Tips for my yard sale?

Question

Anything and Everything would be great. Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

One thing...put up a sign that reads:

"Not responsible for accidents."

Children and elderly have a way of hurting themselves and then you have a nice claim on your homeowners insurance.

Answer 2

People want to see a lot of stuff, or they aren't going to bother stopping.  Put large items out front where people can see them.  Borrow lots of tables so that you can spread the items out, and then it will look like even more from the road.  Put price stickers on the items (you can get these at walmart for cheap).

Have your friends come by - a busy yard sale is more enticing.  Play a radio in the background - just like in stores, music makes people happier and they stick around longer.

Answer 3

"First let me say that having a successful yardsale is HARD work! I'm not going to sugar-coat it and say that it's a piece of cake. Let's say you have a busy yardsale that started at 8am, by 11am, you'll swear that it feels like 4pm and you'll be ready for a nap. After my last yardsale, I ended up with a 2" wide black and blue mark on my leg and I have no idea how I got it.

Find out if there are any restrictions your neighborhood or local government may have regarding yard sales / garage sales. Some areas may require a permit and have a limit on how many yardsales (or garage sales) a person is allowed to have per year or whatever.

Advertise your yardsale on the web for free!! There are several places online that have free yardsale ads. Check out my Related Links for details. Your local community may even have it's own website with free online classifieds.

Advertise in your local newspaper, especially if where you live doesn't get a lot of traffic. If you are unsure of what to say in your ad, read some other ads and copy bits and pieces from them. Ask your neighbors if they want to split the cost of a newspaper ad and hold a multi-family yardsale. The day of your sale, it's nice if you happen to know what other sales are going on in your area so you can direct customers to other nearby sales.

Be aware that there are laws regarding the placement of signage (like yardsale signs). Some areas are lax in enforcement of the laws and others are strict. Most places have laws on the books that read something to the effect of: It is illegal to post, without a city or county permit, private signs on a Public Right of Way. "Public Right of Way" is commonly defined as both sidewalks on either side of a street and everything in between (including the grassy medians between the sidewalks and gutters, medians, traffic signs and light pole, trees and foliage, fences, etc."). Ok, so don't say that I didn't warn you!!!

Put up advertisements on bulletin boards in your community (grocery stores, community center, etc). Spread the news of your yardsale via word of mouth too to co-workers, friends etc. When I have a yardsale, I put up signs in my neighborhood the evening before my sale (or very early in the morning the day of the sale) directing customers to my house. Drawing arrows on the signs helps. Use sturdy cardboard and make the sign legible. I saw one yardsale where their signs were cut in shape of of arrows - made it easy to find the sale considering there were many turns involved. Using regular construction paper for signs is too flimsy, and trying to read magic marker from the road is difficult.

It takes time to make good looking, sturdy, readable homemade yardsale signs (then you have to deal with how to put them up). I have a some yardsale signs from Sassy Signs, their signs are colorful, easy to put up and take down and reusable (I like them since they really are sassy, funky and freestanding). A million times nicer than my old pizza box yardsale signs! If you order them, use the coupon code "queen" and get a $1 off!

Check with your county government or homeowner's association to see if there are restrictions on yard sale signs. Where I live, a nearby neighborhood only allows freestanding yardsale signs. Those attached to street signs get torn down every morning by their Security Patrol - I've seen it happen.

Another idea for signs is to use paper grocery bags to draw your signs on then fill the bottom with heavy rocks, stuff with newspaper and staple shut. Ta da! - easy, portable signs that you can just place on the ground. If you use crayon to make your signs, the lettering won't run if it gets wet. I use a permanent marker and make the lettering extra extra wide. The yardsale signs that look like they were written with a ballpoint pen drive me nuts!

Avoid putting your signs on utility poles. The staples and nails used to affix signs to the poles can pose a safety hazard to the linemen who have to climb the poles. Nails and staples can tear safety equipment such as gloves, harnesses and clothing (and hands, arms and legs too). Depending on where you live, you could even be breaking the law by attaching signs to utility poles. If your area allows it, affix signs to street signs or buy some inexpensive stakes and put your signs on those. Some communities have rules about affixing yard sale signs to street signs so make sure you follow the rules. I guess I should tell you that I think nailing signs to trees are a big no-no too! Another sign suggestion: buy the cheap wire landscaping fencing (I often see it for sale at yardsales!), cut sections apart, draw your sign on a paper bag. Put the paper bag over the fence and staple the bag closed at bottom.

