Timing is crucial when it comes to planning a yard sale or garage sale. Spring and summer are clearly the ideal times to hold your sale. Therefore, the time to begin your preparations is now.
With the weather warming up, people are getting out of their winter slumps and looking forward to the summer ahead. This new burst of activity will have potential buyers driving around town and scouting the local newspapers for yard sales.
Here are a few steps to help make this year’s yard sale a successful one!
- Declutter
Hopefully, you’ve already been working on decluttering your home. Throughout the last year, you may have made an effort to organize a little here and there. If not, don’t stress. Just be sure to allot yourself a couple of weekends to really go through your house and find things you no longer want or need.
- Enlist the Help of a Friend
Everything is better with a friend. Double the stuff means double the help and double the interest from potential buyers. If having a yard sale seems like too daunting of a task, ask a friend to help out. Allow him/her to include items in sale. Bigger yard sales garner more attention anyway.
- Lay Out Your Items
Lay out all of the items you plan to sell. How you arrange these things will have some significance. Think like a consumer. What sort of path would you take? Most buyers prefer that similar items be organized into groups. This way, they’re not forced to dig through stuff that doesn’t even appeal to them.
- Price and Label Everything
One big mistake that sellers make is not labeling their stuff. If an item doesn’t have a clearly marked price, many people will simply pass over it. It can be too much of a hassle (and somewhat embarrassing) to ask the seller for the price of each item.
- Advertise
Spread the word about your yard sale! Make sure that everything is ready to go before you set a date and begin to advertise. It would be awful to have buyers show up and not be prepared.
You don’t want to advertise too far in advance or too late in the game either. A few days prior to the sale should be enough time to gather interest.
Consider placing a notice in local newspapers or create a post about your sale on www.craigslist.org. Display signs in your yard and flyers around town if possible. You can also use social media networks to get the word out there. Easily use your Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram accounts to notify friends and followers of the upcoming sale.
- Have Cash and Change on Hand
Chances are that you won’t have a credit/debit card reader at your yard sale. It’s also not recommended that you accept checks from strangers. Therefore, cash is the currency of choice. Make sure you have an adequate supply of cash and change on hand the day of the sale.
- Be Friendly
People are much more likely to buy from a friendly person. Again, put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. How would you want a salesperson to treat you? In dealing with people, you also want to prepare for negotiations. Before the yard sale begins, you should already have an idea of which prices you’re firm about and which ones could be negotiated.
Help make future yard sales even easier with assistance from a portable shed! Anytime you come across an item that you no longer want or need, place it within your shed. You can even begin to price stuff as it goes into storage. The next time you have a yard sale, all you’ll need to do is lay out the items and advertise to attract buyers!
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