How To Make $5,000 A Month Or More With Garage Sales


In this day and age, everyone seemingly knows how to put together
and hold a garage sale. Yet is this is so, why is it that some
people are lucky to gross $150 while others consistently make
$1,500 or more from their garage sales.

Pick almost any city or town in the country; drive through any
middle class neighbor hood or residential area on any weekend.
You're sure to spot at least a half dozen garage sales. And
what's being sold at these garage sales? The accumulated "junk"
that a lot of people no longer use or want taking up space in or
around their homes.

Is it hard to hold a profitable garage sale? Not in the least!
All it really takes is some time, and an awareness of a few
merchandising tactics. But be really profitable, you must know
how, and exercise careful planning.

First, let's look at some background. Everyone accumulates items
that other people are searching for, and are willing to buy.
These items range from discarded or outgrown items of clothing to
furniture, tools, knick-knacks, books, pictures and toys.

Start by taking an inventory of all the things you have "just
taking up space" around your home. Decide which items you'd
better off getting rid of, and make a list of these things. These
are the things you are going to put up for sale. And if you are
honest about what you really want and need, the pile will grow if
you look over your household a second and third time! remember
that many garage sale offerings are items of merchandise
purchased on impulse, and later found to be not what the buyer
wanted. It is human condition: We discover too late that we don't
like or have use for the things purchased; We "outgrow" in size
or taste articles that once fit, or pleased us. You'll find that
many items offered at garage sales are gifts that have been given
to the seller, but not really suited to the recipient. In other
words, it will be to your benefit, before you stage your first
garage sale, to take a week or so to browse through all the
garage sales you can find.

The problem is, most people just don't have the time or energy to
gather up all the items taking up space around their homes and
staging a garage sale to get rid of them. Believe it or not, many
people really don't know how to stage a garage sale; and a lot of
people feel that putting on a garage sale is just to much bother
and work.

This is where you enter the picture. Your enterprise will be an
ongoing garage sale of items donated and collected from those
people who lack the initiative to put on garage sales of their
own. In other words, you can become a "liquidator of people's
junk" via super garage sales that you promote.

We've already suggested that you spend a few weeks visiting the
garage sales, swap meets and flea markets in your area. Your
purpose will be to see what is being offered for sale; what the
people in your area are buying, and how the merchandise is being
sold. One of the things to notice is how the merchandise is being
displayed. You'll also want to notice how the sellers handle
customer browsing, and the prices they charge for the merchandise
offered. You'll find most items tagged with a price sticker, but
generally the seller is open to either price negotiation or a
reasonable offer made by the customer.

Begin your enterprise by cleaning out your attic, closets and
basement or garage. Talk with your relatives and friends; tell
them what you're doing, and ask for donations (or at least
consignments) of unwanted items. It's here that you'll get your
first experience in negotiating, and you'll usually get
enthusiastic cooperation. You'll find people explaining that they
really don't have a use for a specific item, don't want to keep
on storing it, but for sentimental or other reasons, they have
just hung on to it.

Once you have a little bit of experience, you'll be able to
advertise in the newspaper that you purchase garage items, or
take them on consignment for a percentage of the final sale
price.

It's best that the wife or women of the house handle the garage
sale itself--that is, let a women be the one who greets the
potential customers, shows them around, and generally engages
them in conversation. If it's a women staging the garage sale,
then arrangements should be made for a second one to "mind the
store" while she's out digging up more items for display and
sale. And if you are running a really big sale, a second or third
person can be very useful in selling, and just generally keeping
an eye on things.

The advertising angle is really quite simple, and shouldn't cost
you very much either. Check area newspapers, and select the one
that carries the most ads for garage sales. You shouldn't concern
yourself too much with competition from other ads. People who go
to garage sales either go to all of them they can locate, or else
only to those within a 3-to-5 mile radius of their homes.


