How to Have a Successful Yard Sale

Financial prosperity has far more to do with how you manage your money than with how much you have, but sometimes you really do just need more money.

One of Dave Ramsey’s most memorable quips is, when you’re trying to get out of debt or save up your emergency fund, “Sell so much stuff the kids think they’re next!” When my husband and I got married this past spring, we’d both been living on our own for a combined eighteen years. Merging two households left us with two of almost everything–lots of stuff to sell! So we had a yard sale last Sunday, sold more than half of it, and made more than $400! Admittedly, we had a number of big items (furniture, a TV and a washer and dryer) to sell. But here are some of the tips I read about beforehand that helped us to be successful.

A Few Weeks Ahead of Time

• Go to yard sales in your neighborhood to get an idea of how much people price things for.
• Go through your house one room at a time, gleaning it of things to sell. Amass it all in one place–a spare room, the garage, the attic–and keep it sorted by kitchen, electronics, home decor, clothes, etc. The more organized you are from the beginning the easier it will be. Naturally, bigger items such as furniture, washers and dryers, microwaves or TVs will obviously draw more people and bring in more money than smaller items.
• Ask your friends, family members or neighbors if they’d like to join you and have a combined yardsale. The more items you have for sale the better.
• Pick a date. Avoid scheduling conflicts with community events that would make it less likely for people to come. Holiday weekends are also less than ideal as people are usually busy with family or traveling. Most people who get paid once a month or even bi-monthly receive their checks on the first of the month, so the first weekend of the month is a good time for a yardsale. We picked the first weekend school was back in session at the local university, thinking we’d catch the college students furnishing new apartments. (Turns out we had fewer students than non-students, but the thought was a good one!) Don’t forget to check your weather forecast.

One Week Ahead

• Put an ad in your local newspaper to run the day before and the day of your sale. Be sure to include the time and place of your sale, and consider listing a few of your big items that might attract people to your sale–but keep this list short so they don’t get tired of reading. Also include the hours of your sale, and if you don’t want “early birds” (people who come earlier than you’ve advertised starting–and they will!) say something like, “Prices double (or triple) before 7am” or “Early birds will be shot!”
• Look for free or inexpensive advertising sources–a community bulletin board or website, church or credit union bulletins, etc.
• Advertise for free online at craigslist.com or garagesaletracker.com.

A Few Days Ahead

• Put a price tag on everything. This is a lot of work, but it means customers won’t have to ask you every two minutes, “How much is this?” If you really don’t have time to put a price on every single item, make a sign that says “All books .25 each” or “All clothes $1″ or “Everything on this table .50.” Putting the price tag on the top of an item is more helpful than putting it on the bottom. The bigger the item, the bigger the price tag should be. Make it obvious. Make it easy on yourself by pricing things evenly–$.25, $.50 and $1 rather than $.40, $.95 or $1.20. How much to ask? Generally, about a quarter to a third of how much it would cost new. If you still have the original packaging and instruction manuals for an item, you may be able to charge a little more for it. But set your nostalgia aside; if you really want to get rid of it, price it to sell. The reason people go to yard sales is to find bargains. If you have a fairly high-dollar, popular item that might still be found in catalogs or sale ads, cut out the ad with the item and the new price in it, and tape it to your item to show your customers what a bargain they’re getting. Don’t do this for everything though–it will turn people off. If you have a lot of kids’ clothes or toys that you’re dying to get rid of, consider having a “fill a bag for $1″ kind of deal. (Just be sure to have enough bags available.) Adult clothes are usually hard to sell, but if you price them cheap enough people will buy them.
• Clean your stuff up; if the first thing someone picks up is dirty and nasty, they may not be interested in looking at what else you have. That being said, don’t go overboard spending 3 hours cleaning an item you’re only going to sell for $1.
• Make signs to direct people to your yardsale, announcing the date, street name and/or a bold arrow pointing the way. A homemade eye-catching sign will be more memorable than the black and orange store-bought ones. But keep it simple; brightly colored poster board and Sharpies work just fine. Just be sure to make them big enough–drive by after posting them to make sure you can read them from the road. It’s also helpful if all the signs look the same so people can follow the consistency straight into your driveway.

