Top 10 Yard Sale Tips

Now that warm weather has started showing up, I may have a #1 email asked question:  “What are your yard sale secrets?”  I have been getting so many emails about what tips and suggestions we have for throwing a successful yard sale and Josh has been telling me for quite sometime that I should post about this very subject.  Odd as it may sound, I do think there is some art in throwing a good yard sale 🙂

First and foremost, I do want to say that we give all the glory to God for how successful our adoption yard sales have been.  With that said, I do think God placed certain people in our lives and that He allowed us to learn a lot from our previous yard sale experiences that gave us some yard sale wisdom…does that sound crazy?  Hope these tips will help with your fundraising yard sale style.

My yard sale mentor was my good friend Brea.  She is absolutely the QUEEN of yard sales…throwing them and shopping them.  So when we started planning our yard sale for Sol’s adoption Brea gave me some amazing wisdom and knowledge about having a successful yard sale and we took her words and ran with them.  Then after Sol’s yard sale, I knew we had learned some things that would be key in doing this again.  So here we go:

*TIP #1: START EARLY & WORK HARD.  A good yard sale takes a lot of time and work…very hard work.  Josh called it his “part time job”.  We always start at least 2 months out (if not earlier) letting everyone know we are going to be having a yard sale:  Setting up a Facebook page, blogging, emailing, Craiglisting and giving everyone lots of notice that we would love their junk they may be getting rid of.  Advertising is key.  Each week leading up to the sale I would re-post the sale details on Craigslist under the yard sale section and I would post new items that we had received.  Always make it clear what the yard sale is for.  We also put the yard sale details in the paper the week before and the week of the actual sale.  And ask your friends and family to share the information…it can’t hurt to ask.

*TIP #2: GET DONATED ITEMS.  And I mean really push getting donated items. We would send out mass emails, Facebook and blog posts letting people know that we needed items for the yard sale. The best thing for this is to tell people you will pick the items up. This gets really tiresome, but sometimes you just have to put some hard work out there. We found that if we picked the items up, people were much more likely to donate stuff to us…that way they just have to sit it on their back porch and their part is done.  People like convenience.  Also, you really have to flexible with this because some people want it gone that day and others just say you can come whenever to pick up.  We made sure we always made it work to get their items when they wanted them gone, since they were donating to us.  Also scout out other yard sales and talk with the people having the sales and see if you can have their leftovers…you pick it all up when they are done.  People usually love this because after someone throws a yard sale they just want the leftovers gone.  This is also great because most yard sales you pick up from will already have their stuff priced, which equals a little less work for you.

*TIP #3: BE ORGANIZED.  This take s a ton of time, but is well worth it.  Organize everything into categories like home decorations, holidays, books, movies, kitchen supplies, shoes, clothes, jewelry, toys, garden supplies, hardware, baby gear, etc.  You get the picture.  If it is organized, it is more appealing.  Use lots of tables and clothes racks.  Also don’t leave things in boxes.  People don’t want to rummage through boxes…they want to walk through aisles and see what you have.  So if at all possible, take everything out of boxes even clothes.  Books and movies don’t really apply here. You would want them in boxes, but with spines up so people can easily read what they are.  And don’t be afraid to ask for help.  I don’t believe that everyone is meant to adopt, but there are plenty of people that feel called to help those who are adopting.  Extra hands will be a pure blessing, so let go and let people help bless you.

*TIP #4: PRICE EVERYTHING.  People don’t want to name their own price. We actually had this happen twice last time, where 2 things slipped by us and the people came and asked us how much…my mom said. “What will you give for it,” and both times the ladies said, “I don’t want to do that,” and put the item back and moved on. So even down to the tiniest things…price everything.  For books and movies, we just labeled the boxes…like for books 50 cents paper back, $1 hard back. No sense in labeling every one of those.

*TIP #5: HAVE A TWO DAY SALE.  We always do a Friday and Saturday sale.  This is probably my best advice.  You actually will be the busiest on Friday and less busy on Saturday.  Most people just do Saturday and that is where I think they miss out.  The real yardsale people out there like Friday sales and if you have done all your advertising you will get a great turnout.

*TIP #6: RE-ORGANIZE.  If you do a two day sale, the morning of day two reorganize and make things look nice.  Just like a store cleans up each night, so goes for a yard sale.  Also at our last one, we had so much stuff that some clothes did not make it out of some boxes on day one, so on day two we straightened everything up and made more room on the tables, so we were able to get those clothes out of the boxes.

*TIP #7: ADD A BAKE SALE.  This is so easy and people who don’t have items to give you will usually gladly make you some Rice Krispy Treats.  For the pricing of baked goods, just make it by donation. So when people ask, “How much for the cake pops,” just tell them, “They are just by donation, so whatever you want to give and get you some goodies.”  This works well because some people will give you a $5 bill and then just take a few cookies. And if they give you a bigger bill and don’t take very much, we would always encourage them to take some more…the goodies are there to be enjoyed.  Also we noticed that “different” things sold better than just your normal cookies.  So yummy breads, cute trail mixes, cake pops or even if you have regular Rice Krispy Treats, dip one end in chocolate and it will go quicker than the regular Rice Krispy Treat.

And cute kiddos at a lemonade stand, doesn’t hurt either.

*TIP #8: GOOD PRICING.  As far as good prices…I would just say don’t be too cheap, but don’t be crazy pricey either.  I would do a reasonable amount for everything and for the most part I would be firm on price for the first day of the sale. When someone would ask if we would take $x for something instead of what we had priced, I would always say, “I normally would, but we are trying to bring our little boy home from Africa,” and I really can’t remember one person putting the item back.  So if you make it clear why this sale is so important to you people seem to be understanding. On day 2 of the sale, we were much more negotiable, especially on larger items. Near the end of day two, you just want that stuff gone, so we even did $5 a bag for the last two hours just to get it gone.

*TIP #9: CLEAR SIGNS.  Make sure you have big, clear signs that people can see from the road.  Make sure there are signs on the main roads leading to your sale location.  Also, we found that some people would stop just because the sign said “Adoption Yard Sale”.  We had several people that stopped, didn’t buy one single thing and just gave us a donation.  Don’t shy away from why this sale is so important.  I made sure that people knew we were working hard to bring our little boy home.

*TIP #10: BE GRATEFUL.  Make sure you send thank you notes. I know this might sound super trivial, but with Sol’s adoption I did this with everything and I noticed that people really appreciated it.  So with our second adoption process I have been doing the same and I just think people really appreciate thank you notes.  When someone donated stuff or made baked goods or even helped us move furniture I sent a thank you note to let them know how grateful we were for their help. I did this as I went so I could keep up and I noticed that some people that had already given or helped us, came back and offered more.  This may be because they were just nice, but sometimes I thought a thank you note maybe made them feel pretty good and really let them know how truly grateful we were for their help.  It’s nice to show people that you appreciate the help they are giving you.

(Thank You note design by Dana at Lifelines Designs)

So there you have it, our Top 10 Yard Sale Tips.  Not sure if I have ever typed that many words in one post before…can you tell I am a little crazy about my yard sales?  Hope these little tips help a bit and here’s to lots of fundraising yard sales this spring.  Happy Spring and Happy Yard Saling!