How to Make Extra Money at your Next Yard Sale
Every Fall we have a yard sale. It just always seems to be the time of year when we go through our clothes and our garage and our attic and every-single-room in our house and purge. You know when you just feel like you’re swimming in items and you just need to get rid of them? That’s been me throughout the last few weeks. I’ve literally had opened brown boxes in every single room in our house that I’ve been tossing stuff in for the last 2 solid weeks. I knew we were going to have a yard sale, and I knew I needed to really buckle down and get rid of as much stuff as possible!
Well, today was the day we did it, and we made over $700… which isn’t bad for a 8-12PM day.
I’m thrilled with the outcome, just thrilled!
Since we’ve had so many yard sales (and have usually made a good amount of money at them), I’ve kind of gotten to know a few secrets that *can* help you make extra money along the way. Let’s face it, the point of a yard sale is to make some extra money… so it’s always good to know ways that can really help you make as much money as possible.
Here are my Tips as to How to Make Extra Money at your Next Yard Sale:
1. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. It’s been helpful to have a constant pot of coffee available for people who stop by, it’s a small investment and it really keeps people at your yard sale longer, especially on a cold morning (like it was for us today).
2. Write little notes next to each item, for example… “Great gift for the Holidays!” Give people a reason to have to buy an item. Many times you see items at yard sales and don’t even think that something might be good for a Birthday present, an anniversary gift or a Holiday gift, especially if something is NEW.
3. Lay out ALL the clothing you have on tables. I ran into this problem this morning, I didn’t have tables set up, I just had boxes and boxes of clothing for sale. People don’t always like rummaging through boxes, so I went to our basement and took out 4 tables and laid everything out, even folded items, too. This made it much for appealing to the eye and easier for people to see what I had available. I sold triple the amount of clothes in the next hour than I had all morning.
4. If you have NEW items that haven’t been touched or used, write NEW. People love seeing things that are gems at yard sales, these are those kinds of items to people.
5. Bottles of water in the afternoon. We went to BJ’s and bought 3 cases of water, which we let the kids sell for 50 cents later in the day when it got warmer out. They probably sold about 2 cases worth of water. It was a nice add-on for people coming to the yard sale.
6. We didn’t do this today, but you can always take the opportunity to sell cookies, muffins and cupcakes at a yard sale. Package them beautifully and you have an extra item to sell for the day!
7. Sell items in bulk. If you see someone looking at a few books, make sure you approach them with a deal immediately. For example, “Just want to let you know, the books are $2 each, but if you buy 3 of them… I’ll do it for $5.” Always come up with a deal for items if you think someone may buy more than 1 (and this is if you have bulk items in something).
8. Get people talking. My girlfriend came this afternoon to my yard sale and started chatting it up with me about the candles she was buying. She was so excited about her purchase, that she literally attracted 2 other people there to go over and buy them, too. So if someone is buying something that you have extras in, strike up a little conversation about why they’re buying or what they love about them… you never know, it could help you sell more!
And… you can always do what my sons did this afternoon which horrified me! OMG, I kept wondering how they were coming over to us with 1’s and lots of change. They wanted to stand at the end of our driveway with YARD SALE signs and flag down cars. Well… they decided to put out a tip bowl… which I didn’t know about and people kept dropping money into it!
