Help People Set Up A Garage Sale

One of the ways you can make money is to find something people “hate” to do, and DO IT FOR THEM.

The business we’re going to talk about now may just be one of these things.

Where I live, hardly a weekend goes by that I don’t run across at least a dozen garage sales.

They’ve become extremely popular in the last several years, and who knows where it will end?

Not only do they bring the “promoters” a nice bit of pocket money, but they also provide a convenient way to get rid of the junk accumulating around the house – sell it to someone else!

Organize and Operate Garage Sales for Other People

Many people would like to get in on the action, but hate the idea of organizing such a sale. So, if this business idea appeals to you, you take over the sale, and collect a percentage of the total sales
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The percentage you collect could be 10, 15, even 20%, depending upon the agreement you make with your customer, and how much work you do
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If you’re not really familiar with garage sales, the best way to get yourself “educated” is to attend some!

See what type of merchandise seems to sell best, how people arrange it, what prices they charge, notice the “traffic” patterns (the hours that the sale is best attended), how various sales are promoted, etc.

Your goal is to become a garage sale EXPERT. When you try to sell your services to a homeowner, you’ll have to convince them that you can really move their junk.

How To Promote Garage Sales

Start promoting with your friends and relatives first. Ask them to let you put on a sale for them, and you handle all the details. If you haven’t had a sale yourself yet, what better way to find out what it’s all about?

Rummage around in the attic, the basement or cellar, the garage, under the beds, in the closets, etc. Collect everything that seems saleable (but don’t overlook the fact that what you think has no value may be just what another person has been searching for!).

From your research, you should be able to put a reasonable starting price on everything.

Keep in mind that you will probably be “negotiated down” from your original price, so you might want to set it a bit high at first, but not too high to discourage interest.

There’s a fine line between the two, and it will take a lot of experience before you are a pricing expert, so just do the best you can.

Getting the Word Out

Here’s a suggestion – make up a card describing your service, and pass it around among your friends and their friends.

Go to garage sales and pass them out to the owners and their customers. Offer to hold group sales for churches, women’s groups, men’s clubs, etc.

You could try an ad in your paper under the “Garage Sales” heading. This heading, by the way, is where you’ll promote the sales you organize, along with signs and posters around your neighborhood (the neighborhood where the sale will be).

Organize More Than One Show At A Time

Your main function is to organize the sale-promote it, arrange and price the goods, and educate the owner in “bargaining,” so he can get a good price on his merchandise.

There is really no need for you to be there for the entire sale. Because of this, you can run two or three shows, or even more, at a time…which can add up rather quickly to a nice bit of money for your efforts.