How do you organize for garage sales?

[TXMomof4]

I'm trying to get my house decluttered to a manageable level. I've got tons of stuff to get rid of and want to have a garage sale. So far, I've just been stacking whatever needs to go in the garage. None of it is priced, none of it is separated by any sort of system - do you try to organize your sales in any way? How??? I feel like I'm just shoving the mess from one place to another right now and I wish I could find someone just to come remove it all! Help!

[Garga]

Is your goal to earn money or to get rid of stuff?

 

If it's to get rid of stuff, organize the stuff into a few piles. Then write signs, "Everything on this table $2" "Everything on this table $5", etc.

 

If you want to make money, I guess you'll have to price more individually, which sounds like a huge pain to me.

 

Do you go to a lot of garage sales? I do. Consider what prices you would actually pay at a yard sale before you mark it. If you overprice things, they won't sell, people will just walk away. For example, people try to sell VHS tapes at like $2 a tape. That might be a good price for one movie, but if I want to buy 5 of your VHS tapes, that's $10. I'm not spending $10 at a yardsale. I won't buy a tape over $1 at a yard sale, just because it adds up. In fact, I almost always haggle over the price. So for a tape marked $1, I'd say, "Will you take 50 cents for this tape?" They almost always do. (But maybe they make faces at me when I leave, I dunno...)

 

Most people don't haggle, though, so don't overprice your items expecting to be talked down.

 

IMHO, yard/garage sales aren't really about making money. They're about getting rid of stuff and making a little bit of money. So just put it in piles of "Everything on this table $1", put out a box of junk and mark it "Free" and accept all the haggles. That's my plan for this summer when I have my yard sale. And NOTHING comes back in the house. At 1:00 load the stuff up in the car/truck and drop it off at Goodwill. Then go and have a nice late lunch with your earnings.

 

Ebay is for making money if you have nice stuff. (Maybe Craigslist.)

Edited June 3, 2009 by Garga

[KidsHappen]

We had a garage sale in the spring. We went throught the entire house, the attic and the garage. Everyone helped. We pulled out everything we wanted to get rid of and moved it all to the garage. Then we priced everything. Most of it was fairly large stuff so it was pretty easy to do. We just wrote the price on a piece of paper and taped the paper to the item. And then the whole family worked the sale. We sold almost everything and made $300 which we divided amoungst ourselves because it was everyone's stuff and we all helped There were five of us so we got $60 each. Then we each kicked in $20 to go to a nice restraunt. The rest was to spend however we wanted. It turned out to be a great family project, we got rid of a lot of clutter, went out to eat and had a little spening money.

[TXMomof4]

I'm definately just trying to get rid of stuff, I just can't bring myself to donate all of this. It's a ton of stuff! Having tables marked with the price sounds like a great idea to me. Thanks!

[txbloobonnet]

One way to price things is to use those colored dot stickers. Assign an amount for each color and then use those for the most commonly used prices. Make a poster showing how much each colored dot equals for your customers and put it in a highly visible place. This is really very easy and elimates a lot of pricing fuss.

 

For example

Lime green dots all = $1

Blue dots = 50 cents

 

and so on....

 

I also like to use boxes. Beanie Babies in a box can be priced for example $2 each.

 

Bag up things that go together like Polly Pockets. They sell better that way.

 

good luck!!!