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Conducting A Garage Sale
When you begin to move from one location to another in Sydney, Australia, or beyond, you do not have to carry all your items. However, this does not mean that you should throw them away. You can turn your unwanted items into cash through garage sales. You can sell them through different platforms or set a day for your garage sale in your yard.
Holding a successful garage sale is never easy, especially if this is your first time. This calls you to take time to plan and strategise how to undertake the process. Regardless of why you want to sell your items, you need to understand some garage sale tips to help you in the process. This article focuses on guiding you on having a successful garage sale.
How To Prepare For A Garage Sale
Just as you would when you want to sell anything else in your home, you should make sure that you are ready for a garage sale. No one will want to buy your items in Sydney if they look disorganised or in poor condition. Here are some of the practical and beneficial ways that you can prepare for a garage sale:
Declutter Your Home
The first thing you need to do is to declutter your space. Make sure you clean it out and ensure that you only have the most critical items in your area. Note that buyers will look at all the items you have in your possession and check if they are necessary.
If you have many unnecessary items in your garage sale, they may not be willing to pay a high price since they do not find such things necessary. The primary objective here is to eliminate the junk and make your garage sale look valuable to potential buyers.
Improve the Curb Appeal of Your Property
Before the garage sale day, make sure that you improve the curb appeal of your property. Note that buyers start judging your garage sale depending on the look of your yard. Therefore, make sure you clean your property's exterior and spruce it up. This helps captivate interested buyers and makes them willing to pay a high price for your items.
Gather All the Items for Sale
You should also ensure that you gather all items. Make identification of all the things that you want to sell. You should never underestimate the full value of the items that you get. This is necessary because garage sale buyers are usually apt to purchase anything.
Group similar items together so that it becomes easy to sort them out. Identify and mark the boxes with all the items you want to sell. This will also make it way simpler for you to pick out the items when a potential buyer asks for them. Keep in mind that more potential buyers will be willing to buy your items if your garage sale looks organised.
Get a Permit
Most places in Sydney require a seller to get a permit to hold garage sales. Thus, it is good to know if you need permits to sell your items in a garage sale. If you need one, you should apply for it to ensure that you do not face legal issues in the process. The good thing is that you can apply for the permits online without visiting the offices. In addition, you can make all the required payments online. Due to the digitalisation of many services in Sydney, it is easier to get all the needed permits for your garage sale.
Set a Date
Ensure that you set a date for holding your garage sale. With a set date, it becomes easy for you to plan everything to ensure that you are ready when the day arrives. It is advisable to plan your garage sale on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings. You need to schedule the sale for the first weekend of the month.
This is the right time since most people usually have money to spend on this weekend because they receive their payments at the end of the month. The earlier you begin, the simpler it will be for you to sell a lot of your items. Moreover, make sure you check the forecast before starting the sale. For instance, you may not get many buyers if you plan the sale during the rainy season. You need a day that is convenient for you and the buyers.
Invest in All the Required Supplies
You need to buy all the supplies needed for your garage sale. Some of the supplies you may need include blank labels, stickers, masking tape, permanent markers, tables, and chairs. You can buy these items from your local store. With all the necessary supplies, it becomes easy for you and allows you to be comfortable during the sales day.
How To Advertise Your Garage Sale
Now that you have prepared for the garage sale, it is time to ensure that you promote it to get buyers fast. Bear in mind that you probably will not be the only person selling on your set day in Sydney. Therefore, you need to ensure that your garage sale can have a competitive edge over others. Ensure that you start promoting it a week in advance to make the selling process easier for you. The best way is to present your items as unique from the others. If you advertise your garage sale correctly, you can be sure that your items will sell like hot cake.
Here are some of the ways to advertise your garage sale:
Through Newspaper Classifieds
Although newspaper classifieds do not hold the place they used to in the past, you should never ignore them when promoting your garage. It is possible for you to get the best deal from people who go through the classified sections looking for garage sales. It is also a cheap way to advertise your garage sale and does not involve a lot of work on your part.
The best time to use newspaper classifieds as an advertisement mechanism is a weekend before the date of the sale. Ensure that you mention all the valuable and enticing items to help attract more potential buyers. Moreover, you should include the garage sale date, time, contact details, and address to make it easy for potential buyers to reach you.
Promote on the Web
You can also promote your garage sale for free on various reputable sites that usually trade in local sales adverts in Sydney. Some of the websites you can advertise your garage sale include Nextdoor, Craigslist, Yard Sale Search, Garage Sale Finder, and others. These sites are not stringent with the word counts that you can use for your adverts. As a result, you have the freedom to describe your garage sale and list all the items available.
If you want to describe your items, make sure you showcase them as unique to attract more potential buyers. Note that these sites usually list the garage sales once posted. So, you need to make your advert at the last minute. You can wait until the last two days before the sales day to post your ad. To help avoid errors and save time, you can write your garage sale advert in a word processing program and then copy and paste it on each site.
Create Garage Sale Signs
You can also promote your garage sale by creating sales signs. Before making the signs, ensure that you check that they are permitted in your local area in Sydney, Australia. You should also check out all other rules and regulations to ensure you do not fall into problems with the authorities. Write your address and garage sale in large letters. There should also be an arrow pointing in the direction of your garage.
