Successful Garage Sales

Whether you have a lot of things to sell, or just a few, you can have a successful garage sale if you follow three simple steps:

1. Prepare
2. Organize
3. Advertise

Prepare for your garage sale by deciding what to sell. If you have items in your home, attic, basement, and garage that you haven't touched for two years, it's a safe bet that you can sell them and never miss them. Once you've decided what to sell, plan a date. While the majority of garage sales are held on weekends, never hold a garage sale on a holiday weekend. Plan to hold your sale based on the pay cycle of your local plant. The more people who have just been paid means more ready cash for people to spend.

Organizing a garage sale is not difficult. Follow these guidelines to organize your garage sale:

• Pull your unneeded items out into a central location, such as the middle of your basement or garage.
• Sort the items according to what kind of shape there are in. Put all broken items or items needing some type of repair in one place, place brand new items still in their original packages all together, and group items that have been gently used in another place.
• Clean items that need cleaning, and then price them. When pricing items, be prepared to have one table full of broken items, or items needing one piece, with a large sign listing one price of one dollar, or less. It's better to get fifty cents for a lamp without a shade, than nothing at all if you've priced it for ten dollars.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, advertise your sale. What good is it to have terrific items to sell, only to have no one show up at your sale? Use newspapers or free online advertising, such as craigslist.com to advertise your sale a few weeks in advance. Place posters on telephone poles of your neighborhood the weekend before your sale. Distribute handbills or flyers in mall parking lots, or place them on bulletin boards at grocery stores, Laundromats, post offices, daycare centers, or local gyms. The day of your sale, place posters in your yard, balloons at your mailbox, and posters with arrows pointing the way to your yard.

Once you're sale is finished, plan on what to do with your leftover items. You don't really want to put them back into your home, do you? Arrange in advance for a charity to pick up any items you don't sell, or take them to a church or homeless shelter.