Garage Sale Tips
Finding Garage Sales and Buying Tips
If you follow these tips, they will help you in your garage sale searches and purchases. Trust us, you can make good purchases, yes, even at garage sales.
- Keep on the lookout for Garage sale signs. Usually, you can find out about garage sales on the newsaper, but a lot of times, people don't even post it on newspapers or on classified magazines. Make sure to check for signs and posters when driving down the street.
- Mark these upcoming garage sales on your calendar. By the way, most garage sales are held on the weekends. Try to arrange them so that when you go, you can go to at least 4-6 in one day, so you don't end up wasting gas.
- Wake up early on the day of the garage sales. most garage sales start at around 7-8 am, and like the famous quote says, "The early bird gets the worm."
- Try to look for garage sales and yard sales on the nicer neighborhoods. By the way, these people typically have better stuff that they are selling, and most of them are well off anyway and they sell their merchandise and items at incredibly low prices.
- Make sure you thoroughly search a garage sale before taking off to the next location. Most of the time, they are not that organized and you really have to search hard to find that "hidden gem" that you are looking for.
- When buying clothing from garage sales, don't just rely on the size. Many times, these sizes are inaccurate, as the clothes have been washed and have probably shrunk a bit.
- When buying electronics, ask the seller if you can plug it in and test it out. There are some sellers out there that will try to sell you their broken electronic devices.
- Make sure that when you buy items such as vases, lamps, and other breakables, to check for cracks and little chips off the items. This is important!
- If something is being sold in a box, make sure to check inside the box. This might sound like common sense, but other people actually forget to do this.
- Try to ask the seller to lower the price down to what you think it should be. A lot of times, they will bargain with you, but you have to learn the balance from asking to lower the price, to just being straight and outright rude about it.
Tips When Holding a Garage Sale
There is really no secret tip when holding a garage sale that will guarantee that you will make a decent amount of money, but there are some practical pointers that you can follow so you can maximize your earnings.
- A group sale with your friends is a good idea. Ask your friends if they would like to have a garage sale as well, and you can either bring your items to them or they can bring theirs to your house. Remember, the more items you have, the more people will be drawn to your sale.
- Be prepared! Wake up early and prepare everything and have a plan of who will handle money or who will watch the items (there are a lot of theives out there that will try to distract you and then steal what they want)
- Use some marketing tricks, you can learn these from other sites.
- Make sure to have labels as well as prices beforehand. That way, they don't think that you are just trying to rip them off by coming up with prices from the top of your head.
- Be friendly. Greet people as they arrive!
- Be willing to bargain, but be less flexible at the start.
- Do not use a cash box. Keep your money on you at all times. That way, they can't steal your money!
- ADVERTISE! ADVERTISE! ADVERTISE! Oh, and did I forget to mention that you need to advertise! Post signs, posters, and pass out flyers. Also, you can list it on your newspapaer and classifieds sections.
- Make sure to have enough cash to give change to people.
- Play some background music. Nothing too crazy, something relaxing...
- People are looking for bargains. Don't disappoint them. Remember that what you sell is something you don't want anyway!
- Be sure you have electrical outlets nearby to plug in toasters, blenders, electric skillets, irons, hair dryers, electric razors, etc., to show people that your articles do work.
- Lastly, don't forget to advertise on SUPERSHOPPER.org, one of the fastest growing sites on the web. Every day thousands of people like you are registering and enjoying the free features on SuperShopper.org