Garage sales are both fun and exhausting, but there's no need to include headaches in the picture. Although you can successfully have a garage sale on the fly, preparing and organizing your garage sale beforehand will leave you feeling less stressed and frustrated. Here are a few simple tips that will get you garage sale going.
First, organize the items into their appropriate categories. Put shoes, clothes, and accessories together. Put big pieces of furniture together. Group small appliances together, and separate them from larger appliances that don't fit on the countertop.
Next, write down a list of all of the items for sale. You can do this by hand or you can use a word processor (a program such as Excel). Write down the prices and the quantity of the item. Make another column for actual price. Generally, the prices that you project for each item will be different from your actual selling price. After all, garage sales are about haggling.
You will also need to figure out where you are going to hang your ads. The best places to advertise are on corners and around your neighborhood. Use brightly colored, heavyweight paper (such as poster paper) and use duct tape. Make sure that you know your city's ordinances related to garage and yard sales. Some counties require you to purchase a permit beforehand.
On the day of the garage sale, be sure to wake up bright and early. Some of your best selling times will take place in the morning. Be sure to have a few helping hands. If you have a lot of clothes, you may want to just separate them by gender category and put them in big cardboard boxes. If you only have a few clothes, hang them so that they can be easily seen.
You will need to determine how many days you will hold the garage sale. Generally, garage sales are 2 days long and take place on a weekend. On the first day, you will check what kind of items you have sold. This will help you determine how to set up your next day's garage sale. For instance, if you sold more furniture than you did clothes, you might want to place the clothes next to the furniture. Try to mix the items around. Place the highly-sellable items next to the others. That way, your customers will be able to see all the items, even the ones that do not sell well.
Organizing your garage sale will help you sell more and will help take plenty of frustration and stress from the event.