Make Your Next Calgary Garage Sale a Raving Success!
Do you want to make the most of your next Calgary garage sale? Now’s the time to clear out your closets and hold the most lucrative yard sale ever. Use these clever tips below to increase your profits and sell more than you ever dreamed possible.
1. Hold a multi-family garage sale
Grab a few of your neighbors and get them involved in your garage sale as well. The more the merrier when it comes to yard sales. The more activity there is around the tables the better able you’ll be to attract a huge crowd of buyers. When you have more than one family holding the sale, extra posters can be put up and there will be a lot of word-of-mouth advertising happening. If everyone that is participating is assigned a specific job, there will be less work involved as well. One person can set up the tables, another can put out the goods and someone else can prepare some fresh lemonade to serve to the customers.
2. Serve refreshments
People are more likely to buy from you when you offer them something free as a goodwill gesture. It’s a sign of community spirit that will make more sales flow in. Fresh lemonade and homemade cookies or Rice Krispie squares add a home-baked appeal to the yard sale, which will make the whole atmosphere seem much more comfortable and friendly. This is the kind of setting you want to have for a profitable yard sale.
3. Have bags and boxes ready
When you provide an easy way for people to transport their goods home, they are likely to buy more. Let browsers know that you have something available that they can put their goods in ahead of time. They are then prepared to make their purchases and carry them off to their vehicles.
4. Haggling is fun
This is part of the process of having a garage sale and you need to expect it. People are going to try to bargain you down on your prices so you’ll have to go into the sale prepared. If you really want to sell Aunt Betty’s old kettle for $5, (after all, it still works), then price it at $7. If you end up getting $4 for it, be happy. It’s a garage sale and everything sold helps to contribute to the end profit.
5. Volume pricing
If you have a lot of low-cost items that you can sell at a bargain, place them in a conspicuous spot to get the sales flowing. Children’s books, for example, can be sold for $.50 each. When potential customers see other people making purchases they will be more inclined to buy something themselves. Volume pricing on low-cost items can help to get the selling started and be the perfect kickoff to the garage sale.
6. Organize your items
Prepare for your garage sale at least a week beforehand. Gather up all the items you intend to sell and get your supplies together in one area. Perhaps one neighbor can donate a corner of their garage space to keep all of the supplies in one spot until the day of the yard sale arrives.
Here are some of the things you may need to assemble for your sale.
- Chairs
- Tables
- Table cloths
- Signs
- Tape
- Extension cords
- Trashcan
- Batteries for testing electrical items
- Cashbox
- Change at the beginning of the day
- Newspaper or tissue for wrapping
- Boxes
- Bags
If you’re planning on holding a multi-family garage sale you’ll also have to keep track of the items sold and the prices they fetched. This way it will be easy to distribute the money between each family at the end of the day. Here’s hoping that you have the biggest and best garage sale that you’ve ever had and that its lucrative for all of the families involved.
- Adverstise for Exposure
Whether it be Kijiji, a Mom’s Facebook group, Newspaper classified ad – you will need to also adverstis your garage sale online to gain maximum exposure. Although posting garage sales signs can bring in people who aren’t in a hurry to get somewhere – there are people who search online and plan on which garage sales they visit. It also helps to advertise some of the more popular items you may be selling to generate interest.