You should run a small classified ad in the newspaper of your
choice for about three days in advance, and up through the day of
your sale. Once you're operating on a fulltime,
every-day-of-the-week schedule, you'll want to change your ad
schedule and the style of your advertising. But in getting
started, stay with small classified ads simply announcing the
fact that you're holding a garage sale emphasizing that you've
got everything from a to z---something of interest to everyone.
such an ad might read:

      BIG GARAGE SALE! Hundreds of interesting items.
      Through Saturday, July 16th. (address)

To get ideas on how to write your ad, check your newspapers for a
week or two. Cut out all the garage sale ads you can find. Paste
them up onto a piece of paper--then with a bit of critical
analysis, you will be able to determine how to write a good ad of
your own from identifying the good and bad features of the ads
you've collected. Keep in mind the bigger and better your sale,
the bigger and better your "getting started" ads should be.
Always remember that in order to increase your profits in any
business, you must increase rather than decrease your
advertising. At the bottom line, you'll find that the greatest
single reason for a garage sale failing to turn a profit is the
lack of promotion and advertising used to publicize it.

You should also have an old-fashioned "sandwich board" type sign
to display in front of your house when your garage sale is open
for business. The purpose of course, is to call attention to the
fact that you're holding a garage sale and are open for business.
This will pull in your neighbors, if you haven't already informed
them, and attract people driving by. Sandwich boards are also
sometimes set out at key traffic intersections not far from the
site of the garage sale. These will attract attention and point
the way. However, check your local ordinances to be sure that
this sort of advertising is permitted.

Another "sign idea" practiced by a few really sharp operators is
the old "Burma Shave" type roadside pointers. Here, you simply
make up a few cute sayings (verse or one-liners,) write them on
pieces of cardboard, tack them onto the power poles at about 200
yard intervals on the thoroughfare leading to your garage sale,
and you're sure to create a lot of traffic for yourself. People
amused by, and drawn to people who do something a little
different, unusual and creative in promoting a sale of any kind.

To come up with some cute verses, simply visit your public
library and check out a book on limericks. Adapt the ones that
you feel are most humorous, and start making signs. Again, a word
of caution before you get too deeply involved: Be sure to check
your local ordinance before you start nailing signs to power
poles.

By all means, search out and use all the free bulletin boards in
your area. It's better, and usually much more profitable to take
the time to make up an attention grabbing circular you can post
these bulletin boards, than just to use a scribbled 3 by 5 card
announcement.

Pick up some "transfer lettering;" go through your newspapers and
old magazines for interesting illustrations, graphics, and
pictures; then with a little bit of imagination and flamboyancy,
make up an 8 1/2 by 11 poster announcement of your sale. When you
have it pasted up take it to any quick print shop and have them
print 50 to 100 for you. Your cost for this small print order
should well be under ten dollars.

If you make this circular/poster up with versatility and
long-time usage in mind, you can use it over and over again
simply by pasting on a new date. In case you feel "left-out" when
we talk of "pasting-up" things, this simply means pasting a piece
of paper onto the overall page you're putting together.

Say you have made up your circular with a date of Wednesday, May
1st, and want to change it to read Thursday, July 16th. Rather
than do the entire thing over, simply write out a new date with
your transfer letters on a separate sheet of paper, cut this out
to fit in the space occupied by the old date, and paste the new
date over the old date. The artwork master is now up to date; the
printer does the rest. Incidentally, this is precisely what is
meant in mail order and other dealership offers where they
furnish you with the basic advertising/promotional material and
advise you to "pasteover" their name/address with your own.

For paste or glue, drop by just about any stationery store and
pick up a tube of "glue stick." This is a small tube of paste,
about the size of a tube of lipstick, generally sold for less
than one dollar per tube. The tube glue tick works better than
regular glue or paste, and is not as messy as rubber cement.

Your signs have to be effective, but you have to remember to keep
them simple. Don't try to cut corner on your signs. Signs
announcing and pointing the way to your garage sale should be
placed at each intersection within a one mile radius of your sale
location. If it takes 50 signs, then make 50 signs. The important
thing is to let people know that you're holding a garage sale.

