Articles from the ‘For Sellers’ Category

Planning a Community Garage Sale?

If you’re planning a community garage sale, Garage Sale Finder would like to help. We offer special FREE services to communities planning a community-wide or neighborhood-wide sale.

1. We can simply add a single bright magenta Community Garage Sale Icon icon to our regular maps; just tell us the best intersection to put it on. Email the information to us at least one day before your sale and we’ll add it to our database and the many visitors to the garagesalefinder.com site each week will see your sale with the extra attention the unique icon adds. It would still be a good idea to encourage your members to list their garage sales (for free), as the more markers clustered together on a map, the higher the traffic flow.or…
2. We can show all of the individual addresses for the sales in your neighborhood on our map and even provide you with a custom map showing the sales in your neighborhood that you can print out and distribute the day of your sale.Here’s the information we’ll need to make your custom map:
   • Neighborhood/Subdivision Name (civic league name)
   • Dates of Sale
   • Time of Sale
   • Street Addresses of Participants
   • Brief Description of Sale (optional)

Just email the information to us at least 2 days before your sale and we’ll add the data to our database, create a unique map just for you, and send you a link that you can use to print out the map or even post on sites like Craigslist.org. Better yet, the large number of visitors to the garagesalefinder.com site each week will see your sale and will be drawn by the large cluster of sales in one area.

If you have any questions about our Community Garage Sale services, please email us via our contact form, or call us at (757) 638-8041.

There was a lot of commotion last year when the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 was about to go into effect. The biggest issue was the resale of various goods by second-hand stores and hand-made items made by artists throughout the country. What had everyone up in arms was the requirement for these merchants to test every single piece of merchandise for various hazardous materials. Prior to revisions to the law being made, even clothing couldn’t be re-sold without testing. This “feel good” law did absolutely nothing to hold China accountable for the vast amount of poisonous products they sell with false documentation about the contents.

In an October 2009 article by Mark Nestmann, he warns about the potential ramifications of selling recalled goods. I think he’s gone a little overboard with regard to the risks. Or perhaps I just don’t his sense of humor. In any case, I’m guessing nobody from the Consumer Product Safety Commission is going to be shopping at my yard sale and it would be tough to prove where one bought a particular item second-hand. That said, as an upstanding member of society, and one with a conscience, I don’t sell stuff that I deem dangerous, especially when it comes to products for kids. Am I going to look up every item I have for sale to make sure it’s never been recalled? Not likely, but then half of the stuff in my house was bought second-hand to start off with.

Details can be found in the CFTC publication, a “Handbook for Resale Stores and Product Resellers.” It clearly states “CPSC’s laws and regulations apply to anyone who sells or distributes consumer products. This includes thrift stores, consignment stores, charities, and individuals holding yard sales and flea markets.” It further states, “… resellers… cannot knowingly sell products that do not meet the requirements of the law.” Knowingly? Sounds like a gray area, but as the 20 page PDF states, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Hmmm. Ignorance of the law, maybe not, but ignorance of the products being considered “dangerous” would be another matter in my mind. Therefore it wouldn’t be knowingly. But I’m not a lawyer, so don’t listen to me!

Some products, like baby rattles containing lead, I get. But so many of the products on the recall lists are there because of stupid users. Natural selection, once more is being negated by a government program.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any products you’re still using that have been recalled? How did YOU survive childhood with all the danger? Without the government protecting us?

In south-side Hampton Roads, the cities of Chesapeake, Norfolk and Portsmouth, require residents to apply and pay for a garage sale before having a sale. Each of these cities has their own regulations regarding garage sales or yard sales, including restrictions on the number of days you may hold your sale and where you are allowed to post signs. Norfolk and Chesapeake have easy to find information on their cites, as well as printable PDF applications. Portsmouth, while it has a listing for garage sale permits and a phone number to call, doesn’t have any information about the requirements or costs.

• Chesapeake Garage Sales
  
  • $5
  • PDF Form available online
• Norfolk Garage Sales
  
  • $5
  • PDF Form available online
• Portsmouth Garage Sales
  • Permits required, but there is no information on their site except a phone number that nobody seems to answer at the Commissioner of Revenue office (757) 393-8771
• Virginia Beach Garage Sales
  • No permit required
  • Up to 2 sales per year, no more than 3 days long
    (info via the online 311 help desk, since it’s not on the site, but apparently *is* in the municipal code)
• Suffolk Garage Sales
  • No information on the city web site

We all love to go to garage sales and even love to have them at our home to make extra money. Here are the top 25 tips for having a great sale

1. Find out the laws in your area for having a garage sale. You may need to purchase a permit which usually costs only a few dollars.
2. Go through everything in your house before the sale to make sure you have a large amount of items.
3. Try to organize neighbors to have a sale on the same day, people love multi-family sales.
4. Go through the pockets of all the clothes you want to sell and remove anything you find that you want to keep
5. Wash everything before you put it out for sale, no one wants to buy anything smelly or dirty.
6. Organize your sale by like items; too much clutter will turn people away.
7. Have a plan for adverse weather: in some areas sales are still a go, in others you’ll have no shoppers and will need to postpone (consider predetermining a rain date).
8. Advertise your garage sale with signs, balloons, newspaper ads and flyers.
9. Advertise your garage sale online, many times for free. Especially popular are sites like Garage Sale Finder, where shoppers can print out a map with directions to each sale. Take advantage of other online advertising venues such as craigslist.org.
10. Price everything so you don’t leave customers guessing.
11. Make sure the price tag is large enough to be seen.
12. Colorful stick on dots work well for pricing except on books, posters and anything you can’t peel them off of.
13. Have a decent amount of money available to make change, this includes actual coin change and paper currency.
14. Put pets away, even if your animals are super friendly. Many people, both adults and children, are afraid of them.
15. Don’t hover over your customers. A quick hello is fine but no one wants to shop with someone standing over their shoulder.
16. If you are holding your garage sale on a really hot day consider selling sodas, bottles of water or juice boxes from a cooler.
17. Total up the order yourself. You never know when a customer might try to pull a fast one on you.
18. Never leave sharp items on tables where small children can reach them.
19. Never leave your money sitting on a table unattended. Consider wearing a fannypack to hold your money.
20. Don’t accept checks unless you know the person well.
21. When making change never put the bill you were given in with your money until the customer has walked away. This will help avoid them telling you they gave you a large bill than they really did.
22. Have plastic bags available for customers to take home their items in.
23. Wrap anything breakable in newspaper before putting it in the bag.
24. Consider having a small “free box” for children to sift through while their parents are shopping. Ideas for this are old kids meal toys etc.
25. Have a plan on what to do with items that don’t sell. Donate to charity, save for another sale, etc. Many charities will pick up your unsold items if you give them advance notice.

This is the first week of the automatic import of listings from craigslist. We haven’t got the whole country yet, but we’re geting there. We have over 7,000 garage sales on our maps this week.

Join in the fun! There are treasures to be found for a bargain. A remember, the hunt is part of the fun!