How to Prepare For A Yard Sale

From fond childhood memories to the yearly case of spring cleaning, yard sales are memorable experiences for so many people of all different ages. Maybe you found your favorite sweater, an old but classic vinyl, or maybe it’s just your go-to decluttering method that makes you a couple of bucks along the way. Long story short: a great yard sale is a good experience for everyone!

Hosting a great yard sale, however, isn’t a trivial task. At least, not entirely. While it isn’t necessarily difficult, there are a few key steps one needs to take before setting up shop. What are these steps, you ask? You’ve come to the perfect place to find out!

Do your Research

A yard sale is a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of work, and it would be a bummer for that work to go to waste! One of the keys to a successful yard sale is making sure to put in the work before the sale, and doing the necessary research to make sure your sale is successful.

For one, pricing is a crucial aspect, and it isn’t always obvious. While a yard sale is a good way to make a quick buck, it isn’t really the place to be expecting a huge return on valuable purchases. Generally speaking and as a rule of thumb, don’t expect to be making much more than about $50 per item at an absolute maximum. People tend to go to yard sales looking for great bargains or serendipitous finds, which usually rules out big purchases from the moment they step outside their homes.

To know which prices are appropriate, do your research! You can search on sites such as eBay or Craigslist to get a general idea of what similar used items are going for, but your best bet is always going to be other yard sales in your community. That gives you the best idea of what people in your community are going to pay for those items.

Another important bit of research is needed to know when to set up your sale. Certain days are better for yard sales than others, and certain days are generally bad ideas for sales. There are general guidelines to follow but, ultimately, this will also depend on your community.

Advertise

This is an easy factor to miss. Advertise ahead of time! If your community hosts regularly scheduled community yard sales, of course, this won’t be much of an issue. Otherwise, however, if nobody knows about your sale, then nobody is going to come!

There are plenty of great ways to let others know about your upcoming yard sale, and some are better than others, but the most important thing is getting the info out there. There are great ways to display your items in order to make sure people passing by decide to stop and check out your items, but no amount of skillful display skills are going to be able to compete with good and thoughtful advertising.

Places like local coffee shops and libraries, online community pages and forums, and good old-fashioned bright signs at intersections are great ways to spread the word. Make sure to give people a fair amount of time to plan too, since a great day for a yard sale might also be a great day to head out of town for your neighbors!

Gather Materials

For advertising, for pricing, for sanitation, and for many other factors, you need materials! Make sure to have these on hand before the big date, since failing to do so is just introducing unnecessary amounts of stress and confusion. If you don’t buy and prepare your pricing stickers beforehand, you’ll be scrambling to clarify prices all day long. If you don’t make sure to have some petty cash on hand at the beginning of the sale, you’ll be scrambling to make changes for every sale. A yard sale has no egg—you shouldn’t be scrambling!

Making sure you’ve got not only the game plan jotted down, but also that you’ve got the materials you’ll need to carry out the whole operation, is the best way to make sure your yard sale is a good time for everybody, and well worth your efforts. Once the prep work is out of the way, you should be ready to set up and get that decluttering underway in no time. Long live the yard sale!