Organising a Garage Sale Dos & Don’ts

There are plenty of advisory blogs and posts about garage sales out there and if you want to find a step by step guide this post is probably not your best place to look for one. If you want to find out what to realistically expect if you don’t live in a neighbourhood that engages in this kind of thing often – read on.

Set the date

Plan your sale in advance – and I mean actually plan in advance and don’t put a date in the calendar and make a dash when it nears. We thought we had it all under control but should have started advertising [with photos!] way before hand. Make sure you include “marketing” when you set the date and think about where to post your ad [notice boards, cafes, library…. All these brilliant ideas came to us much too late]

Design your flyer

While I was quite proud of my amateur work, you should take stock of what you have before you do this, and do it properly. I could have added cool stuff like the bicycle we are trying to sell but rushed this due to poor timing.

“Fail to plan, plan to fail.”

Ask friends for support

We did not fluke on this one and had lots of company. YAY! Be aware that if you don’t have a lot of foot traffic in your location, you will be lonely (and in my case super cold). You cannot go inside (duh) and leave your “stock” alone, so either get comfortable and use this time to read or catch up on social media, or get someone to come and keep you company.

Check out our cutest customer of the day:

Have a plan B

Chances are – you will not sell everything on the day. Your plan B could be to organise a skip** to pick it all up. Or to drive to the local Op Shop and drop whatever you can there. Or to post pictures on your local classifieds such as Gumtree in Australia or eBay Kleinanzeigen in Germany. The point is – having a plan B (and C and D…) will make you feel much less disappointed when it comes to packing up at the end!

**I would hate to encourage you to throw stuff away – please check recycling options and donations first! Sydney’s link is HERE. 

To give you an idea of how much stuff we had out there:

Be reasonable

Don’t build proceeds from your sale into your budget if you can avoid it. If you rely on it too much, you may be disappointed and set yourself up for failure.

I thought about the old stuff we had like assets that have already depreciated – they have paid their ways because we have used them lots. (Besides my bicycle…) So if you get something for them – well done! Use it to fund your farewell drinks or splurge on a nice hotel stay. If you cannot seem to get anything for your treasures: take comfort in knowing that donating them will make someone else very happy.

via Daily Prompt: Dash