10 Tips for a Successful Yard Sale

Yard sales are as much a summertime staple as lemonade stands, Slip 'N Slides and vacations to sandy beaches. Drive through the neighborhood on any Saturday this time of year and chances are you'll see more than a handful of yards and driveways overflowing with unwanted furniture, used books, outgrown clothes and discarded knickknacks. 

We used to call them garage sales in the Maryland neighborhood where I grew up and everyone had a garage. Here in Del Ray, where a garage—detached or otherwise—is unusual, the preferred term seems to be yard sale. 

Regardless of the name, the same principle applies: if you're looking to de-clutter closets, make way for new furniture, or tidy a basement or storage room so it's actually walkable, haul your stuff outside and turn a small profit for your efforts. 

One woman's trash is another woman's treasure, right?

Here are a few tips, picked up over the years, for a successful sale: 

Make it a multi-family event: In the past, we've coordinated with as many as six other families on our street to hold simultaneous sales. Multi-family sales provide more variety and attract a larger number of customers. They also cut down on the individual prep work because tasks like making signs, posting them around town and alerting social media sites can be shared. 

On the flip side, our largest multi-family sale attracted such a crowd of customers that traffic nearly ground to a halt on the street and one car got banged up rather badly in the narrow conditions. If you live on a street where parking is prohibited on one side, consider posting "No Parking" signs to remind people stopping at your sale. 

Post colorful signs: A note scrawled on a white piece of paper and taped to a telephone pole won't get as much attention as one written in bold letters on brightly-colored poster board. Tack your sign to a tomato stake or cover it over an old political sign, something easy to put in the ground. Don't forget to take your sign down as soon as your sale ends. 

Advertise: Post information about your sale on Craigslist, local list servs, even on Del Ray Patch. They're all free. Include the date and time of your sale, but also mention any big-ticket items or special categories of things that might attract a particular audience like maternity clothes, kids toys or science fiction books. 

Go to the bank before the sale: You'll need plenty of coins and small bills to make change. 

Use pre-printed price labels: Yard sales in Del Ray can get quite busy. To avoid fielding repeated questions from your customers, make the prices easy to find and read. I once tried labeling an entire table, rather than each item, according to price. A $5 table, for instance, and a $1 table. It didn't work. All of the items quickly ended up blended together as customers carried things between tables. 

Don't use pre-printed price labels: This is an option as well. If you're like me, you're goal isn't really to make money (that's just the bonus). The goal is to get stuff out of the house. I generally make up the price on the fly and indicate to the buyer that I'm willing to make a good deal. 

Set up early: If you advertise the start time as 8 a.m., expect early birds to show up an hour earlier.

Position a box of free stuff at the front of the sale: I picked this up from a neighbor's friend. The idea is to use the enticement of free things to get people to stop at your sale. Once they've stopped, and picked up something for nothing, they feel obligated to look through the rest of your things, she argued. It makes sense to me. 

Position big-ticket items out front: If you have a TV or table, something you think will sell quickly, put it out front for passersby to see. Likewise, pay attention to this throughout the day as your stuff sells and continue to make the sale appealing from the curb. 

Consider a lemonade stand: If you have kids, a lemonade stand close by will keep them busy and generate traffic, too. 

Give away what you don't sell: We generally unload everything we try to sell but occasionally there are some items that no one is willing to pay for. I put those things on the curb at the end of the day and stick a big "FREE" sign next to them. They're gone within hours.

What about you? Do you have any tips for a successful yard sale? Share them with us in the comments.