A couple of weekends ago, a few friends and I had a garage sale. It was by far the biggest one we have done together. It was fun.
We learned a few things that I thought I would pass along:
Doing a sale on Friday and Saturday (not just Saturday) is worth it.
We had a lot of stuff. So to only have the sale one day would have made our efforts not really worth it. I actually sold a lot more of my bigger items on the 2nd day.
Selling treats at your sale is a good thing.
We had chocolate chip cookies 3/$1, chocolate no-bake cookies 3/$1, gigantic oatmeal chocolate chip cookie $1 each, water bottles .50, tootsie pops .25 and coffee .50 a cup.
People will buy the baked goods. I don't remember anyone haggling over the price of the food and water. In fact, several people bought $5 worth of cookies and water - for themselves and their kids and even for those they left at home.
Be sure to wrap your baked goods neatly in plastic wrap, display them neatly, and of course - bake safely. :)
Balancing the till (with multi-family sales)
When a customer would come to our table to pay, we would pile up our stuff into piles. A pile for me, a pile for Cami, a pile for Lisa and a pile for Candy. We would each add up our own piles and write the total under our column. We would give a total to the customer, make change and then once that sale was complete we would underline the totals. This allowed us to start fresh with each new sale.
We found that underlining the completed sale helped us to keep track of where we left off. Then when we were adding up a new sale, we could see what numbers to add.
Less confusion. It's a good thing!
We learned a few things that I thought I would pass along:
Doing a sale on Friday and Saturday (not just Saturday) is worth it.
We had a lot of stuff. So to only have the sale one day would have made our efforts not really worth it. I actually sold a lot more of my bigger items on the 2nd day.
Selling treats at your sale is a good thing.
We had chocolate chip cookies 3/$1, chocolate no-bake cookies 3/$1, gigantic oatmeal chocolate chip cookie $1 each, water bottles .50, tootsie pops .25 and coffee .50 a cup.
People will buy the baked goods. I don't remember anyone haggling over the price of the food and water. In fact, several people bought $5 worth of cookies and water - for themselves and their kids and even for those they left at home.
Be sure to wrap your baked goods neatly in plastic wrap, display them neatly, and of course - bake safely. :)
Balancing the till (with multi-family sales)
When a customer would come to our table to pay, we would pile up our stuff into piles. A pile for me, a pile for Cami, a pile for Lisa and a pile for Candy. We would each add up our own piles and write the total under our column. We would give a total to the customer, make change and then once that sale was complete we would underline the totals. This allowed us to start fresh with each new sale.
We found that underlining the completed sale helped us to keep track of where we left off. Then when we were adding up a new sale, we could see what numbers to add.
Less confusion. It's a good thing!
1 comment:
Even though I have only had one garage sale in my life, I appreciate all your tips. I have made lots of notes for when the time comes to have another one. You truly are the Queen of garage sales! ☺
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