If you want your 5 year old to help with your yardsale, fine. But don't give them the sign making duties. I can't count the number of bad yardsale signs I have seen (unreadable, lettering too small, etc). Also signs made by pre-teens are bad too - totally unreadable with their big bubble lettering adorned with flowers and butterflies. It's helpful to have all your signs look similar (same colored lettering or same colored cardboard used - that way when people are following your signs, they'll know they are following YOUR signs!

After your signs are up, drive past them and see if you can read them easily, because if you can’t, nobody else can either. Don't try to cram too many words on the signs. All that's really needed on signs are words: yard sale (or garage sale), the date of sale, street name and a bold arrow pointing the way. And most importantly, after your sale is over, TAKE YOUR SIGNS DOWN or else the Yardsale Gods will be mad and cause a thunderstorm for your next yardsale.

I think it's impossible to have the "perfect" yardsale. Some things are just unpredictable so you just have to quickly adjust and go with the flow. At my last yardsale I ran out of $5's. Although I started with lots of small bills and change at the beginning of the sale, it seemed that everyone that day wanted to pay with a $20 bill. At another sale, I underestimated the amount of grocery bags I would need to bag items.

Avoid having a perpetual never-ending yardsale. You know what I'm talking about, the people who seem to have a yard sale every weekend. I think it's just tacky. I'm sure they don't make raving fans out of their neighbors who have to deal with the increased noise and traffic every weekend.

Before deciding to have a yardsale at your house, consider if you have adequate parking to handle an additional 4 or 5 cars parked near your house at one time. If not, consider suggesting to a good friend (who has plenty of parking at their house and has a prime yardsale location) if they'd like to have a yardsale with you at THEIR house. But the trouble with that is, you'll end up using all your yardsale profits to buy your friend's stuff and vice versa. Another option is to rent a table or space at a fundraising yardsale put on by a local church, school or civic group.

Don't pick a holiday weekend (Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day) to have your sale. You'll generally have a better turnout if its a non-holiday weekend. Exception would be if you live on a road that a lot of tourists will drive by in order to get to the beach. It's really just the holidays where people are known to do a lot of traveling. Holidays like Mother's Day, Father's Day are ok.

Expect early birds. Some sellers love them, others hate them. If you really don't want them, consider putting "NO EARLY BIRDS" in your ad. Then if people show up before your start time just say "Prices before 8am are doubled (or tripled)". Someone told me that once at their yardsale, they had a sign that read "Early Birds will be Shot!" Voila! Problem solved. I've also heard that some particularly pesky yardsale early birds have been known to "drop in" the day before the sale and say they aren't able to come the next day and ask to shop early. Mainly these are experienced dealers who want to find diamonds in the rough that they'll turn around and sell for a tidy profit in their antique store. If you've had problems in the past, in your newspaper ad, you may just want to put the street name (block #) on the ad. Example: yardsale in 200 block of Elm Street. Generally I don't mind some early birds, but those who are only a little bit early, say 15 minutes or so. I don't want people camped out at 5am in front of my house or anything.

Know when the major employers in your area get paid. If you know the biggest employer in the area only pays on the 1st of the month (or whatever) then schedule your yardsale for the following Saturday. Other people have told me the same thing about waiting until after the monthly Social Security checks come out.

Months before your yard sale, start accumulating the items you want to sell. Put all the items in a box in some out-of-the-way place. If you don’t have to retrieve an item out of the box before the sale, it's probably safe to assume you don’t need it. If you still have the original boxes and instruction manuals for an item, you can probably charge a little bit more for it. Remember, one person's trash is another person's treasure. Even if you think Aunt Edna's crocheted orange toilet seat cover deserves to go in the trash, it may be the first thing that sells! Even if you don't have months to accumulate the stuff, I've had yardsales with just a week or so notice and just went starting rummaging thru the house looking for junk errrr...treasures to sell.

As you accumulate stuff for your sale, make sure you do not sell something that you'll regret late

Answer 4

Get help, people will sort of show up in bursts. If you get overwhelmed and distracted you will start having things stolen. use even dollars to lower change exchange. Check with your city codes to see if you need to have a permit to hold a sale. Open the sale on a Thursday and stay to it till Sat. the Wednesday paper will have sale ads it it and will bring people out to look thursday too. Good Luck