Yard Sale Recap & Lessons Learned

It was in fact painful waking up at 5:45 am this past Saturday for the Yard Sale. But I actually did get up on time and I was well organized before I had my first customer. People seemed most interested in children's clothing, purses, toys and DVDs. And even though I didn't sell as much as I thought I would, I still ended up making about $270.00. Which of course will be spent on more toys and clothing for Ava for Christmas, which inevitably clutters up our house again. Oh, the insanity of it all...

A couple of things I learned from this Yard Sale that I thought I would share with you (in case you're thinking of having one some day):

1- Don't bother pricing every little thing you're selling because people don't read the tags/stickers anyway. Everything is negotiable. When someone would ask me how much something was, I would reply "How much are you willing to pay for it?" And depending on their answer, I would agree or I would counter offer. In most cases, I agreed with the offer because I just wanted to get rid of everything.

2- Offer discounts if someone buys more than one item, such as clothing or shoes, or even toys. For instance, offer buy 3 shirts get the 4th shirt half off.

3- Hang up clothing rather than stacking in bins. People don't like digging through bins and most likely won't spend the time trying to figure out the sizes and styles of clothing. This is when it's really helpful to post signs advertising the sizes of clothing. The downside is that if the shoppers can't fit into your stuff, they won't bother looking.

4- If you're selling your children's clothing and toys, make sure to get their approval. Otherwise, the child may freak out when they see another child with their stuff. Luckily, Ava was perfectly fine with selling her stuff and only grabbed a book or two to keep for a little longer.

So, those are my tips. Now I need to find some time to throw all the stuff that didn't sell into my car and take to Goodwill. Or I guess I can hold on to the stuff until the Spring and try to sell it again at the next neighborhood yard sale.