How to Throw a Sale

Do you yard sale? These days I have just about every thing I need, but I've been to a few yard sales in my time. I've thrown a few, too. I say thrown because I think throwing a yard sale should be like throwing a party because . . . (a)  you want your guests to find your place easily;  (b) you want them to have fun while they're there;  (c) you want them to go away happy.

We live at the dead end of a dirt road. People don't just drive by. So if I want to throw a sale, I have to advertise. We used to have a newspaper that allowed free yard sale advertising and they put out a weekly map of sales in the area. No more. So I just put an ad on Craigslist on the Thursday and Friday nights before the sale and make some signs.

Depending upon where you live, the most important part of advertising your sale could be signage. The all important cardboard-tacked-to-the-telephone-pole signage. Please, please think about your signs. I've seen so many like this:

GARAGE 
SALE!!!!
          3364 Mystreet

So frustrating! I've driven by and slowed down and finally had to turn around, stop and park and get out and stand in front of it with my glasses on to get the address. It's one of my peeves. Just know this: if a cardboard sign is tacked to a telephone pole, it usually means there's a sale - or, less often, an animal missing (but there's usually a picture in that case). Don't waste precious sign-space with the huge "GARAGE SALE!!!!!!!!" in ginormous letters. I like to paint "sale" in squatty fat letters on the top of my signs, then put the important stuff LIKE ADDRESS (hint, hint) in larger, easy-to-read letters in dark colors.

It's like navigating a labyrinth getting to our place so I have to get creative:

1. Make arrow signs. Just painted arrows on cardboard in the same colors used for the SALE signs. That way you can tack them up anywhere there's a spot that could be questionable (right, left, straight?) and point to where your potential customer should go.

2. Do it like Burma-Shave! Make up a simple rhyme, one line on each sign, and put them up on several phone poles in a row:  

Don't turn back now
Too much at stake
Treasures to be had
One last turn to make                   I'm sure you can think of a better one!

3. I've also done some attention-grabbing stuff like streamers stapled to the edges of my signs, but I've given up on balloons because they always get popped by the other nails and staples in the phone poles.

4. Take down your signs when the sale is over!!! I've been tricked by left-up signs before and showed up at a sale a week late. If you don't take down your old signs, you're not only littering, you're wasting peoples' time.

OK, so you've advertised. Here's some other stuff that could help you make your sale more successful:

1. Price everything. Just get a roll of masking tape and a Sharpie and put prices on your things. What's the big deal? I hate having to find someone and ask about the price on every little thing.

2. Get your stuff up off the ground. If you don't have tables, do you have sawhorses and boards? A ladder and the top of your fence with some boards between them? Geez, an ironing board with a "not for sale" sign on it that you could put some of your stuff on? The older I get the more I don't enjoy crawling around in someone's yard and poking through their stuff. What I really don't like is the row of boxes along the sidewalk with all the tangled cords and coat-hangers and what-not in them. If I have to dig through those, I'll pass.

3. Have fun with it! Engage your customers. Joke around. Barter. Haggle. Make deals with the kids. At our last yard sale, Hubby made deals with all the kids under about 10 or 11. He told them if they could accurately add up the prices on all the stuff they wanted, they could have it for half price.

4. If someone offers an amount lower than priced, but still reasonable, take it! You're just gonna have to haul it to the thrift store if no-one buys it anyway. And the thrift stores seem to be getting pickier and pickier - at least in our area.

So there you have it. My take on throwing a sale. If your guests customers can find it, have a good time while there, go away happy (and who doesn't love a yard-sale score?) I call it a successful party sale.