Make sure that the signage is as detailed as possible, but do not clutter it with unnecessary information. Try your hardest to make the signage appealing to attract the attention of potential buyers.
Leverage Social Media
In modern times, social media has become the most effective tool for advertising. You can leverage social media as it offers an excellent opportunity to tease potential buyers about taking positive action towards your garage sale. You can use different social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to post photos of the items included. You can also post pictures of your garage signage signs.
You can start promoting your garage sale on social media one or two weeks before the sale. Ensure that you promote two days before the garage sale begins.
Through Community Boards
Community boards can also help create awareness of your garage sales to your local community. You may be surprised that you have people in the local area who are willing to buy your items at a good price.
Preparation For The Garage Sale Day
During the garage sale day, you need to be fully prepared. You do not want to start moving up and down when you are supposed to focus on the selling process. Here are some of the ways to get prepared for the sale day:
Be Ready to Accept Payments
You need to be ready to accept all kinds of payments from the buyers. You should be prepared to accept the payments using all the methods available. Since many buyers will prefer to pay you through cold cash, you should be prepared with a lot of change in your cash box early during the garage sale days.
You should also be ready to accept electronic payments from buyers who will use such methods. Moreover, be ready with your bank account details since some may want to deposit directly to the account. A portable credit card processor or reader is also worth investing in to allow you to accept credit cards on-site.
Sort Out All Your Items
You should sort out all your items before you start the pricing process. Your garage sale will be organised and more appealing to potential buyers by doing this. You can use the room that is not busy in your house as the staging area. Gather all the non-bulky items and then categorise them. For instance, if it is clothes, you can categorise them into children's, men's and women's clothing, toys, home goods, books, and so forth.
Price All the Items
You need to price all the items that you will sell individually. It is not advisable to try to save time by creating high-priced lots for several pieces of clothing or pieces of cookware. You should also avoid putting all the same priced items in a single box. Buyers like checking each of the products. Instead of using specialised price tags, you can use a sharpie and manila paper to price your items.
The tags do not add any value and will cost you more money than the brown tape. You should also avoid the temptation of overpricing your items. Most buyers know the average price of items during garage sales, so if you overprice the items, they will not be ready to buy them.
Organise Your Garage Sale
It is now time to set your items for the display. Arrange your hangers and tables before the garage sale. If you want to start the sale early, you should arrange everything the night before. If you do not have enough space on your table for every item, you can store them in laundry baskets or boxes containing similar items.
Ensure that you secure everything in your garage overnight and be ready to put everything out during the garage sale day. Moreover, create a map of your yard on sale day so that you can understand where to find each element.
Host Your Garage Sale
Here are the top garage sale tips to apply during the big day:
Get Ready
Allow yourself at least one hour before the start of the garage sale to set everything and put the signs. You can have some people to help in moving everything safely. Create a change station, preferably in an area with a shade, with a comfortable chair and strong table. Before your sale starts, you can put a yard sale sign on the street to ensure that all potential buyers know that there is a garage sale in your yard.
Motivate the Crowd to Buy Your Items
Make sure you greet each person who comes to your garage sale, whether they look interested or not. Avoid following would-be buyers around or giving unwarranted commentary about your items. You should be clear that you are ready to answer all questions, be friendly and remain seated. If the potential buyers have questions, they will approach you.
Be Ready for Bargaining
Most buyers will bargain for price reduction on the items they are interested in. Therefore, you should be open to bargain during the garage sale. You need to know the average price that most items cost during garage sales in Sydney. This helps you know the base price so that you can also be able to negotiate with the potential buyers. You can research the best negotiation skills to convince potential buyers to pay a higher price for the items.
Handle the Leftovers
You will have some items that will not be bought at the end of the weekend or day. You can also figure out how you will get the most from the sale. Instead of giving them out for free, you can sell them at a more reduced price to try and attract buyers. You can also sell the items individually by listing them on Craigslist, Facebook, Marketplace, Nextdoor, and other popular and secure marketplaces.
For costlier items such as electronics and furniture, you can list them in Decluttr, where they can get potential buyers fast. For the less valuable leftovers, you can donate them to a thrift store or nonprofit. Nonprofit organisations and thrift stores are ready to accept nonperishable items. This is a better way to deal with the leftovers instead of throwing them away.
Get Advice For Your Garage Sale
Whether this is your very first time or you have held a garage sale before, the above garage sales tips can help you carry out a successful sale. The essential thing is to guarantee that you apply these tips accordingly to ensure that you actually succeed. Make sure you plan thoroughly, organise your items, price them well, create ads, and pick up all the supplies you will need in the process. You should not despair even if you are left with a lot of unsold items. The most critical thing is that a successful garage sale will allow you to have a better organised and less cluttered home.
In addition, you will also earn some extra cash that you can spend the way you want. However, if the amount of items left over after the sale far exceeds the amount you wanted to be left, fear not. This is because, luckily, you can always reach out to successful garage sellers to help you organise a successful garage sale. They have been in this field for a substantial amount of time, so they can offer you the right help and advice to ensure that you get the absolute best results from your garage sale.
