Earn Money with a Yard Sale
Is your home or garage cluttered with stuff you don't use
anymore? Do your children have too many toys - most of which they
no longer play with? Would you like to earn a little extra money for
your family? If you answered yes to any of these questions you may
be ready to have a yard sale. A yard sale takes work and planning
but I will teach you what I have learned and share what some of our
readers have learned about how to have a successful yard sale.
When deciding whether to have a yard sale, consider the options you have
to rid yourself and family of extra stuff:
- You can give stuff away to friends or organizations like
Goodwill. This option can be a huge blessing to others.
I know when my baby was born friends and family gave me hand me
downs that saved me tons of money.
- You can sell your stuff on eBay or other
online auctions.
- You can throw it away.
- or...you can have a Yard Sale!
When I am making the decision between selling on eBay or having a
yard sale I usually opt for eBay. While a yard sale is
sometimes much simpler I will get more
money per item selling on eBay. I learned so much about the
tricks of how to sell on eBay from the
Auction Resource Network. Don't let the intro page fool you, this is
an amazing site with incredible information on selling on eBay. I almost
did not sign up, but it was very highly recommended to me and so I did,
and boy did I learn a lot about selling on ebay.
Tips for having a successful Yard Sale:
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Tips from Candace
1. Obviously you want to put nice looking signs with clear
directions on the main road. I hate when I start to follow a
yard sign and then get lost in a neighborhood. I would pick a
bright color and write YARD SALE and then an arrow and your
address underneath. Too much information on the sign and people
won't be able to read it as they drive by. Then place the arrow
signs in the same bright color along the route to help people find
their way to your house. Do that for different place on the main
road that people can reach your house from. Make the signs large
enough for people to be able to see. Seems so obvious I know but
so many times the signs you see by the road are so small I can't read
what is on them.
2. Make sure you have lots of small bills and coins to make
change with. It would be terrible to lose a sale because you
don't have the right change.
3. Put a price sticker on everything. Then you won't have
to answer "how much do you want for this" a hundred times in
one day. Also if you get busy people will be able to get along
without your assistance.
4. If you are selling any electric make sure you have an
extension cord handy so they can see that it works.
5. Do you have tables that you can set up outside? You
want to display things in an attractive way. I have seen a lot
of people put toys down on the ground at the kids level. That
way the kids will be able to pick out stuff for their mom or dad to
buy them!
6. Can the boys help out in the toy section? Maybe let
them be salesmen of their old stuff and then they can use the money to
buy something for their new room.
7. Have plastic grocery bags to put purchases in. Have any
of those hanging around?
8. Sell sodas and/or homemade cookies or brownies individually
packaged. Whenever I go to yard sales with my kids I almost
always buy them a treat. Especially if they are priced right!
9. Be ready for early birds!
10. Don't budge on your price too early in the morning.
You'll have lots of opportunities to sell the good stuff and the price
you want. You can always mark it down later.
Tips from Jenn
My family has had many yard sales, since they've
always been before moving, we'd call them MOVING SALES. Someone once
told us that moving sales have better stuff than yard sales and so we've
attracted more customers with that on our signs. (of course, don't
call it a moving sale if you're not moving!)
Put the bigger stuff towards the front, or otherwise make sure they can
be clearly seen; many people do 'drive-by's' to see if it's worth the
effort of getting out of the car.
I agree that too much info on the signs leading to your home is a bad
idea. But to grab the drive-by customers, post a large sign
listing your big sellers (washer, sofa, things like that) on your
garage/house and just cross them off as they sell.
As you sell numerous items, rearrange your sale so it doesn't appear
that what's left is the "left-overs". Drive-by's won't
stop, and you'll get more customers trying to talk your prices down.
I decided to place things on tables by price and skip the stickers, I
would just label the table. Plus, as your prices drop, its easier
to change.
If your selling cd's, books, or anything you have a lot of, post a
discount for multiple purchases. We got rid of cd's alot quicker
by charging $3 each, 5 for $10.
Take stuff like dishes out of boxes so they are more eye-catching.
Set up the most you can the night before (if you have a garage) and get
to bed early and be up early!
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