Run Your Garage Sale like a Business

Marketing

Place ads in local papers, post listings on sites like Craigslist. When online ads give you as much room as you want, describe merchandise in detail. List brand names, clothing sizes, model numbers, etc. You can attach photos or maps. Be sure to give specific directions to your location.

Signs are important too. Nothing can beat the Pavlovian response to a corner placard. The first morning of our sale, after parking our cars around the corner to clear the sidewalk, I hammered fluorescent signs with large type and arrows into the parkway at the end of our block. Truth: traffic patterns changed before my eyes, as one pickup slid across three lanes and another spun a screeching u-turn. By the time I walked back to our house, the curbs were packed.

Pedigo recommends avoiding Saturdays, when there are more shoppers but also more competing sales. Instead she says, hold advertised sales during the week. We found Fridays busy and profitable. If you’re in a company town, think payday.
Experts are split about joining others in neighborhood sales. Pedigo thinks you risk distraction. We found that seven families selling on three adjacent lawns drew crows but also made it feel more like a block party for us, especially during afternoon lags. Some kids asked us to sell their toys on consignment; others asked to set up a lemonade stand.

Pricing

Pricing is probably the most vexing question for newbies and experts offer conflicting advice. Some suggest researching similar items based on completed sales auctions on eBay and setting your prices a little below that. Others suggest pricing items at only 20-30% of what you paid. Pedigo thinks you can hold out for 60-70% of what you paid if you are willing to pack things back into the garage for next time.
But she also says that people waste too much time worrying if they are over- or under-pricing, when how much you make is ultimately determined by how you organize and advertise your “store.”

“Pricing is absolutely the least thing you need to worry about.” Instead, trust your gut. “How much did you pay for it? What kind of shape is it in? Is it a well known brand?”

Try honesty: list what you paid and describe it as like new, lovingly-used, needs TLC, or fixable.

Researching every item online can be tedious if you have hundreds of items. But don’t sell things like antiques, camera gear, vintage toys or professional equipment without knowing what they’re worth; in some cases eBay or Craigslist might be better venues because niche experts seek out items that have more value to them than those things have for you.

Keep pricing psychology in mind, starting with recognition that what has sentimental value for you doesn’t mean much to others. Pedigo says psychology does apply when pricing items just below the nearest dollar and leaving off the dollar signs (ie, 9.95), even if that complicates giving change.

You’ll spend less time answering questions if goods are clearly marked by price tags or fixed prices apply to everything in a particular box or on a particular table. How much you bargain depends on you, but remember that bargaining is a game many shoppers enjoy. Their sentimental valuation may be higher if they bargained down to a price—even if that’s what you intended to sell it for all along. Some of your shoppers may come from cultures where a refusal to bargain is taken as an insult.
A lot of sellers drop prices by 50-75% as the weekend wears on. We tried something different: offering two-for-one earned the same income but got rid of twice as much stuff.

After the Sale

By the time our sale was done, we’d earned about $1,400 even though we hadn’t had any big ticket items and about 95% of our stuff had sold for $5 or less. Nevertheless, I still had a full carload to itemize and take to Goodwill. But there is profit in charity too, in the deductions you can take at tax time.

Applications such as Intuit’s free online utility, ItsDeductible, identify thousands of commonly donated items, from clothing, sporting goods, furniture, household items and other non-cash donations and applies their fair market values for the full tax deduction allowed by IRS guidelines. ItsDeductible derives and updates pricing information by analyzing online auction sites and thrift store transactions.

Steve Barth has worked internationally with banks, governments and NGOs on microfinance and economic development. He blogs at Reflexions.