We had a lot of customers, a steady stream all day long, even at quitting time people were still coming. People bought a lot of stuff, we needed shopping carts! I felt like Mom and I and my husband were just there to help my sister with her sale.
I was very disappointed and will never have a garage sale or go in with other people again! I am so glad I read this.
As I was going through the boxes tonight, I started toying with the idea of having another garage sale it would be my 2nd attempt. Plus it would mean my keeping the stuff another possible few months.
So thank you for saving my sanity. Going to pack all the goods up for the veterans! I love the idea of having a pickup scheduled! Your email address will not be published. Notify me of replies to my comment via e-mail. Facebook 32 Twitter Pinterest Email. Are garage sales worth it? Maybe not. I feel your pain, Donna! Dont want to pay taxes on stuff i already paid tax on, you know?
How did you keep records of your cr card sales to compare to what hit the bank account? Square is a breeze. You create an account, connect your bank account, and then you can swipe cards. At the end of each day of business, Square deposits the sales minus their 2.
In the app, it keeps track of all the sales for you. Tax man does not care if it is re-selling or not. And some of the credit card companies send you a statement and they need to send that to the IRS also. No income tax if you sell the item for less than you paid for it.
You paid more for the items than you are selling them for. Al their items were given to them and they make a profit off of it. Goodwill is on the stock exchange. You can buy shares of it. Great tips!! Yes, check with you town about permits. AND about how to hang up signs and where they are allowed. Not easy in my town. No nails in telephone poles, not on private property, and must be taken down within 24 hours after. I have my set of signs that i re-use that have holes that i thread heavy string through and tie on.
Well done on your epic yard sale! She lives in a holiday area and I think people were bored! Where I grew up, there was — and still is — a neighbourhood yard sale day: everyone in the area had their yard sales on the same day. It has gotten bigger and crazier every year, and now thousands of people from other parts of the city — and beyond — drive in at the crack of dawn to start cruising the lawns.
BUT as a seller not so hot. Customers will be chomping at the bit to go shopping and they have money and you are the only show in town. Not to mention that you can pull it out again the next weekend and start out half price at the beginning of the day. Or leave the kids in charge, and go shopping the town sale yourself. I do a multi-family yard sale twice a year. I try to have the sale very organized. I agree with most of your tips, especially pricing. I will say not to give up on selling baby clothes.
It is the same for everything. It all depends on who comes to your sale. I try to be specific about the types of items I have in my ad in the paper. Often people call to shop ahead of time for those things, I almost always let them come since I have most of my tables set up in the garage ahead of the sale. Facebook flea market groups are another good place to advertise. Your signs were amazing! Way to attract attention to your sale. I also prefer to do multi-family yard sales for two reasons 1.
These are great tips!! Thanks for these!! Most yard sales are not taxable. This is a great post! Thanks so much! I have found however that during our town rummage in May, my winter and fall childrens clothing dont sell well at allI. I always just box up whatever is left of that and take it to once upon a child, amd almost always sell it all.
These are so great tips and advises on yard sale. I would gladly participate and help her because I have some lovely but useless items too. Your advises seem to be really helpful for us. Thank you for sharing your experience! I disagree on some points! This past Wednesday night, I emptied boxes from the garage and onto tables in my yard.
It took three of us a few hours to get like items together and cover it with tarps. The sale started at 7am on Thursday and lasted until noon on Friday when I put a free ad on Craigslist. My trick? Start at 7am so people who work can come too. Let people make an offer. I am not there to play a guessing game.
I want to know right away if i want to pick up lots because your prices are good, or to walk right back to the car and the next sale if the prices are too high.
If you are busy you cannot give prices to everyone at the same time, someone has to wait and i am out of there. They did! They were just little toys, figurines, stickers, bracelets, etc.
I enjoyed your article as well and many of the tips I definitely implement in my own yard sales. I enjoyed your article and tips. One point I wanted to make is that utility companies actually prohibit hanging signs on their poles. The staples or nails used to hang them can injury a worker if the pole needs to be climbed or worked on.
May I ask what font you used on your signs? I can see that you used different ones but especially the bold marker style font. Thank you! Good Blog! Practically giving away our stuff for our 5 hrs. Did you take your signs somewhere to be printed? Thank you so much for your great post. Following your advice, I just made on my garage sale over the weekend. Your tips were fantastic! From the price as you clean out each area, selling in 0. Now I can pay the handyman and I have less stuff to pack!
Awesome write up and sounds like you guys had a lot of fun while cleaning up and making some money. This post is a great outline for having a sale. Love the signing, Well worth driving items to a better location. Good to take charges. I will add a few things I have learned over my 40 years of having sales and shopping sales..
OK, more then a few ideas and I am wordy but bear with me. Books, baby clothes, anything you have tons of…. Give a group price. Books are.
Remember to keep filling spaces on your tables when things sell. Move items up from the ground. Group items that will appeal to same people. Items from another country, Too many linens and that nice tablecloth from Poland will get lost. A grouping of Asian together. A summer spot will be appealing with your flower pots, lawn chairs, colorful plastic ware ,etc. If you are having your sale in the spring or early summer when you are potting up your pots of assorted flowers pot up any extra pots you have around.
