Need Back to School Cash?
Garage Sales for Quick Money

Pick almost any neighborhood, on the weekend, and you're sure to spot at several garage sales.

Are they making any money with these garage sales? � You'd better believe they're making money!

It's not at all uncommon to make $300 with a weekend garage Is it not hard to put on a profitable back to school garage sale? � no. � It really does take some of your time, and also requires an awareness of a few marketing tactics.

Who are the buyers, and how do you get them to come to your garage sale? for a Back to School garage sale concentrate on kids clothing that is out grown but in good condition. Ask your neighbors to join in and split the profits. It is great way to get kids the school clothes they need at a good price.

Your customers are going to be "everybody", and you get them over to your garage sale with a little bit of advertising and promotion.

Let's look at the background: everybody accumulates the kind of garage sale items that other people are searching for, and are willing to buy.

These items range from no longer wanted or outgrown items of clothing to furniture, tools, knick-knacks, books, pictures, and toys.

Start your own garage sale by clearing out your own basement, attic, closets and garage. � Talk to your relatives and friends, tell them what you're going to do and ask them for donations of no longer used or wanted items.

Advertising angle is really quite simple. You should run an ad in your local free paper, for about one week in advance of, and up to the day of your sale. Go with small classified ads simply announcing your garage sale, emphasizing that you've got something of interest to everyone.

To get ideas on how to write your ad, check your newspaper for other ads. Something to remember: The bigger and better your sale.

Also obtain a large sign or an old-fashioned 'sandwich board' to display in front of your house when your garage sale is open for business. This will pull in your neighbors. Place signs at intersections not far from the site of the garage sale, to attract attention and point the way (but do check with your local authorities that this is permitted in your area).

Search out and use all the free bulletin boards in the area. It's better, and usually much more profitable, to take the time to make up an attention grabbing circular you can post on these with a postcard announcement.

You have to give your sale some style. � Put some posts up across the front of your property, and run some twisted crepe paper between them. Even better than crepe paper, run brightly coloured ribbons. And don't forget the balloons!

Make your garage sale a fun kind of event with clusters of balloons anchored to your display tables and racks. Cover your display tables with colorful table cloths. � Don't hesitate to use bright colours with busy patterns. � Regardless of what you sell, effective display is still predominantly essential! You cannot "dump" items haphazardly on a table, presentation counts! Make sure that your jewelery items shine and sparkle. Arrange them in and with jewellery boxes, jewellery ladders and other items sold for the purpose of showing off jewellery while keeping it neatly arranged. Make it pleasing to the eye as well as convenient for your customers to browse through and select the items that appeal to them.

Look for some kind of interesting and unusual items to call attention to your sale - something you can set up or park in front of your home during your sale. Some of the displays we've seen along these lines include a horse drawn cart, , an old farm plough - anything of an unusual and interesting nature will do the trick for you.

Wherever your imagination takes you, you have to be different and distinctive, or you'll get lost. In the hundreds of garage sales going on, if you take the time to employ a bit of imagination, you'll end up being the one with the biggest profits.