How To: Hold a Successful Yard Sale

Even if you’ve had numerous yard sales in the past, here are a few pointers to make yours more successful.

Start Early

Even if your next yard sale is months away, start sorting through your belongings to get ready. Put each item in one of four storage containers: Keep, Toss, Yard Sale, and Undecided. “If you’re not using it in the next year, don’t keep it,” says Dave Valliere, senior product manager for home storage at Rubbermaid, in Huntersville, NC. If someone else could use the item, put it in the yard sale bin.

Good Sale Items

Good sale items include movies, books, furniture, dishes, children’s toys and clothes, collector’s items such as glassware from 1960s TV shows, and household appliances that still work. Remember to have an extension cord handy on sale day so visitors can see that the item they are considering actually works.What doesn’t sell? Fads whose time has past. Forget selling your 15-year-old ThighMaster, says veteran yard saler Chris Heiska, of Lusby, MD, who runs the website Yardsalequeen.com . Except for maternity clothing and plus sizes, adult clothing doesn’t sell well either.

Ad It In

Advertise online and in your local paper. If you have baby items or antique furniture, say so. People will scan the ads looking for items they need, and if you have what they’re looking for they’ll come to your yard sale. “If your ad says ‘antique furniture’ or ‘60s modern,’ those kinds of identifiers will definitely be lures to people,” says Bruce Littlefield, author of Garage Sale America. “If I see ‘baby clothes’ and ‘Fisher-Price,’ I’m not running over to that sale,” Littlefield says. “But people who have a newborn will go.”

Sign Me Up

Check local ordinances on sign placement. Make your signs easy to read from the road and similar in design so people can follow them. “We get more business at our sale because our signs are professionally done,” says Nikki Fish of South Bend, IN, who hosts a major yard sale every year but enjoys shopping yard sales even more than selling. Paint or draw the arrows after you plant the signs to make sure the arrow point in the right direction. “Wild goose chases are very frustrating,” Littlefield says. With that in mind, take signs down when your sale is over.