A moving sale is a great way to put some cash in your pocket with the added benefit of lightening your moving haul. No one wants to move more boxes or furniture than they have to and everyone likes making a few extra bucks. But, moving sales can be time-consuming and labor-intensive. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you run the risk of creating more cons for yourself than pros. Use this 15 tips to help make your moving sale as pain-free, productive, and profitable as possible.
1. Use The One-Year Rule
When deciding what to sell, some things are easier to part with than others. But the general rule of thumb is that if you haven’t used it or worn it in a year, you probably never will. In that case, sell it and lighten your load.
2. Set Aside Anything You Can Easily List Online
If you’re familiar with Ebay and Craigslist, then you know that you can usually sell things for more online than you can in your yard, usually because you have a niche market searching for the items. A baseball card collection might sell for $10 at your moving sale but could go for a few hundred bucks online.
Things that are too heavy or difficult to ship won’t be worth your time to sell, but if you have any specialty items that can turn a significantly higher profit online and are within your ability to package and ship, set them aside and get listing.
3. Advertise, Advertise, Advertise!
This isn’t Field of Dreams. If you build it, they won’t necessarily come. You can do everything right and fill your yard with treasures galore, but if no one knows about it, you might find yourself trying to sell your coffee pot to your mail carrier.
Get the word out there as much as possible: Put an ad in the paper, put it on Craigslist, Twitter, and Facebook, and make to tell your friends and family to spread the word, too.
4. Get Any Required Permits Ahead Of Time
Before you start lugging everything out to sell, make sure you check with your township, Home Owner’s Association, and authorities on any local codes and regulations that you need to follow. Most towns require you to get a permit to hold a moving sale in your yard. Don’t be caught without one, otherwise your profits may get eaten up by paying fines.
5. Make Sure Your Items Are Priced To Sell
You’ll probably be tempted to push the limits on the price tags so that you can ensure you’re getting as much for your once-loved possessions as possible. But try to remember that those things are now used. Set reasonable prices on your items. And if you’re not sure on some big-ticket pieces, search the internet and see what the going rate is.
6. Tag It Up!
Shoppers dislike having to ask what something costs. Everything should be marked with a price tag. Small, loose items can be placed in bins that have a price tag on it. And if you’re feeling especially efficient, color code the price tags. Yellow tags are $1 items, blue tags are $5, red are $10, and so on. Just be careful not to tag the cat.
7. Keep Like Items Sorted Together
No one wants to have to dig through a pile of DVDs to get to the kitchen utensils. This one is pretty obvious, but keeping things well-organized and displayed by category will help your sales by giving people an easier time searching for what they’re going to spend their money on. Display like items together and make it easy for customers to find what they want.
8. Put The Showcase Items Front And Center
In order to get people to dig through your piles, you first have to get them to the piles. Make sure the eye-catching stuff is all easily visible from the cars on the street or passersby to ensure the highest volume of street and foot traffic.
9. Check All Pockets
Make sure to open every wallet, check every purse, and open every jewelry box before putting items out for sale. Some people show up to moving sales specifically to search for hidden treasures. Don’t sell a $50 bill in a $2 purse.
10. Make Sure You Have Plenty Of Change
A pile of one dollar bills and a bucket full of coins will be your best friend during your moving sale. You’ll be astonished at how many people want to buy a 50 cent CD with a $20 bill.
11. Don’t Let A Sale Walk Away
Don’t let people underbid you to the point of giving stuff away for free. But one of the biggest rules in sales is never letting a reasonable sale walk away. Negotiate, and if someone offers $85 for a table marked for $100, take it. You made the sale and it’s one less thing you’ll have to lug back inside or to the curb later.
12. Start Saving Shopping Bags
If you’re still getting plastic bags from the grocery store, put them to good use and recycle them for your customers. Paper bags and cardboard boxes will also come in handy, so start stockpiling.
13. Hang Clothing For Easy Viewing
Hanging clothes out on a clothesline allows people to see them without having to search through piles or bins. But if you have a large amount of clothing or don’t have the clothesline space, you can always lay them out flat on sheets on the ground.
14. Make Weather Provisions
You never know when the weather might make a sudden turn for the worst. If your moving sale is outdoors, keep sheets of plastic, tarps, and sheets handy in case a storm happens to hit. That way, you can cover everything quickly instead of watching it all get damaged as you try to run a few items indoors at a time.
15. Sell Refreshments
Something most people don’t think of during their moving sale is that they can make money on more than just their used stuff. Refreshments are great sellers, especially to people who have yard-sale-hopping all morning. You don’t have to set up a lemonade stand, either. You can fill a cooler with water bottles and cans of soda and sell them for a markup.
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