Fairground Neighborhood Association

Tips For Holding A Successful Lawn, Garage or Rummage Sale

Pick a date:

Check your schedule and choose a Saturday or Sunday at least a month or two in the future. It's wise to choose Saturday as the sale day and reserve Sunday as the rain date, just in case. As well, it's wise to choose a Saturday that tops off a week that is not too busy. During the week leading up to your sale, you'll likely be spending your evenings cleaning, pricing and sorting your sale items. Lawn sales held in the spring and fall attract the most people, although summer lawn sales can be quite successful, too.
Right after you set the date, consider organizing a block sale. If you can get several households to participate, you're sure to increase the amount of people who attend your sale. You also might want to suggest a post-sale picnic dinner in a local park; it's a great way to get to know your neighbors and to keep community spirit alive. An easy way to contact everyone on your street is to create a flyer that you can drop into mailboxes. Garage sales generally get more traffic on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Also, it's best to avoid the holidays. Create an inventory list of everything you intend to sell by thoroughly combing your home, basement, attic, garage and any out buildings for prospective sale items. During this time, save collectible items, such as perfume bottles and interesting tins, as well as shopping bags, grocery bags and newspapers. Track down manuals and original cartons. Clean or dust and test everything. If a widget doesn't work, mark it "As Is." A handy shopper may know how to fix it. Handmade items are popular. If you have the time and the creativity, make crafts to sell or whip up a tempting assortment of baked goodies. Older children can run a beverage and baked goods concession.
Advertise! List your sale on this site for free, of course. If you have a lot of items to sell and you'd like a big crowd to attend, you might want to spend the $10 to $25 it costs to take out an ad in your local community newspaper. It definitely will increase your traffic. Flyers are crucial to the success of any lawn, garage, estate, jumble, bake or book sale. Your flyer doesn't have to be fancy or gorgeous, but it should list all of the important details: date, location, starting time, ending time and a brief description of items available. If your sale benefits a non-profit organization, tell people.
Here are some tips for creating your flyer:
-- If you have a rain date in mind, include it on the flyer.
-- 'Early birds' are people who will see your flyer or newspaper ad and knock on your door the night before your sale OR show up an hour before the designated start time to root through your stuff as you put it out. Many people don't mind early birds, but if they bother you, just put 'NO Early Birds' on your flyer or in your ad; that notation will deter some of them, but not all of them.
-- If you have room on your flyer include a little map of where you are located.
-- Mention some of the items that you have for sale. Big draws include books, toys, furniture, house wares and old LPs. Advertising books attracts book dealers, plus bookworms hunting for a bargain. Toys usually interest children for a limited period of time before they outgrow them, so toys are a natural for recycling. Students can furnish an entire apartment or residence with garage sale finds. Old LPs are harder and harder to find and that box of vinyl records taking up space in your basement could be a real find for a die-hard stereo audiophile.
-- Mention one or two 'special' items if you have them, such as a dresser, or a bicycle, or a patio set.
-- Make the print large enough to read easily! Ensure that the date, address and times are included and that Garage Sale, Lawn Sale or Rummage Sale is the biggest printing on the flyer.
It's a good idea to put up flyers a week before your sale, plus again the night before. Invest in a staple gun and/or a packing tape dispenser and be sure to cover the high-traffic areas in your neighborhood. If you're too busy to do this, ask a neighborhood teenager to do it for you for a reasonable price. Good places for flyers include: near schools, banks and libraries; on major streets; and close to the local grocery stores. Some more community-oriented grocery stores, restaurants, hardware stores and additional businesses may have bulletin boards where you can post your flyer. Try the library, too. On the day of the sale, set up a sign that says Garage Sale This Way! 26 Main Street with an arrow directing the way. Two well-placed signs in high-traffic areas can pull in a lot of people. Be sure to take the signs down when your sale is finished.

Get Your Stuff Together!