Signs can be made by cutting and using the sides of cardboard
boxes, and writing on them with a heavy felt tip marking pen.
Make it easy for your signs to be seen, and for people to read
what's on them. About all you really need is great big block
letters reading "GARAGE SALE," with the street address, and an
arrow pointing in that direction. Don't think for a minute that
people are going to stop and read a lot of "stuff" you've written
on your sign when they are driving by; you just want them to see
your sign and proceed in the direction necessary to reach the
location of the sale. They'll be moving by your signs too fast
too see or read anything else you may have written.

The ads you place, the bulletin board announcements you post, and
the signs you put up will bring many people to your garage sale
location. A lot of people will drive by slowly and just look, but
most will stop to browse around.

But  you still have to contend with the huge number of people who
drive without stopping. So, let's talk about the "inside secrets"
of drawing people into your sale, and the merchandising gimmicks
that will result in the maximum number of sales for you.

You must call attention to your sale. Don't be shy, bashful or
self-conscious about letting everybody for miles around know that
you're having a garage sale. If you could afford to get the
Goodyear Blimp to "hover" over your garage sale, then by all
means, you should do it !

Some sharp operators do the next best thing. They rent miniature
blimps, send them up above the housetops, and tether them there
on their sale days. Of course, this giant balloon or miniature
blimp has some sort of sign on the side of it, inviting people to
your garage sale.

This is one of the strongest available advertising ideas for
pulling traffic to a sale of any kind. For more details write
Pie-In-The-Sky Company, PO Box 5267, San Mateo, CA 94402, or
explore to see if there is a local outlet for this kind of
advertising merchandise for rent.

You have to give your sale some flair. Put some posts up across
the front of your property and run some twisted crepe paper
between them---or better than crepe paper, run brightly colored
ribbons. Invest in some colorful pennants and fly them from
temporary flag poles. And don't forget the balloons!

Make your garage sale a fun kind of event, with clusters of
balloons anchored to your display table and racks. Be sure to
"float" them well above the heads of your customers as they're
browsing through your merchandise displays.

Cover your display tables with colorful cloths. Don't hesitate to
use bright colors and busy patterns. Regardless of what you sell,
effective display (packaging the event) is still absolutely
essential to your success.

The secret to outstanding garage sale profits is in having the
widest or largest selection of merchandise. And part of the
process is taking great care in displaying and labeling your
merchandise.

You cannot simply dump items haphazardly on a table, sit down,
and expect to realize great profits. The people doing the most
business and holding the most sales are the ones with interesting
displays, action and color.

Have as wide a selection of colors as possible in your clothing
racks, and mix them for "rainbow" effect. Make sure that your
jewelry items shine and sparkle. Arrange them in and on jewelry
boxes, jewelry ladders and other items sold for the purpose of
showing off jewelry while keeping it neatly organized. Some
people have even gone so far as hooking up battery operated lazy
susans and arranging their jewelry on these. Having the jewelry
slowly turn on the lazy susan will not only catch the eye, it
will catch the light, making an attractive display even more
attractive because it sparkles and gleams.

Think about it, and then study the methods of display used by the
"rack jobbers" in the stores in your area. These are wire racks
that usually hold card packaged items. Such a rack or kind of
display would lend itself beautifully for anchoring a cluster of
balloons. Keep these things in mind, and build your individual
displays as part of the whole. Make it pleasing to the eye as
well as well as convenient for your customers to browse through
and select the items that appeal to them or catch their fancy.

At many garage sales, some of the merchandise (particularly the
clothing) is dirty. Notice this when you visit other people's
garage sales, and then take it upon yourself to make sure that
EVERY item--positively everything you show--is clean and
sparkling bright. A bar of soap, a bucket of water, and a few old
rags will do wonders for shop tools, garden equipment and
bicycles. The same goes for furniture polish on old furniture,
and run through the washing machine for all washable clothing.

