Side Cash for the Summer
- Briana Maggio
- Jun 10, 2017
- 2 min read
I am about three hours into my first garage sale and I am at a WAY higher success rate than I had anticipated. For all of you fellow twenty-something year olds trying to scavenge some income for the weekends, follow these few steps to host a worthwhile garage sale:
1. Make flyers and put your social media accounts to good use at least 24-48 hours in advance.
My garage sale is Saturday, June 10th and Sunday, June 11th from 9:00 am - 3:00 pm so I posted flyers and digital posts on Friday morning. I conveniently live off a main road in Irondequoit, so my physical posters were staked out in front of my house, at the corner of my street, and two consecutive intersections down.
Facebook is an excellent new tool. My mom is a member of the Irondequoit Trading Post page so that post got a lot of foot traffic.
2. Offer a variety. Your customers are going to reach across the board in terms of demographics, sex, and age bracket. They are all looking for different types of items to serve different purposes.
My garage sale provides a little bit of everything. I've got clothes, shoes, accessories, house decor, electronics, childhood toys and games, and my dad even threw in a couple power tools. As of now, I've sold a little bit of everything.
3. Have change ready.
I started off with a cash bank of $100 broken into smaller bills and coins in a little fanny pack for easy access.
4. Don't set specific prices.
I know I don't purchase anything at full price. Ever. I'm a bargain shopper and so are a majority of the people that popped in today. I've had a general ball park for a majority of the items, but I've negotiated a ton! It wasn't worth the time to price each individual item.
5. Be friendly.
I've had Emmett by my side all day, so really it goes without saying. It is important to greet everyone walking by and stopping in, while also drawing a line to avoid hovering. The better the vibe you give off, the more likely people are to buy your things.
Side note: Backyard BBQ Spotify playlist is great noise to fill that awkward silence between you and the strangers shopping.
Emmett is tired from all the work we put into prepping for this weekend, but would love to see you all! ;-)
xx,
Comments