Are You Having a Yard Sale?

By Vanessa Ann Lea

Spring is here and in the air and with this season comes a very common and openly visual sight around neighborhoods across the country; I'm talking about yard sales. Spring usually brings about a lot of cleaning and therefore too much stuff will find its way out of your house and in the yard. People want to de-clutter their households and make a little money on the side as well.

Yard sales, however, are a huge pain the neck and take up a lot of your time during the days you actually have it not to mention all the preparation it took to get to that day. Here you will find some suggestions and guidance for making this daunting task a little more tolerable.

First things first; take everything you no longer want and place it in the garage. Check to see what condition each item is in and sort them by quality and effectiveness. If something is broken or does not work the way it was intended, do not try to pass it off as in perfect working order. It's dishonest and un-neighborly to say the least. Instead, put a sign on it stating it's defected or broken.

Enlist the help of your family for tagging each item with a price. Depending on how many items you're selling, this could be a long and tedious process so the more help the better.

Have plenty of signs posted with big black thick ink telling them where your yard sale is. If possible, have arrows pointing in the direction of your street. Most of the time, people cannot read those signs because people underestimate how big the sings should be. Make the very visible and readable.

Begin the sale early in the morning. There are people that go to yard sales after yard sales on the weekends and you want to make sure you get these early birds who almost always like to buys stuff for their own little collections.

Make sure you have some tables ready to set up for items to be placed. Even with garage sales, people prefer a presentation of items to be above ground level for ease of browsing. If everything is on the ground on a blanket, most people will not crouch down for a better look.

If you have a lot of books, put them in categories on a table and fan them out so people can read the titles. A lot of people have specific books in mind when they go to a yard sale and if they don't have to rummage through stacks of books to find what they're looking for, the better you'll make a sale.

If you are selling clothes, get some clothing line and string it across the yard so you can hang up what you are selling according to size. You may also want to provide a private place for someone to try something on if they aren't sure if it will fit.

If you have a hard time selling everything, you might want to go for a second day. Sometimes the second day goes smoother then the first day.

About the Author:

Vanessa has written informative articles online for many years. Her passions in life are centered around animals and healthy living. You can check out her latest website here http://menshouseshoes.org/ where men's slippers don't have to be feminine. Check out her best picks for men's masculine house shoes.