Now it's time to sort! Unless you want to have a lawn sale every year -- and some people do, especially young families -- do it right the first time. Go through every room in your house, condominium or apartment and go through every drawer, cupboard and wardrobe. Scan through your bookshelves, scour your storage area and upend that "thing-a-ma-jiggy" box full of odds and sods. Every time you decide whether to keep or sell something, ask yourself this: When was the last time that I used it? For example, if you haven't worn a piece of clothing in the past 12 months and you've been through four seasons, what makes you think that you'll wear it during the next year? Or if you still haven't found a use for the mauve, flower-pattern outdoor drink set that your great aunt gave you three years ago for your birthday, sell it!
Now is the time to get your hands on some boxes to start storing your sale items. Clean items that are in good repair sell faster than dirty, worn-looking ones. You'll be happy with yourself the night before your sale if you decide to clean every sale item PRIOR TO putting it in the "sale pile." You might want to consider pricing all of the items, too. * Have stickers and a pen on hand so that you can put a price on everything. (A cautionary note about stickers -- some of them stick so well that they are impossible to get off and annoying to your buyers; others don't stick well enough, fall off and leave things a bit mixed up on sale day. Masking tape can be a good alternative if you can't find suitable stickers.)

An exception to the pricing rule might be books, or records, or a large group of anything. In those cases it's wise to put the items in a box with a clearly marked sign that reads: Paperbacks $1, hard covers $2 unless marked otherwise, or use similar wording. If you have the boxes on hand and set up when you are sorting through which books to keep and which to sell, you can toss the non-keepers into the box and just set the box out on sale day. As well, if you have lots of little things in a group, such as many, many tiny toys, try tossing a bunch in a plastic sealed bag, like a Ziploc bag, and putting a price on it. You're much more likely to find them a new home this way. In fact, think 'groupings' when you're setting up -- a bunch of knick-knacks hung on a handy fence or railing will show them off to their best potential. The night before your sale, you can pile your front hall, or your living room, etc., with all of the items that you'll be putting out the next day.

What You'll Need On Hand
You'll need tables to hold your sale items. If you don't own any folding tables, consider borrowing some from friends and family. If that's not a possibility, put your dining room table, or living room table to use -- it might be a good idea to buy cheap vinyl tablecloths to help protect any good tables. If you're going to sell clothes, you'll have much better luck if you display them on hangers; pull out a mobile rack, or a coat rack, or rig something up with a securely fastened poll. You'll need a float of money the day of the sale, so be sure to save and put aside 10 and five-dollar bills, singles, quarters, dimes and nickels. Rustle up a money belt, or something similar, to hold your change on the day; we don't recommend cash boxes, which are too easy to grab. It's also a good idea to just have one designated cashier during the sale. People who buy a lot of items from you usually will want a bag, so save your plastic grocery bags.

The Day Of The Sale

It's a good idea to get up a few hours before your sale starts and have your coffee and a good breakfast; once you open your door, you likely will not have a moment to do anything but sell for an hour or two.
Crowds tend to come in waves at sales; we have no idea why. However, when it's high tide for shoppers, so to speak, you won't have time to dash into the house to go to the bathroom, or to grab some extra bags. We do not recommend running a garage sale on your own; it takes at least two people to do it properly. If you have to, conscript a friend or a family member to help -- he or she can bring their "trash" to sell, too!
The big crowds tend to come at the start of your sale, so we recommend putting out all of your tables first. After your tables are set up, you can start putting out for-sale items. The designated cashier will have to be at the sale from the moment you start to set up, while the rest of your crew works to bring all of your 'loot' outside.

Here's a list of handy items to have on hand the day of your sale: stickers, markers, plastic bags to give to shoppers, coins and small bills in a money belt, tables, chairs for you and your crew to use. That's about it! Except remember to have fun!
* A word about pricing... we don't believe that having lawn or garage sales is a way to get rich! We DO believe that they are a great way to keep your home clutter-free, a fantastic way to reuse and recycle, a chance to mingle with your neighbors and a superb opportunity for bargain hunters to buy 'treasure' that might otherwise end up as 'trash.' We urge you to keep your prices reasonable and your attitude upbeat and generous. Buyers are going to haggle with you and it's all part of the fun! You can expect people to ask for some money off when they are buying a large lot of items.
Also Don't Forget to List Your Sale on Our Site for FREE! http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/desmoines/fairground/events.html