Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Selling Your Stockpile @ Garage Sale: A How To Guide *!*

Well after several curious readers have asked me ''how do I do it?'' And ''it'' being sell my stockpile at my garage sales I have decided to put together this post with detailed pictures and descriptions of what and how I do it. It is really easy and if you are organized a bit in the beginning it will be a breeze!
So let's get started: Here are some guidelines to follow, it will make it easier on you and ''buyers'' to find you!


1.Advertising, BIG BRIGHT BOLD Signs! Make sure all signs you make are on BIG BRIGHT PAPER. I buy a poster kit at Walgreens for $4.99 plus a heavy duty black permanent marker for $1.99. I use the Green and Pink Poster Paper and make the signs SIMPLE and easy to read! Don't waste time putting your address. I simple wrote: SALE with an arrow pointing them in the right direction. On signs that are further away from your house put the day's, IE..Fri-Sat 5/1 - 5/2 That way people will know when to follow your lovely signs you made to buy buy buy!
Also put an ad on Craigslist (about 2-3 days before your sale) or your blog to help promote it. I asked the people if they followed the signs or saw it off of Craigslist and most people said they followed the signs and several people said ''Those are the best garage sale signs I've seen in years!'' So there you go:-)


2. Organize, Organize, Organize...Your Stockpile! I use these handy storage totes from Target (I bought on sale for $2.99) to organize into categories: Oral Care, Beauty, Hair Care, Medicine, Fragrance, Shaving, and Misc. I try to always put a small round sticker on the bottom or top of each product of the actual OOP (out of pocket) I spent on the item so I know what to charge at the garage sale.

3. Appropriate Pricing: This one is a hard one to learn. My first year of selling my stockpile I only made $256 in 2.5 days as opposed to this years $570 in 1.5 days! My first year I was ''nervous'' about selling my goods. ''What would people think? Would they really buy all my stuff?'' Well need-less to say that is all they bought!
So I learned my lesson this year and priced things about .50 to $1 higher. I try to always make atleast $1-$3 on each item. All the freebies we get those are easy! I try to have my prices be a tad bit cheaper than Walmart or Target.
On my last day I slashed everything to HALF OFF of original prices. Again, I made a REALLY large sign I put in front of my house that ready Everything Half Off, that got a lot of people to come in and buy $20-$40 worth in one trip! Look at the end of the post for what I priced my stock at.
4. Organize Sale Items into $ bins: Again I used the totes to put all $1, $2, $4 ect..items into. That way you are saving yourself time by individually pricing each item. This worked really well for all the Bertolli Spaghetti sauce I was selling! Put your more expensive items like laundry detergent, cleaning supplies out on the table. Then simple make 1 sign saying ''Laundry Soap $3.50'' and tape the sign in front of the items. That way you wont be asked a bazillion times what each item costs!


5. Set-Up & Staging: I would stage your sale so the first thing people see driving up are your really nice items, like my table of laundry detergent, Windex, Glade Air freshners, you know the more expensive items. I had all my kitchen chairs with 1 Target tote on each. I simple wrote on computer paper $1 each or $2 each and taped it to my chair. That way it looks like you have a lot more than what you do. Also don't be afraid to put some of your kids' toys out front to make it seem like it is for sale that way you can get those on-lookers to actually stop in and see what you have!
6. Incentive & Freebies: When I posted my ad on Craigslist I advertised that the first 10 people could pick a goody from my Freebie bag. I had some nice things in there too:-) It was incentive to come in with no obligation to buy. It worked because the early birds (most anyway) said ''Hey was I one of the first 10?''
Another incentive I was doing was telling the people who were buying if they referred a friend or family member that person could pick from the freebie pile too! They wrote their names down and sure enough I got 6 new customers that way!

7. Make It Fun! This one is key, if you don't have fun you will be a grumpy-gills and not make as much $$! People won't buy from grumpy people. I try to have fun balloons blown up with string to give away to all the kids that come. I set up a little stand for my kids to sell soda for .25. Make it fun for your kids too, I let them keep the $ earned from all the soda sold so they could pick out a new toy...ah but that's not all hee hee, I made them pick out quit a few of their older toys they don't play with anymore to put in a FREE bag for all the kids to pick out. This pleased the mom's who in turn (I think) looked longer and bought a few more items:-0 It's a win-win for everyone.
Here is an example list you can go by when you are ready to have your sale. This is all the items and prices I sold this year. Oh yes 1 more thing. On my last day I slashed everything to HALF OFF of original prices. Again, I made a REALLY large sign I put in front of my house that ready Everything Half Off, that got a lot of people to come in and buy $20-$40 worth in one trip!