I was surprised how fast these were purchased. Yes to a cord and plug in a fan, it will sell in minutes. Put a sign saying help is available to help plug in. Hire a couple of neighborhood girls to sell your jewelry. Hey, give them a try.. Have a wrap area where customers can wrap their own fragile items. Have a hold area and as customers are shopping ask if you can put it in their pile.
But that does not mean leave it there and come back hours later. If they drive away it goes right back out for sale. YOU add up the pile in the end and then give them a total price. Letting customers know that there is help to carry items to their car will make a large item more attractive.
If not right on the street have large items leading back to where the tables are. But a table visible with lots of stuff on it will draw them back. Balloons, Signs. Anything so customers know this is the house. I have a sandwich board sign that i put over the top of a 6 foot ladder right at the curb.
If you have a lot of helpers ask all to wear same color shirts. Red or white or their July Forth favorite Patriotism helps sell, or wear Hawaiian lies. Keep your pets inside. Customers need to focus on what you are selling. Also keep the chit-chat quick. Ask friends to help but NOT the friend who wants to talk with you all day, that is not help and will wear you out.
And these few hours are your chance to sell and purge not chit-chat. Do you have a clean up week in town where items are put on the curb for garbage pick-up?
Drive around and you can pick up a few more things to sell. Lemonade stand for the kids to run is nice. And let the kids make the change, customers will not rob the kids and they can use their math skills. Have change. IF you ads say No Early Birds. Please follow your own rule. If you have no ideas of pricing go to some sales ahead of time and get some ideas. When in doubt drag it out. And the right person just may come by.
About an hour before the end of the sale I will ask my helpers if there was anything that they saw that they were interested in. Then i can start to think of the other items that are left and decide about them without all the clutter.
Next- items that go right back into the house. Many i leave the price tag on. Then one more round of charity or a round of keep for next sale. Doing it in waves makes it easier to decide. Good luck all. It is an experience and you will get through it. If you make enough for a meal out, a vacation or to help with the cost of living you will also be happy that items have gone to others now to enjoy.
This article is fabulous, Cassie!! I have never had a garage sale or even been to a garage sale. I used your article to plan and execute my fabulous, very successful garage sale pink theme utilizing Apple Casual font for signage. Thank you so much for your help and guidance…Hugs from a Grateful Canadian!
For baby clothes I do the bag deal. I sort them by size and people would rather fill a bag than buy individual. I have 2 folding tables but an extra is always needed. Love your tips. Thanks for sharing. For my yard sale I had a ton of baby clothes. The day before, I sorted out all the clothes by size. I got rid of a bunch of baby clothes and made a little money for the time it took me to sort out the sizes.
Plus customers seemed to be a little more excited about getting a deal on so many baby clothes in a specific size. Amazing advice, Cassie, thank you so much!
I especially love the color-coordinated signs. Yard sale signs are hard to see in our town right now because of all the political signs. Great tips, I am going to use a few in my last minute garage sale tomorrow.
My only issue is accepting Debit and Credit. This leaves a paper trail and if you are audited you may have to pay tax on that income. Just some food for thought, and why I would only ever have a cash sale. Anyways thanks for the great post. In the U. Most folks sell items at yard sales for pennies on the dollar for what they bought it—no need to let the IRS know. I work at an accounting office and checked into this years ago…according to IRS.
This is much different than choosing to set up a monthly flea market selling and renting a space to sell your garage sale items. Can you tell me how before slashing prices you knew what to price items?
Did you use a pricing chart from somewhere? I keep it open. Excellent advice!!!! We love to use up our nicer boutique bags for our customers- makes them feel a little more special. Also, considering a tub of ice water with small bootlegs of water available- free??
Great tips. Thank you. It supports multi-family sales. It was a huge help and time saver. Awesome tips from everyone! Thank you?? There are some excellent tips here. I am planning my yard sale after moving in with my fiance.
Lots of good stuff to sell and I think I will do well if I follow the advice I see here. I linked you in my blog post about it. Great article! I just have one question…did you ever encounter any problems with people stealing? These instances occurred when I was a child and another time when I was in my church youth group. My sister and I are planning on having our first garage sale on our own later this month. Do you have any advice on how to handle a situation like that if it should come up?
I know it seems like a small loss, but this is actually something that happens a lot in my town…with the same people getting away with it each time. So the opportunity to switch tags or steal would have been minimal. Based on the cool tags in the pics, one way to stop switching is to put a one or two word description along with the price.
Great tips!!! First, a few facts about garage sales alternately known as a yard sale, or rummage sale. Did you know that in any given week in the U. Or that 4,, items are sold each week? First, you have to find stuff to sell. This is especially true if you have kids that have outgrown their baby or toddler clothes. This stuff goes quite quickly. At any price. But how about that pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses that is missing one bow? Time to place them in the trash.
The hassle is coming up with a price.
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