You want to pay for my clutter?

It started with a diaper box labelled "sell."  Then it just grew and grew.  The idea of a garage sale was a far off idea, but always a "perhaps" one day...

It was two weeks before Labour Day weekend.  Our garage is a total disaster: I call it post camping carnage.  Hubby suggests, "why don't you do that garage sale?"  And in our fashion, "bam!" we are having a garage sale in a week!!

The plan was that Graham would take the kids to Hannah's last soccer game.  All Saturday morning would be taken care of.  I went online to get a handle on the facts on how to have a garage sale.  Everywhere I read, it said, I need help.  I couldn't quite see where this help was going to come from.

When I was having some reservations, Nicky sent me a message to say, "Can I help and I'd like to sell some of my stuff."  Wow! Really?!  OK! The Garage sale is on!

In the end, our sales totalled nearly $400!

Here's what we learned...

Advertise, advertise, advertise! 

1. Post on Kijiji with photos Thursday and Friday. (ack deleted them after I posted them on kijiji!)  Had a friend suggest that posting "Multi-family Garage Sale" would draw a larger crowd.   I had people tell me that they remembered my ad.

2. Print bold and large signs on 3 letter size paper: "Yard Sale" "Date & Address" "[arrow]"Posted to large cardboard picked up from No Frills.  (no extra cost is key! why buy bristol board when you have cardboard for free?)

3. Friday night, send servant hearted and strategically minded friend out to all the major intersections nearby and post large signs.  We had people show up telling us that ours were the best signs they had ever seen!!

The Stuff:
1. Price each item individually.  (we used red sharpie marker on blank address labels) At first we even used blue marker to write descriptions on most things. And of course as we approached the time, we priced less, but surprisingly, most things were priced!

2. One thing we read was that clothing doesn't sell very well at garage sales.  So we put some focus to break that trend.  I put out our two ladders, zip tied two hockey sticks together, hung clothing on wire hangers.  The clothes were spread out and each hanger had an info page that said something like this: "Pink Old Navy top, Size M, $5" I think that was my first sale!

One of our ingenious ideas was displaying a full-length mirror for people could try on shoes and put a piece of clothing in front of them.  We even had a request to use our bathroom to try on a dress!  I think having a mirror displayed encouraged such requests.  We must have had 10 pairs of shoes for sale.  From Crocs to leather boots.  All but one pair were sold.  They too had large labels (ie: size 8, $5).

3. I have a suspicion that how things were displayed played a huge factor in the effectiveness of the sale. The jewellery table did well.  All my 5 "dead" waches sold for $2 -$3 each!  I think though it had something to do with the fact that the jewellery was displayed on a nice white table cloth and priced at 50 cents each.

4. Another ingenious idea was having a "man table" strategically placed at the end of the driveway! The stereo system for sale was plugged in and playing with some hardward stuff strewn on the same table. Nicky noticed early on that it actually did perk some interest from the men who stopped by!  How interesting.

5. A not so ingenious idea, but a good lesson to learn is placing things high is a huge plus.  Our multiple frames at the top of the driveway did not sell.  They were nicely displayed but they were on the ground.  I suspect if I had them out on a nice table like the jewellery, they would have sold better.  Placement on the driveway may have something to do with it, but I think it has more to do with putting things on tables.  The pile of nice bags at the bottom of the driveway, next to the jewellery did not do so well either.  It had to do with pricing, but also being on the ground.  So I will price lower and even borrow more tables next time.

6. Another thing we did that helped with our organizing was getting tray like boxes from No Frills and putting the stuff in it.  The set up process went by quickly this way.  Just carrying the trays out and putting them on tables.

Keeping track of the money

7. How we tracked the sales for two families.  Nicky came up with the great idea of just writing the price down every time a sale was made.  And this is what it looked like.  Although writing it on a white board made me a little nervous with little ones around.  Hence I took this photo which also doubles as a blog post photo! Yay!

Ah, that was a fun experience!

Now for a post garage sale carnage photo... Still better than piled high junk!

Post Garage Sale Carnage!