’t been able to find them due to lack of signs on where to go. You don’t want to lose potential customers!

Garage sale sign supply list

• Poster board. Remember bright colors are better! You might be able to find it pretty cheap at your local dollar store, but you can also find a good deal on a large pack here.

• Stencils to make the letters. These will help your sign making go faster and make sure that your signs are easy to read. Most letter stencils are reusable, so you can use them for other projects or if you need to make new garage sale signs next year.

• Black markers. Use a thick black marker to fill in the letters with the letter stencils. This is an easy way to fill them in and is less messy than paint. Black lettering is also the easiest to read.

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Advertise about your sale

Another great way to make sure you get people to come to your sale is by advertising ahead of time. I always check for potential sales in my area before I head out garage saling. There might be ones that I prioritize going to first if they list items I’m interested in or looking for.

• The best places to list an ad for your garage sale are Craigslist and swap and sell groups on Facebook for your area. List your ad on both of these as different people might check one or the other for garage sales.
• Use your ad title to your advantage. If you are having a moving sale or an estate sale, list it as that. There are people who search for different types of sales and you want to draw them towards yours.
• Include a good description of what you have for sale, your address, and the time of your sale. If you don’t want people showing up before your sale starts you can say “No earlybirds please”.
• Make sure you include pictures of what you have for sale as well. That will help entice people to come if they can see the items you will be selling.

Make sure you have prices on everything

You want to have clear prices on everything. Someone might be too shy to ask you how much you want for an item and just not buy it. You can make a sign that says “Everything on this table .25”, but I prefer to price everything individually if I can. This also makes it easier when you are adding up your customer’s items when they are ready to buy them.

• I prefer to use strips of masking tape to price my items. You don’t have to worry about your price tags falling off, especially on clothes. This pretty masking tape would work great for little price tags.

• If you are doing the sale with someone else, make sure you put your initials on your price tags and they put their initials on theirs. Have a paper with a column for each of you at the checkout table. When people pay for their items, you can easily see by the initials whose items they are and mark down the prices in the appropriate columns.
• Another handy pricing tip I learned is to price everything in increments of .25. This makes it so much easier when you’re adding up your customer’s total (and if you are doing the garage sale with someone else, it makes it easier to add up each other’s totals at the end of the day).

Setting up your garage sale

You are more likely to sell your stuff if you have it organized and set up properly. Think of it kind of like a store with different departments. Have a table or section for each type of item; kitchen items, home decor, clothes, tools, etc. Display the clothes by women’s, men’s, boy’s and girl’s. It’s also helpful to sort them by size and have signs saying what size they are too. If I’m looking for boy’s size 12 month clothes, I can save time by not looking through the 6 month clothes. You can sort the men’s and women’s clothes by small, medium and large if applicable. If you have access to a clothes rack, I highly recommend using one at least to hang up shirts and jackets. It’s much easier for people to look through them that way.

Have your garage sale with a friend

It is easier and much more fun to have a garage sale with a friend or family member.

• If you don’t have enough of your own stuff for a garage sale, it might be beneficial to get together with a friend and have one. People are more likely to stop by your garage sale if they see you have a lot of stuff for sale.
• Another reason to do it with a friend is people are more likely to come to your sale if it is advertised as a Multi Family Sale. It automatically lets them know that there is more stuff to look at.
• It’s also helpful to have more than one person helping customers if it gets really busy. If you need a quick bathroom or lunch break, it’s nice to have another person there. And it is just fun to sit there drinking coffee and visiting with each other in between the busy times.

Follow these handy tips and you are sure to have a successful garage sale!