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Garage Sale Tips

10 Tips for an Epic Family Garage Sale

Whatever you do, make BIG, BEAUTIFUL AND COLORFUL SIGNS!

1)    Get Organized

  • Section a room or area in your home to be filled with the items you wish to sell
  • Be sure to obtain a permit from your municipality if required

2)    Source your inventory

  • Categorize your items for display purposes, and create an inventory list of what you’ll be selling

3)    Price your items

  • Use a pricing worksheet to outline the prices you’ll be asking and the lowest price you’ll be willing to accept. This is a good way to keep track of profits too.

4)    Be creative in advertising your event

  • Utilize as many methods as possible to get the word out (post your event online (Tagsellit.com, Craigslist.org), Newspapers, Social Media, Create and Post Signs where permitted (be sure to remove them after the sale)

5)    Be prepared to prove your items work properly

  • Have batteries, extension cords and tools handy to assist prospective buyers in their decision making process

6)  Be knowledgeable of the items you’re selling

  • Once they’re sold you can’t ask for them back, be sure you do your due diligence before you sell jewelry or art

7)  Recruit your friends for help

  • An extra pair of hands and eyes are always helpful when working a yard sale

8)  Assume responsibility

  • Be sure your homeowner’s insurance policy covers you while having your event at your home
  • Be aware of items you sell that have been recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission – you’re not allowed to resell these items!

9) Have fun!

  • Keep a smile on your face, be pleasant and remember the ultimate goal is to get rid of as much stuff as possible, so keep an open mind when it comes to bartering, haggling and negotiating!

10) Donate your unwanted items to neighborhood organizations that accept them

Salvation Army Website – http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/

Goodwill Website – http://www.goodwill.org/

Local Houses of Worship

Tax Benefits, Charitable Donations Information – http://www.justgive.org/

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Yard Sale Tips

Did you know…

Garage Sales are a multi-billion dollar industry; how much money did you make the last time you hosted one? Whether you’re planning and preparing for a lifestyle liquidation, yard sale or virtual garage sale, this is your must read guide.

Inside you’ll learn remarkable tips and tricks for maximizing profit while running an efficient and effective garage sale from start to finish. A fully loaded, fun and informative read for any buyer, seller and garage sale enthusiast!

Tag Sell It Inc. was founded in October 2007 to provide all garage sale enthusiasts an online destination for buying and selling their items. Tagsellit.com is designed to solve the challenges of individuals who wish to sell their second-hand personal or household items, but are unable to host a physical garage sale at their residence. Members of the website enjoy being a part of “The Largest Group of Tag Sale Enthusiasts,” a unique community integrated into the site enabling users to experience a fun social networking aspect.

Our Garage Sale Guide Book is now available for the Amazon Kindle! Click here to download it now!

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Yard Sale Tips

Preparing for a Yard Sale is a lot of work if you have a lot of stuff to sell but there are ways you can make it easy, fun and profitable if you plan and organize ahead of time. The more you do in advance of your sale day(s), the more you’re going to profit and things will run smoothly, especially if you have a few helping hands pitching in for the day or even a couple hours.

We’ve prepared two easy-to-use tools that you can print off right from our website. The first is a simple Garage Sale Checklist that you can print out three weeks in advance of your sale and stick to your refrigerator. This checklist breaks down the responsibilities and reminders of what to do before the big yard sale day arrives. Remember, you can easily get the whole family involved by assigning responsibilities and to make it even more fun, splitting the profits at the end of the sale and treating everyone to ice cream or a movie!

This second tool is a Yard Sale Organizer. This is a spreadsheet that you can print out (as many as you need) and keep track of your sales, goals and any specific notes about a particular item. The advantage to using this is being able to have everyone who’s working your sale on the same page when it comes to selling items. You don’t have to do this for every item, but for the larger ticket items, or items that you think will have questions, it’s a good tool to use. This is a great tool for tracking your yard sale profits and successes. It also helps to have this record in the event you were ever audited because the government does require you to pay taxes on your yard sale profits!

You can apply both of these organizing and record keeping tools to any type of sale event, a moving sale, estate sale or just a big tag sale!

Be sure to share your tips and suggestions for pulling off profitable and successful yard sales!

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Dress Down for Success

Do you strategically plan your outfit before heading to a garage sale? If not, you could be hurting your bottom line.

Negotiating can be tricky for beginners. It may look easy, but it’s much more than throwing out a number and adjusting based on the response. There are strategies and tricks that involve all sorts of factors; one of which is what you’re wearing.

It may seem unfair, but I’ll be the first one to tell you that what you’re wearing matters. If you want to come from a position of strength, you need to dress as though you don’t have money. This means you need to leave your Rolex, your diamonds and your fancy handbag at home. When you show up at a garage sale, estate sale, or even an antique store, you need to look as though you don’t have much money to spend.