It is advisable to determine a price for each item before you set
it out for display. Then mark that price on a price tag, and
attach a price tag to each item. Your prices should also always
be rounded off to more or less even numbers such as : 25c,50c,
$1, $1.50, $2 and so on. In other words, don't ask for 35c, 95c,
or $1.98, or any of that sort of pricing. Almost needless to say,
you should always mark everything up by 100% or more. In other
words, if you have acquired a particular item for $1, set a price
of $2 or more on it. It's also a good idea to mark up your asking
price from the bottom-line price you're willing to accept.
Basically, the price marked on the price tag at most garage sales
is taken as the starting price from which the buyer and seller
negotiate. Most garage sale promoters price their cheaper items
at the bottom line price they will accept, and don't deviate from
those prices as shown on the price tag. Then on the more
expensive items--- $2 and over--they mark up their asking prices
by 20 to 40 percent and use that margin for negotiating with the
customer.

If you're a little bit shy relative to personal selling, here are
a few "inside" secrets that will give you an edge: Always radiate
an attitude of friendliness, regardless of the circumstances or
your first impression of the potential buyer. Always smile and
say hello in a voice loud enough to be heard. Speak to everyone
stopping or dropping by your sale location. Be helpful, but allow
the people to browse on their own until they specifically ask you
for help. When you're "keeping an eye on your merchandise" be as
unobtrusive as possible; no one likes to feel he is being watched
too closely. Whenever a customer appears to have made a selection
and asks you what you'll take for it, or what kind of a deal
you'll take for it, be ready to enter into "friendly
negotiations."

Before you open, of course, you will have done your homework and
know the value of each item of merchandise you have for sale.
Don't ever take a customer's "claimed" value of an item. By the
same token, don't listen to a seller, when you're buying items
for your sale, when he claims that he's offering you an antique
or priceless treasure. Sometimes (rarely enough) you'll be able
to pick up fantastic treasures for virtually nothing; so by
knowing your merchandise, you'll not let "the flag that Betsy
Ross made" slip through your fingers for a song. Be sure to have
all possibly really valuable items appraised by authentic
dealers. These people are listed in the yellow pages of your
telephone directory.

Some of the "extras" that contribute to the success of a garage
sale include: Plenty of change, because without proper change,
you'll lose a great many sales. A tape measure, because you'll
find people often want to know the exact dimensions of something
(especially furniture) in order to fit it into a certain space
they have in mind. Long extension cord and electrical outlet,
because your customers will want to "plug in" and try out the
mixers, vacuum cleaners, hand tools, or other electrical
appliances.

Back for a moment to drawing in those "cruisers" who aren't quite
sure they want to park their cars and come browse: Look for some
kind of interesting or unusual item to call attention to your
sale---something you can set up or park in front of your home
during your sale. Some of the displays we've seen along these
lines include a horse-drawn surrey; a restored Model T; an old
farm plow. Anything of an unusual or interesting nature will do
the trick for you. One couple we know put up a display using a
manikin dressed in an old time farm bonnet, long dress and apron.
This display depicted a farm women of old, washing clothes with a
scrub board and two steel wash tubs. It's not hard to believe,
this display really drew the crowds and crowds ALWAYS mean sales!

Go wherever your imagination takes you; you have to be different
and distinctive. You'll get lost in the hundreds of garage sales
going on all around you if your sale looks like the next half
dozen.

If you'll take the time to employ a bit of imagination, and set
your sales up with the kind of flair we've been talking about,
you will not only draw the crowds; you'll be the one reaping the
most profits.

As you think of beginning this garage sale business, remember
this: It's almost a compulsion with some women to go shopping--to
search for interesting, and sometimes rare and valuable items.
This fact alone will keep you as busy as you ever want to be,
staging and promoting garage sales. The market is so vast, and
the appetite so varied, that anything from a brass bedstead to a
used dairy someone's long-forgotten grandmother will sell, and
sell fast, at garage sales. Put it all together, use a little
imagination, and you'll succeed in a very interesting,
challenging endeavor!  




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