Looking for a way to add to your Disney fund and tidy up your home at the same time? I’ve got two words for you…YARD SALE!
Some people recoil at the mention, others are all in. I grew up shopping and hosting yard sales with my mom, queen of saving, and I’m still very much down for a sale. And one where I make money instead of spend money is always a plus!
Whether you’re a pro or a novice, here are a few tips you can snag to make your next yard sale a success.
1. Get Your Merch
We have two yard sales a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. Since we know we’ll be having one, I have a small shelf in the garage where I toss items as I come across them for the next sale. I attempt to keep bins organized on this shelf so setting up is easier when sale day comes. For example, I have a box for kids’ clothes, housewares, Disney merch, teaching supplies, etc.
If you’re starting from scratch, try to find an out of the way place to keep your stash. If you have kids, keep it out of their sight, otherwise everything in the boxes suddenly becomes their favorite toy, shirt, oven mitt…you get the picture.
When you’re going through your house, don’t underestimate what people will purchase. I’ve sold everything from Tupperware lids to used undergarments to a box of tangled cords. Put everything out and see what goes! You’d be surprised.
2. Price Everything
People hate asking for prices. Whether the sale is (hopefully!) busy and they don’t want to wait or their social anxiety says “nope,” no prices can equal no sales.
I try to price things as I pull them from my home to save myself some time the week before the sale. If you don’t set aside some time in the days leading up to the sale to add tags. If you have several like items, you can also group price like “All kids’ clothes $1” or “DVDs 2 for $3.”
Don’t do a color coded price system (like all red dots are $1, blue dots $2, etc.). Save everyone some brain cells and just write the actual prices on the items.
When pricing, shoot for about 10% of the retail price. Shoppers are coming to yard sales for bargains and are, literally, not going to buy in to your sentimentality pricing or the fact that it’s $xx.xx brand new. If you’re ok bringing something back in the house at the end of the sale, take your chances and price it higher, but if you want things out, go low.
You can get super cheap price tags, but masking tape and mailing labels can also suffice. Just make sure they stick well. For fabric items or jewelry, I like the hanging tags. I sold lots of smaller jewelry items by placing them in small plastic bags and displaying the price on the bags then tacking to a cork board.
3. Have Change Ready and Use Apps
Your first sale of the day will absolutely buy a quarter item with a $20 bill. Have plenty of quarters, $1s, $5s and a few $10s on hand for those early sales.
You can also bypass making change and increase sales by accepting Venmo, CashApp, PayPal, etc. At our most recent yard sale, we made over $500 in Venmo and CashApp sales! Most people will spend more if they know they don’t have to have physical cash to cover it.
Print out your QR codes for your app(s) of choice and display them by your cashier area for easy payments.
4. Get the Word Out
You can’t make the moolah if no one knows you’re open for business.
Most of our customers, based on extremely scientific data gathering during our last sale, found us due to Facebook. We posted on Marketplace and shared to all relevant groups (that allow sale posts). Yard sale groups, teacher groups, mom’s groups, community groups, neighborhood groups…all great places to advertise at zero cost.
Eyecatching signs on major intersections near your sale and your street are also must-haves. I upcycles old political signs with black spraypaint and bright vinyl (thank you Cricut) and received several compliments on the easy to read info.
5. Make It a Family Affair
Invite friends and family to join you! Not only will you have some company for the day, you’ll also have extra hands and eyes to help out or spot any suspicious behavior.
In addition, shoppers love the words “Multifamily Sale!” That means more deals for them. Your friends’ merch also brings in different customers who may not have stopped at your sale. This past sale, my cousin had tons of baby girl clothes, but several shoppers who came to shop her wares also ended up buying things from the rest of us.
Don’t forget to differentiate your price tags so you can keep everyone’s earnings straight.
As a bonus, we are all members of different Facebook groups, so we were able to increase our reach by having everyone share the sale.
6. Get Creative with Displays
To the chagrin of everyone else participating in my yard sales, I always get compliments on the organization. I’m very fussy about making sure like items are together, things are spaced out and everything looks clean and organized. While it annoys everyone during set up, they’re thrilled when items start flying off the tables.
Speaking of tables, they are an ideal way of displaying your treasures, but we don’t all have half a dozen banquet tables in our garage. Use turned over boxes, boxes with lids, boards laid on chairs. We pulled out our backyard table, my kitchen table and shelving units for our last sale because we had so much to display. As much as possible, keep from piling items on the ground or leaving them in boxes. Things quickly get messy and passed over unless people can scan quickly to see if it’s worth digging deeper.
Clothing is best displayed by hanging, but again, clothing racks aren’t always an option. A ladder across chairs, a rope between walls, tree branches and fences are all easy go-tos in a pinch.
Use a bookshelf to display, well, books. But you can also set up little vignettes like your favorite retail stores to make your items more attractive.
Bring your shoe shelf out for the weekend and keep your pairs off the ground and together. My niece group priced by shelf.
I swiped this idea from our local JBF Sale. Zip tie pricier items, like these bags, to a rack to keep them from wandering off during the sale. It also keeps all the bags on full display rather than piling them in a box or on a table.
If you’re part of a fandom, gather all those goodies in one area so your fellow geeks have one stop shopping. Although we had Disney items that could go in all categories, we collected them all in one spot and ending up selling all of it at the sale or online. I snapped a picture of the leftovers (which was easy because they were all together), and within a day on Facebook Marketplace, everything was sold!
7. Creature Comforts
Offer up water (either for free or have the kids set up a stand and earn their own keep), especially on those warm spring and summer sale days.
Have a pop up shade? Bust it out and set it up over your tables to encourage guests to stay and peruse a little longer when the sun is blazing overhead.
Have some family-friendly music playing in the background. We usually opt for “Feeling Happy Radio” on our Alexa.
Turn your yard into your own little chill boutique, and your shoppers will adore it!
Share your favorite tips with us in the comments! And happy sale-ing!