As a seller, I’ll admit that I look my buyer up and down before giving a counteroffer. If I think he or she can afford to pay more than they’re offering, I won’t accept. On the flip side, if he or she looks to be of modest means, I’m more likely to negotiate a lower price (it also helps to be nice and personable).

I would also recommend being aware of what car you choose to take to on your garage sale adventure. If you have a nice car, park it a safe distance from your destination. A good sales person will always sneak a peak at your vehicle if they have the chance. A fancy car could hurt your negotiations just as much a Gucci bag.

This may not seem particularly fair, but it’s the way negotiations work. So do yourself a favor, leave the bling at home and you’ll be positioned to negotiate like a pro.

Good luck on your garage sale millionaire quest!

Happy hunting!

-Aaron

 

To learn more about Aaron LaPedis, visit www.thegaragesalemillionaire.com or contact him at thegaragesalemillionaire@gmail.com.

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Pablo Solomon’s Yard Sale Shopping Advice

Although Pablo Solomon is now an internationally recognized artist and designer living the good life, things were not always so good. “I grew up in a multicultural home in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Houston. My parents taught me the value of hard work, education and tenacity. They also taught me how to buy, sell and trade. Our family was supplementing our income with yard sales for as long as I can remember. My parents were really good at it and I carried on the tradition. Now I shop and hold yard sales for fun.”

Here are some of Pablo Solomon’s favorite yard sale shopping tips:

1. Know the value of as many things as possible; The more you know, the more likely you are to make some good buys/deals.

2. Carry a magnifying glass to examine jewelry, art, glassware, pottery, etc. Also carry a tape measure to check frames, print sizes, etc. Often the real deals at yard sales are old frames. I have found some that were 150 years old for chump-change. Frames are also often the key to recognizing valuable art.

3. Wear clothes with lots of pockets and have like $3,$7, $17 in various pockets. If the yard sale person is asking for $5, pull out the $3 and ask if he/she will take the $3, etc. Always carry cash. No yard sale person likes to worry about checks.

4. Remember there are no refunds or returns at yard sales, so if you buy it, you own it.

5. You can usually tell immediately if the yard sale is being held by one of these people trying to beat the system by not having a real shop in order to avoid paying taxes, skirt business fees, etc. by holding sales at their house. Usually these people are overpriced and you will get no bargains.

6. You can also tell if the yard sale is going to be overpriced in general right away. If the first few items you see are overpriced for junk, do not waste your time.

7. You can still find amazing collectibles, antiques, costume jewelry, etc., but you also can find a lot of fakes. Often the person holding the sale does not even know that he/she is selling a fake–and just as often they make a killing selling fakes to suckers.

8. The best sales can often be in the most expensive neighborhoods. Often very expensive clothes, shoes, etc. are sold very cheaply and almost new just because the person is clearing out his/her closet.

9. You just never know what will pop up. Often people inherit things that they have no clue as to the value. That is what you dream of as a shopper.

10. Go early for selection, late for best prices. At the end of the sale, the person holding the yard sale is ready to dump everything cheaply.

11. It is not your job to tell the person holding the sale that they are overpriced for the stuff they are selling– just leave. It is also not your job to tell the person holding the sale that they are under priced for something valuable–just buy the item and smile when you get home.

Pablo Solomon is an internationally recognized artist known primarily for my drawings and sculptures of dancers, as well as for my visionary
environmental designs. He has been featured in books, magazines,
newspapers, radio, TV and film. Currently he lives and works with his wife Beverly on his historic 1856 ranch north of Austin, Texas. Before acting as a full time muse and business manager, Beverly was a model and then in sales and marketing for Diane von Furstenberg, Revlon and Ralph Lauren. You can see Pablo’s work at www.pablosolomon.com

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The Ultimate Garage Sale Guide

Spring is just around the corner, will you be de-cluttering your home this year? Perhaps hosting a garage sale to downsize? Garage Sales are a multi-billion dollar industry; how much money did you make the last time you hosted one? Whether you’re planning and preparing for a lifestyle liquidation, yard sale or virtual garage sale, our book, “The Ultimate Garage Sale Guide” is a must-read! Inside you’ll learn remarkable tips and tricks for maximizing profit while running an efficient and effective garage sale from start to finish. A fully loaded, fun and informative read for any buyer, seller and garage sale enthusiast!

Our Garage Sale Guide Book is now available for the Amazon Kindle! You can even borrow the book on Amazon’s online lending library if you own a Kindle! Check it out today! Click here to download it now!

Getting Kids Involved with Yard Sales

Part I of our mini-series on kids and garage sales highlights the basic principles you can teach children (old enough to understand) about money and yard sales. We asked both professionals and parents from a diverse background for their input and feedback, here’s what they had to say: Andrew Schrage of Money Crashers says, “Explain [...]