I put “garage” in quotes because I don’t have one; I put everything out on my patio (I live in an apartment building on the first floor). Maybe this really belongs in the Pit, because I didn’t even bring in enough money to reimburse me for the newspaper ad.
:rolleyes: :mad:
Just had to vent. Didn’t even have a horde of early birds like these things usually do.
I feel your pain. Madame Pepperwinkle wants to have one nearly every summer, and they never bring in anything worth the effort. The last two have resulted in no sales at all.
Horrible anymore, we had a tenant abandon an apt. and after due process, attempted to sell what was left. A full swing set for kids, a complete above ground pool, pump and all, assorted toys, lawn furniture, miscellania, and we ended up just putting a big FREE sign on it all.
Maybe that’s why I keep paying over $100 a month for my stuff in storage, which trust me, is not worth what I’ve been paying. But there’s some very good stuff in there, and I don’t feel like I want to put a FREE sign on a 1901 Singer with the head, an oak gate leg table with matching chairs, which is very very old, etc.
We had one as part of a neighborhood block sale and we cleared several hundred dollars. We had a good Craigslist post (the way you should plug these things nowadays, the newspaper is a waste) and good signs pointing people to the sale.
I am so sorry your sale didn’t pan out. I love having yard sales.
Go with craigslist. It’s free, and you will sell your stuff!
I think multi-family sales are definitely the way to go. Something about the “bigness” of them makes them more attractive.
Craigslist is good because you can highlight your “big ticket” stuff for people searching for specific items. No one wants to drive out somewhere just to find a patio full of old eight-track tapes and dusty kitchen appliances from the 1970s.
I’ve never encountered anyone who had a ‘successful’ yard sale by your standards. It’s a way to get rid of stuff you don’t want, meet people, have a little fun, and I don’t know what else. I’m sure some people have pulled this off for significant profit, but I haven’t met any. I suspect in your case you picked a bad day. Plenty of people were working on July 5th, it’s a Friday, and plenty of others are on vacation or had long weekend plans. I think these things go over bigger in the Spring before people get their Summer plans in gear, but I don’t know where you live, so maybe it’s not a seasonable factor for you.
I put an ad in Craigslist too, with directions and everything, and even mentioned it on my Facebook page but nobody I know showed up :smack:.
I have a book/video/DVD resale business, and it was mostly romance novels, kids’ books, and homeschooling supplies, which just don’t sell at the antique malls where I have rented space and are generally a huge hit at garage sales. I sold ONE romance novel, but did unload quite a few kids’ books. But not enough of them.
One thing I was happy about is that the ad said I had a lot of educational VHS tapes, and several elementary schoolteachers came by and purchased them for 50 cents each, stating that these things are a Godsend when they have indoor recess. 
They take up a lot of space, and people just don’t want them any more, but these teachers had VHS players in the classroom. I also sold TWO Danielle Steel books, something I have an excess of.
I have taken some kids’ books and videos to a children’s consignment shop that’s next door to a place where I regularly go for meetups, and have made a little $$$$ there. I’m going to cave and start taking them to a chain consignment store near my house, because I know they’ll sell there. The one bookstore that gives credit does 50% credit - in other words, if you have $20 credit, you have to buy $40 of books to use it. Yesterday, I did take some books there and they gave me $18 of credit for the books they took. I’ll eventually use it.
p.s. I chose the 5th because Fridays are generally a very good day for garage sales, and knew that a lot of people would be taking that day off for a long weekend.
And what people don’t buy can be as unusual as what they do buy. Several months ago, I went to a church rummage sale at the very end, because they were selling everything for $1 a bag, and picked up (among other things) 65 classical music CDs (and have sold several), and buried in a knocked-over pile of kids’ books was a biography of the current teen band One Direction.
I put it on prominent display at one of my antique booths, and it didn’t sell there either. You’d think there’d have been some tween girl with Mom, Dad, or Grandpa who squealed, “I WANT THAT!” :p.
I also found the Steve Jobs biography at a garage sale for 50 cents; ditto the new David Maraniss biography of Obama for the same price, and both were in mint condition and probably unopened. Hadn’t sold either as of yesterday, but chances are, nearly everyone who wants one has one, KWIM?
Late summer is actually the worst time of the year for antique malls, because people are concentrating on back-to-school. There was one day when the storefront where I have my smaller booth had a total sales of $2, and that was only because the owner bought one of my books, by an author his wife likes, because he didn’t want a zero-sales day. :eek: I thanked him profusely for this. I’m just glad I don’t totally depend on this, like they do.
Regarding the swingset and pool: It’s possible that people may have avoided them because there may be current safety guidelines that they may not have met. As for your own stuff, contact a reputable antique dealer (if they’re licensed to do appraisals, you’re probably in good hands) and go from there. I have some friends who did that with some linens and silver before they moved away, and found out that it was worth more than they thought. They got about $200 for some things they were going to price at 25 cents at their own moving sale. 
p.s. Do not clean or refinish your old stuff before the appraisal. If doing so will increase its value, they’ll let you know.
I don’t even bother trying to sell anything, we just freecycle it - it gives us freecycle ‘cred’ so we are not seen as moochers.
Which reminds me, I need to have Phlip post my old printer.
I gave up on Freecycle when about 90% of the responders were no call/no shows. Some chapters will ban people if they do this, usually after the 3rd reported time. I definitely don’t respond if their posts are written in textese.
In my old town, there was a woman who was constantly requesting Abeka materials, which is a Christian-oriented homeschooling curriculum, this way. Nope, I wouldn’t want her teaching her children this way either.
I had a garage sale just once. Sold mostly old electronics that I had no use for, flower pots and stuff that wasn’t going with me on the move, etc.
The thing about that day that stands out for me is that I had a huge plastic bin full of small electronics I was selling for $1 each. It was old phones, handheld LCD games I had picked up, and some other assorted items - some broken mind you.
An older gentleman stopped in front of the house, went over to the bin and started digging through it in a very determined manner - as in he knew exactly what he wanted and knew it was there. He reached the item - a broken radio scanner - and without any hesitation or examination handed me a dollar. I warned him that it was broken but he did not seem to care. Very odd.
I can only guess that someone there earlier spotted the item of interest to the guy and called him, but I could not for the life of me figure out who that would be.
I’ve held garage sales and I go to them each year. I would only hold one from April to June in the spring and in September and October when the weather is nice and people want to be outside and never on a holiday weekend like Memorial Day or Mother’s Day. I also only hold mine with other families unless you’re on a busy road. A multi-family is a much higher draw for many people than a lone seller.
Yeah we got our whole street involved in the last one, was pretty awesome but really it’s not about making money it’s about getting rid of junk!
Make sure to put ads out on phone poles. You want at least one at each end of your street, and one on the nearest intersection with a major street, plus probably several more scattered about. Whenever I’m out and about in the summer, I always notice those, and often stop by to see if there’s anything good, even if I hadn’t planned on going garage saling.
Thanks, nearwildheaven.
The most interesting thing I ever sold at one of these was all my old glasses. I mean, from forever ago. Who wants them, you ask?? Turns out the guy was a prop master for a local theater company-he took them all. As nearsighted as I was pre-RK, I feel for the actors.
Sounds like the obvious start to a time traveler movie to me; it was YOU.
You can remove the lenses, you know. Sometimes they put in regular glass, sometimes they don’t.