Saturday, May 15, 2010

Yard Sale Report!

A yard sale is A LOT of work!

Here are a couple of quick pictures after the first big rush early this morning. The first couple of customers bought about half the cleaners I was selling! I guess I need to price those higher next time.
My best sellers were:

  • 1.00 toothpaste - I had 12 tubes and they went fast. I even brought out 6 more & those were gone almost immediately.

  • 1.00 cleaners - After almost getting wiped out on cleaners 30 minutes into the yard sale, I moved them over to the $2 table where they sat untouched for a few hours. I moved them back to the $1 table an hour before closing time and got rid of all of them.
My non-sellers were:

  • 2.00 Glucose Monitors - I don't think I could have GIVEN those away.

  • .25 Joint Juice - These are occupying valuable real estate in my pantry and I was ready to send these packing. No such luck.
I was happy to also de-clutter my house of a ton of junk accumulated over the years. I sold a lot of clothing, old picture frames, a stereo, and I made some guy's day by selling him a surfboard shaped rug for a quarter. You know the saying... one person's trash is another person's treasure!

Here's what worked:

  • Having price point tables reduced organization time for me and confusion by shoppers.

  • Using neon green signs with arrows to advertise. I printed them off my computer, taped them to the side of cardboard boxes, and weighted the boxes down with rocks inside. Instant free advertising!

  • Providing shopping bags for customers. Once they had a few items in their hands, I offered them a bag. They all seemed to continue filling up their bags, so I think it was a good sales tactic.
Here's what didn't work:

  • Selling doughnuts instead of just handing them out. A few people bought them, but they mostly dried out and melted in the sun until we started giving them out for free. Then, they were a total hit.

  • I need more tables. I already knew this, but next time I will plan better and make sure I have at least 3 or 4.
This whole experience was a great learning tool for me. I had no idea how to price anything because the people in our area are so diverse. I didn't get a TON of traffic, but it seems like most people who stopped bought something. Next time, I will have a much better idea on pricing and traffic.

Final profit = $123.47

5 comments:

  1. Good Job! Thanks for the report. I don't have enough stuff to have a garage sale quite yet, but it's nice to hear what sells and what sits. It sounds like you had a great outcome even if everything didn't sell though :)

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  2. Congrats on the successful yard sale! Thanks so much for doing a post on that AND with pictures! your blog is the best! =]

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  3. Awesome! I had never thought of having a yard sale to sell things I've bought couponing until a few days ago. I met someone at the grocery store doing one. What a fabulous idea! I had a bunch of questions in my head and I think you answered most of them! I've had so many opportunities to get free items, but never have because I didn't know what I'd do with them. Why not resell them!?!

    Your blog is my favorite too!

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  4. wow great job!! Thanks for posting about it! I have thought about doing a yard sale with my stock pile and now I think I will! Thanks for posting pictures of it too!

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  5. Hello - great report. My first thought when seeing your pictures - does she take coupons? LOL. Seriously we gave up doing yard sales several years ago. At our former house we had good traffic and "customers." Here we have poor traffic but entire families jump out of the car and scatter. Hard to watch everyone. How did you handle that? Then there's those who want to pay 10 or 25 cents for everything.

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