I am preparing to host my first ever garage sale this Saturday. Having taken part in a few garage sales (and having been to even more), I thought I was pretty prepared for all the work involved. Man, it is a lot of work. Especially while trying make sure your toddler doesn't run full speed down the driveway into traffic.Matt is against garage-saleing as a rule, but I think he is curious to see how it's going to go. He doesn't like to haggle with people, but since we're in "everything must go" mentality, there won't be much haggling going on. After all, we're adding a whole other person to our family in August, and babies have lots of stuff.
Our sale is a few days away, but we have almost everything set up. As we go, I am schooling Matt in basic garage salesmanship.
Rule #1 : Everything has to be clean. You can easily spend days on this if your stuff has been in storage for awhile. Fun times.
Rule #2 : Display display display. There was a library study done several years ago in which a librarian chose books of which the library owned two copies. One, she left on the shelf. The other, she displayed. Guess which one checked out more? My own personal library-gleaned rule is that books on the bottom shelves don't check out much, so put your boxes on tables to encourage more browsing. Also, signs make a huge difference for people who come looking for one thing. They want to get in and get out. They do not want to check out all your crap to find that one-in-a-million deal.
Rule #3 : Bargain hunters start early 'round these parts. We'll be setting up at 7 for an 8 a.m. sale time. I already posted our sale on Craigslist and (surprise surprise!) received a few emails asking about specific items. One person even asked if we'd be willing to open our garage to him for a "preview sale".
I told you they start early.