Items/Prices:
Windex $1.50
All 3x Laundry Detergent $3
Snuggle Fabric Softer $3
Pledge Cleaning Spray/Wipes $2
Hansen's Soda $2 for a 6 pack
Toothbrushes $1
Toothpaste $2
Floss $1.50
Men's Gillette Power Razors $4
Women's Venus/Gilette Razors $4
Disposable Razors $2.50
Shaving Cream $1.50
Deodorant $1.50
Dry Idea Deodorant $1
Vaseline Lotion Smaller Bottle$2
Vaseline Pump Lotion $3
Glade Sense-n-Spray $3
Glade Lasting Impressions $3
Glade Small Soy Candles $2.50
Febreze Plug In $4
Random Cereal $1.50
Sunsilk Stylers $1.50
Shampoo/Conditioner $2
Medicine $2
Sambucol $2 ( $1.01 MM @ Wags)
Johnson Baby Products $2.50
Bertolli Pasta Pouches $2
Safeway Pasta $1
Electrosol Dish Tabs $2
Bright Green Kleenex $1
Softsoap Body Wash $2.50
Nivea Body Wash $2.50
Random FAR Items I've collected $1-$2
Other Cleaning Supplies $1.50
Huggies Diapers $5

And again last day slashed everything that I had left to half off! I hope that this was helpful to everyone. Garage Sales should be simple and fun! The most fun I think is replenishing your stock!! Good luck to everyone and HAPPY SHOPPING:-)


**Have you had a garage sale yet? If so I would love to hear from you on how you did and any pointers you can offer fellow readers and myself!**

8 comments:

Adventure Sisters said...

Is it legal to sell your stockpile without a business license of some sort?

Heather said...

Sharene,
You do not need a business license to have a garage sale:-)

Monica said...

Heather, thanks so much for this information. I used to only buy things we use or need until I read your post about making over $500. So now, I've started my stockpile and plan to have one at the end of the summer. Thanks!!!

Heather said...

Monica,
Good luck on your sale! I'm glad this information was useful for you:-)
Hope you SELL-OUT!

joelle said...

Heather - thanks so much for this!! I will keep you posted on how my garage sale goes! :-)

sealofsteel said...

Hello, this site is great. I was starting to panic as I was going through my blog faves trying to remember who had the great garage sale post and when I finally got to yours I couldn't believe my luck that you had posted a garage sale 101. It made it so easy. I had a question about your experience with your garage sale. This is my first one here in Oregon. I am in Oregon City and was just wondering how much people in this area expect to haggle? I HATE hagglers. I would rather price low and fair and be done with it but in my experience you usually need to price I little high because everyone asks for a deal. Did you run across that here or maybe that was just where I moved from??? If you get a chance please let me know what you think. Thanks so much!
Oh and thanks for the Target deals. When I first started I was getting so frustrated with Target because the blogs I was reading were not from the area so when I would go nothing matched up. It seems as if this Target (clackamas) is higher than most postings and I don't seem to find the lower clearance prices as some have mentioned. Is that your experience also? I might have to give it another go since you are posting such great deals. Thanks again!
Misty
mnmzz at msn dot com

Lissa said...

Wow! I am not alone! I have been having garage sales off of my stockpile each month for over a year now! I live in GA and even the winter months were profitable! I took a break for the last 3 months to stock up for a huge blow out sale! I live in an area where we have what is called "The Dixie Highway 90-mile yard sale" yes the yard sale is actaully 90 miles long and runs straight through my town!

Last year we had about 500 or more people come through and I made over $1000 in one day just off of stockpile alone. I price my items low enough to beat Walmart and general sale prices but high enough to let it go for 1/2 off at noon the day of the sale (and still not pay someone to take it even though I made money off of the items that I sold at regular price!).

I have to agree that advertisment and word of mouth are the 2 greatest tools in a successful sale! I have connections with my local newspapers that allow me to advertise for free with them, I use Craigslist, and I have multiple people hand out flyers for me (I even have thrift stores put up a sign for me!)

Between the savings at the grocery store and the profits that I make from my yard sales I am able to stay at home. I am not a millionaire by far but being able to stay at home with my daughter is amazing!

I also set up a temporary site when I have my sales to let people visualize my madness! This year we are moving and I am getting rid of almost all of my stockpile! My husband is getting laid off from his current company but we have found him a new job in our home town!

I have 3 times as much as I did last year and hope to bring home $2500+ from this sale in 2 days or less!

You can check out my insanity here! LOL :)

www.dixiehighwaysale.blogspot.com

Jennifer said...

Iam going to attempt to sell half of my stockpile this next weekend. But if your having a bunch of diff bins you cant really tell one price from another esp. if you have a lot. And some tooth paste/things are more expensive. I think I may have to individually price/ and if I do bulk pricing maybe color code:)