The Garage Sale Business

One man's junk is another man's treasure!

This is so true. Just take a look around. People everywhere are looking for that one great find. You know, that stuff you just can't stand looking at anymore. The boxes that are accumulating in the basement, garage, every storage area possible in the house and you don't even remember what's in them.

If I have learned anything about organizing it's that I don't purge enough. And I know I'm not the only one. But all that stuff you have packed away, that you don't even remember having or haven't used in more than a year could give you a pretty nice paycheck for one weekend.

Garage sales have many advantages to both the seller and the buyer so making money on what you consider junk isn't very difficult. An average weekend garage sale can make one person an easy $600. Not bad for a few hours of cleaning storage areas, setting everything up and then watching everyone flow in to discover your hidden treasures.

How about those of us that don't have the time, patience or desire to do the who garage sale thing but would love nothing more than to benefit from this same system? That where someone like you, someone who enjoys making the sale, helping others comes in. Your enterprises is the never-ending garage sale.

To make this a truly profitable business adventure you need to do a little educating. Start buy selling what you have around your house already. This is a good introduction to potentional customers and clients. To further your selling and buying knowledge visit other locate garage sales. While there you will get a good basis of what items are selling for and the need.

Now that you have a pretty good idea as to what is out there, start talking to family and friends about your intentions. Ask for donations, offer consignment or see if they have anything you could buy to resell. Ask your family and friends to spred the word.

Should you do things on consignment have a clear idea as to your percentage cut. Most consignment stores run a 40/60 or 50/50 split. Be fair and your customers will keep coming back. Make sure you have a good log book so that you can record who the consignment contract is with and what it is that you sold for them. A good way to do this is assign a number to each of your consignment customers and place the number on the price tag. When the merchandise is purchased, record it next to the appropriate consignment customer using the tracting number. Make sure you document how much the item sold for so that your consignment customer will be certain you are not ripping them off. It is also good to have a contract written up.

Advertising need not be difficult. You already started the advertising with your word of mouth by asking family and friends for items and letting them know what you are intending to do. The next best thing to do is run an ad in your area newspaper and shopper papers advertising the sale, where it is and the hours of operation. Be sure to keep your ad up-to-date, especially once things are running on a full-time basis.

Another great way to ad is using the old-fashioned "sandwich board" sign displayed in front of where ever you are having the sale announcing that you are open for business. This will attract your neighbours as well as people driving by. Setting sandwich boards up at key traffic intersections, not too far from the sale destination, will attract more drivers or pedestrines your way. Even use two pieces of cardboard and tack them up on poles about 200
metres apart will do the same job. (Check local ordinances to see if this is permitted in your area)
By all means, search out and use all the free bulletin boards in your area. It's better, and usually much more profitable, to take the time to make up an attention grabbing circular you can post on these bulletin boards than just using a written 3 by 5 card announcement.

To do this, pick up some "transfer lettering," go through your newspapers and old magazines for interesting illustrations, graphics and pictures, then with a little bit of imagination, makeup an 8.5 by 11 poster type announcement of your sale. When you've got it pasted up, take it to any quick print shop and havethem print up 50 to 100 copies for you. The cost should not come to more than six or seven dollars.

If you make this "circular/poster" up with versatility and long-time usage in mind, you can use it over and over again, simply by pasting a new date. In case you were puzzled when we talk about "pasting" this is simply pasting another piece of paper on to the overall page. Say you have a circular with a date of Wednesday March 1st, and you want it to read Thursday, July 16th. Rather than do the whole thing over, simply write out thenew date with your transfer letters on a separate sheet of paper, cut it out to fit in the space occupied by the old date, and paste the new date over the old date. A good paste to use for this purpose is rubber cement. That's
all there is to it; the printer does the rest.

Now let's talk about the 'insider secrets" of drawing people into your sale, and merchandising "gimmicks' that will result in maximum sales and profit for you. First, call attention to your sale. Don't be shy, bashful, or self-conscious about letting everybody for miles around know that you're having a garage sale. Some sharp operators do the next best thing to having the Goodyear blimp overhead: They rent miniature blimps, send them up above the housetops, and tether them there on their sale days. Of course this giant balloon or miniature blimp has some sort of sign on the side of it, inviting people to the garage sale! This is one of the strongest
available advertising ideas for pulling "traffic' to a sale.

You have to give your sale some flair. Put some posts up across the front of the property and run some twisted crepe paper between them. Even better than crepe paper, run some brightly colored ribbons. Invest in some colorful pennants and fly them from temporary flag poles. And don't forget the balloons!

Make your garage sale a fun kind of event with clusters of balloons anchored to your display tables and racks. Be sure to "float" them well above the heads of your customers as they are browsing through your merchandise displays. Cover your display tables with colorful cloths. Don't hesitate to use bright colors with busy patterns. Regardless of what you sell, effective display is still predominately essential! You cannot "dump" items haphazardly on a
table, sit down and expect to realize great profits. The people doing the most business---making the most sales--are the ones with interesting displays, action and color. Try to have as wide a selection of colors as possible in your clothing racks, and mix them for a rainbow effect. Make sure that your jewelry items shine and sparkle. Arrange them in and with jewelry boxes, jewelry ladders and other items sold for the purpose of showing off jewelry while keeping it neatly organized. Think about it, and then study the methods of display used by "rack jobbers" in
the stores in your area. These are the wire racks that usually hold card packaged items. Keep these things in mind, and build your individual displays as part of the whole; make it pleasing to the eye as well as convenient for your customers to browse through and select the items that appeal to them.

Look for some kind of interesting and unusual item to call attention to your sale--something you can set up or park in front of your house during your sale. Some of the displays we've seen along these lines include a horse-drawn surrey, a restored Model T, and old farm plow. But anything of an unusual and interestingnature will do the trick for you. One couple we know put up a display using a mannequin dressed in an old time farm bonnet, long dress and apron. The display depicted a farm woman of old, washing clothes with a scrub board and two steel wash tubs. You have to believe this drew crowds and made people talk!

Where ever your imagination takes you, you have to be different and distinctive, or you'll get lost in the hundreds of garage sales going on all around you. If you'll take the time to employ a bit of imagination and set your sales up with the kind of flair we've been talking about, you'll not just draw the crowds, you'll end up being the one holding the most profits.

It's almost a compulsion of many women to go shopping, to search for the interesting and sometimes rare and valuable items. This fact will keep you as busy as you'll ever want to be--staging andholding garage sales. The market is so vast, and the appetite so varied, that anything from a brass bedstand to a used diary of somebody's long-forgotten grandmother will sell, and sell fast at garage sales. Put it all together, use a little imagination, and you'll easily make all the money you want!