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Begin your enterprise by cleaning out your own attic, closets
and basement or garage. Talk with your relatives and friends;
tell them what you're doing, and ask for donations (or at least
consignments) of unwanted items. It's here that you'll get your
first experience in negotiating, and you'll usually get
enthusiastic cooperation. You'll find people explaining that they
really don't have a use for a specific item, don't want to keep on
storing it, but for sentimental or other reasons, they have just
hung on to it.
Once you have a little bit of experience, you'll be able to
advertise in the newspaper that you purchase garage sale items, or
take them on consignment for a percentage of the final sale price.
It's best that the wife or woman of the house handle the
garage sale itself - that is, let a woman be the one who greets
the potential customers, shows them around, and generally engages
them in conversation. If it's a woman staging the garage sale,
then arrangements should be made for a second one to "mind the
store" while she's out digging up more items for display and sale.
And if you are running a really big sale, a second or third
person can be very useful in selling, and just generally keeping
an eye on things.
The advertising angle is really quite simple, and shouldn't
cost you very much, either. Check area newspapers, and select the
one that carries the most ads for garage sales. You shouldn't
concern yourself too much with competition from other ads. People
who go to garage sales either go to all of them they can locate,
or else only to those within a 3-to-5 mile radius of their homes.
You should run a small classified ad in the newspaper of your
choice for about three days in advance, and up through the day of
your sale. Once you're operating on a full-time, every-day-of-
the-week schedule, you'll want to change your ad schedule and the
style of your advertising. But in getting started, stay with
small classified ads simply announcing the fact that you're
holding a garage sale, emphasizing that you've got everything from
A to Z - something of interest to everyone. Such an ad might
read:
BIG GARAGE SALE! Hundreds of interesting items.
Through Saturday, July 16th. (address)
To get ideas on how to write your ad, check your newspapers
for a week or two. Cut out all the garage sale ads you can find.
Paste them up onto a piece of paper - then with a bit of critical
analysis, you will be able to determine how to write a good ad of
your own from identifying the good and bad features of the ads
you've collected. Keep in mind that the bigger and better your
sale, the bigger and better your "getting started" ads should be.
Always remember that in order to increase your profits in any
business, you must increase rather than decrease your advertising.
At the bottom line, you'll find that the greatest single reason
for a garage sale failing to turn a profit is the lack of
promotion and advertising used to publicize it.
You should also have an old-fashioned "sandwich board" type
sign to display in front of your house when your garage sale is
open for business. The purpose of course, is to call attention to
the fact that you're holding a garage sale and are open for
business. This will pull in your neighbors, if you haven't
already informed them, and attract people driving by. Sandwich
boards are also sometimes set out at key traffic intersections not
far from the site of the garage sale. These will attract
attention, and point the way. However, check your local
ordinances to be sure that this sort of advertising is permitted.
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