The Day Before

• Get change. One source recommended $50 in quarters, ones and fives. If you have a lot of small, low-priced items, make sure to have nickels and dimes as well. On the other hand, if you have a lot of larger,higher-priced items, you may need more than $50.
• Put up your signs. Be sure to check local laws so you’re not posting somewhere illegally. If there are other yard sales going on in your neighborhood, put signs for yours at the end of their streets with arrows pointing to yours. As people leave these sales, they’ll see signs for yours.
• Set up your stuff. If you don’t have enough folding tables, sawhorses and a sheet of plywood covered with an old sheet work too. If you haven’t already categorized your items, do so now, keeping like things together and labeling your tables–kitchen, electronics, clothes, toys, etc. If you’re planning on hanging the clothes you’re selling, hang them on hangers you don’t mind if the customer keeps. Display things neatly and in an organized manner; a jumbled mess gives your customers the impression you don’t care about your stuff and didn’t take good care of it while you used it. I told my husband that the part I liked best about our yardsale was when a woman, clearly an experienced yardsaler, declared, “You guys organized good!” It helps to have a “staging area”, like your garage, where you can set up your items beforehand so the next morning all you have to do is pull the tables out of the garage and you’re ready to go. Believe me, you’ll be glad you did this when you open your garage door at 6:30am and people are already pulling up to your house wanting to see your stuff before you get it out of garage!
• Consider having a table of “man things”–tools, electronic parts, jars of nails and screws and bolts–so that men have something to look at while their wives look at the kitchen stuff!
• Make sure you’re not selling anything you’ll regret later.
• Look through the boxes and/or pockets of anything you’re selling. I read stories about people finding cash and credit card receipts–complete with full credit card numbers–amid the things they bought at yard sales.

The Big Day

• Arrange your tables or other big items in a three-sided square to facilitate a smooth flow of traffic and so your customers won’t miss anything.
• Set your big-ticket items (furniture, TVs, etc) closest to the street to draw more attention, especially those that will attract men’s attention. A wife is more likely to have to convince her husband to stop at a yardsale than vice versa, but if he sees big ticket items he’ll be more easily convinced.
• Put away or cover anything you don’t want to sell, or you’ll be getting offers on it all day.
• Put valuable items close to where you’ll be sitting so you can keep an eye on them.
• Post a sign that says “All Sales Final.” I read stories about people coming back the next day wanting their money back…
• Start early! Yard sales start at different times, so people often go to a yard sale earlier than advertised. Have yours set up an hour or so ahead of time–this is one thing I will for sure do differently next time. I had just finished asking my husband, “You don’t think people will come out to a yardsale while it’s still dark out, do you?” He shook his head and left to put up our signs, and succeeded in attracting our first three customers–before 7am, while it was still dark! And before I had everything pulled out of the garage. Frustrating, but they spent nearly $100 so I could hardly complain.
• On a chilly morning, brew some coffee and give it away for free. On a hot day, have sodas or bottled water available, or even just a pitcher of water and some cups (and a trash can). Look for any way you can keep your customers hanging around as long as possible–the longer they’re there, the more likely they’ll buy something. Even if they don’t, the more people around the better, since nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.
• Play music. Not only is this more fun for you, it will be more relaxing for your customers and allow them to talk amongst themselves without feeling like you’re going to hear every word. Pick something middle-of-the-road and easy to listen to, and not so loud that you can’t hear your customers’ questions or they can’t hear themselves think.
• Keep your money on you rather than using a cash box and leaving it sitting somewhere. Wear a carpenter’s apron or a fanny pack with the pack in the front.
• If someone hands you a large bill, leave it out in view until after you’ve given them their change. This prevents a dishonest person from saying, “I gave you a $20, not a $10.” And make sure you take a good look at it so you don’t mistake it for a larger bill and give them too much change.
• Some customers like to “help” by totaling up their purchases for you. Make up a reason that you need to do it yourself, just to make sure you’re getting paid for everything they take.
• Don’t accept checks unless you’re willing to accept the risk of getting a bad one. Even a “local” check that looks perfectly fine may be from a closed account.
• People will try to bargain with you. Don’t be afraid to stick to your price if you really think the item is worth it, especially early in the morning. Feel free to say something like, “I may lower the price later in the day if it doesn’t sell, but I’m not ready to now.”
• Don’t insult your customers. For example, if a heavy woman is looking at your size 2 petite clothing, don’t tell her it won’t fit her! For all you know she might be shopping for a friend or family member.
• Don’t allow strangers in your house to try out appliances, try on clothes, or even to use the bathroom. Direct them to the nearest public restroom.
• If you’re selling electronics or electrical appliances, have an outlet or extension cord handy so people can plug them in to see if they work. (Put the cord away when not in use to prevent someone from tripping over it.) If you’re selling something battery-operated, have some spare batteries on hand that they can use to make sure it works.
• Have plenty of old grocery bags on hand–if people buy a number of items they’ll appreciate this.
• As things sell, fill in the empty spots with other items or by rearranging. This helps keep your stuff from looking picked over.

No Later Than the Next Day

• Take your signs down! Keep track of how many you put up so you won’t forget any of them. You might call this proper “yardsale etiquette.” Not only does it reduce litter in your community, but it also prevents people from coming to your house the next week thinking you’re having a yardsale…

After Your Yardsale

What to do with the stuff that didn’t sell? We’re continuing to sell ours this week on craigslist.com. If you weren’t able to combine your sale with anyone else’s, ask your friends and neighbors if they’re planning to have one anytime soon and if you can try again to sell your leftover items at their sale. Or, if you have room to store it, save it for another sale in a year or two. Timing is everything: Baby paraphernalia and kids’ toys may go out of style, and electronics surely become outdated quickly, so it’s typically better to have a smaller sale every other year or so than one big blowout sale every ten years.

Good luck, and happy saling!

Questions or comments? Contact me here.