Household

GARAGE SALE PROMOTING FOR QUICK AND EASY MONEY

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GARAGE SALE PROMOTING FOR QUICK AND EASY MONEY
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Pick almost any city or town in the country, drive through any middle class neighbourhood, or residential area on the weekend, and you’re sure to spot at least half a dozen garage sales.

What’s being sold at these garage sales?

The accumulated “junk” people no longer use or want taking up space in or around their homes.

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 sale.

Is it hard to put on a profitable garage sale? Well, yes and no. It really does take some of your time, and also requires an
awareness of a few merchandising tactics.

But the problems in running a successful garage sale are small in comparison to the profits.

Who are the buyers, and how do you get them to come to your garage sale?

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.

Many garage sale items are objects of merchandise purchased on impulse, and later found to be not what the buyer wanted.

He discovered too late that he really didn’t have a use for it, or he no longer has a need for it. Many items found at garage
sales are gifts that have been given to the seller, but are the wrong size or incorrect choice for the recipient.

The problem with most people is that they haven’t the time to gather up all the items “just taking up space” in and around
their homes and staging a garage sale to get rid of them.

Many people don’t know how to stage a garage sale, and many other people feel that putting on a garage sale is just too much bother and work. This is where you enter the picture.

Your enterprise will be an ongoing garage sale of items donated and collected from these people who lack the inclination to put on garage sales of their own.

Step one is education: Spend a few weeks visiting all the garage sales, swap meets and flea markets in your area.

Find out what’s being offered for sale, what people are buying, and how the merchandise is being sold.

Generally an item is tagged with a price, but the seller is open to almost any reasonable offer from the customer.

Another thing you want to do is make mental notes of the way the merchandise is displayed, and how the customers are allowed to browse.

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.

It’s here that you’ll get your first experience in negotiating, and finally an agreement for you to display and sell other
people’s merchandise for a percentage of the price.

You’ll find people explaining that they really don’t have a use for a specific item or they really don’t want to keep storing
it, but because of sentimental reasons, “just hate to give it away”.

Once you’ve had a little experience with this type of seller, you will be able to advertise in the newspaper that you buy
garage sale items, or take them on consignment for a percentage of the final sales price.

The advertising angle is really quite simple, and shouldn’t cost very much either.

You should run an ad in your local free paper, for about three weeks in advance of, and up to the day of your sale.

Once you’re operating on a full time, every day of the week scale, you’ll want to change your ad schedule and the style of
the advertising.

But in getting started, go with small classified ads simply announcing your garage sale, emphasising that you’ve got
something of interest to everyone – everything from A to Z.

To get ideas on how to write your ad, check your newspaper for a week or(so; cut out all the garage sale ads you can find; paste them up on a piece of paper.

Then, with a bit of critical analysis, you’ll be able to determine how to write a good ad of your own by determining the
good and the bad in the ads you’ve collected.

Something to remember: The bigger and better your sale, the bigger and better your “getting started” ads should be.

And the secret to outstanding garage sale profits is in having the widest or largest selection of merchandise. You should have 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 neighbours, if you haven’t already informed them, and attract the people driving by.

Sandwich boards are sometimes set out at key traffic 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).

Another “sign idea” practice by a few really sharp operators is the old “burma Shave” roadside pointers.

Here, you simply take a few cute sayings in verse (or one-liners), write on pieces of board, and tack onto the
telephone poles at about 200 yard intervals on a thoroughfare leading to your garage sale.

You’ll create a lot of traffic for yourself!

By all means, 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.

To do this, pick up some ‘transfer lettering’, go through your newspapers and old magazines for interesting illustrations,
graphics and pictures, then with a little bit of imagination, make up an A4 poster-type announcement of your sale.

When you’ve got it pasted up, take it to any quick print shop, and have them print up 50 to 100 copies for you.

The cost should not come to more than £5 – £10.

If you make this “circular poster” up with versatility and long time usage in mind, you can use it over and over again, simply by pasting on a new date.

In case you were puzzled when we t`lked about “pasting”, this is simply pasting another piece of paper onto the overall page.

Say you have a circular with a date of Wednesday March 1st, and want to change it to read Thursday July 16th.

Rather than do the whole thing again, simply write out the new date with your transfer letters on a separate sheet of paper, cut out to fit in the space occupied by the old date, and paste the new date over the old date.

A good paste to use for this purpose is rubber cement.

That’s all there is to it; the printer does the rest.

Now let’s talk about the ‘inside secrets’ of drawing people into your sale, and the merchandising ‘gimmicks’ that will result in the maximum sales and profits for you.

First, call attention to your sale. Don’t be shy, bashful or self conscious about letting everybody for miles know that
you’re having a garage sale.

You have to give your sale some flair. 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.

Inrest in some colourful pennants and fly them from temporary flag poles.

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.

Be sure to “float” them above the heads of your customers as they are browsing through your merchandise displays.

Cover your display tables with colourful 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, sit down, and expect to realise great profits.

The people doing the most business – making the most sales – are the ones with interesting displays, action and colour.

Try to have as wide a selection of colours as possible in your clothing racks, and mix them for a rainbow effect.

Make sure that your jewellery 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.

Think about it, and then study the methods of display used by ‘rack jobbers’ in the stores in your area.

These are the wire racks that usually hold card packaged items.

This kind of display rack would lend itself beautifully for anchoring a cluster of balloons.

Keep these things in mind, and build your individual displays as part of the whole; 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, a restored Mk 1 Cortina, an old farm plough – anything of an unusual and interesting nature will do the trick for you.

One couple we know put up a display using a mannequin dressed in an old time farm bonnet, long dress and apron.

The display depicted a farm woman of old, washing clothes with a scrub board, and two steel wash tubs.

You have to believe this drew crowds and made people talk!

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.

It’s almost a compulsion of many people to go shopping, to search for interesting and sometimes rare and valuable items.

This fact alone will keep you as busy as you’ll ever want to be, staging and holding garage sales.

The market is so vast, and the appetite so varied, that anything from a brass bed stead to a used diary of somebody’s long
forgotten grandmother will sell, and sell fast at a garage sale.

Put it all together, use a little imagination, and you’ll easily make all the money you want!

PAPER RECYCLING – AN EASY SOURCE OF EXTRA MONEY

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PAPER RECYCLING – AN EASY SOURCE OF EXTRA MONEY
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One of the easiest (and best) ways of making extra money is by collecting old newspapers and selling them to “recycling plant” in your area.

Just look around your own home – in the garage or the basement.

What do you do with the old newspapers after you’ve read them?

Most likely they just pile up in a corner of the garage or basement until one of your kids asks if he can haul them off for
the school or cub scout paper drive.

Or maybe your wife and kids get ambitious some weekend, clean out the garage and haul all those newspapers off to the
collection truck at the local shopping centre.

It’s true that selling stacks of newspapers you’ve accumulated during the past couple of months or so won’t make you rich, or really amount to much in extra income.

But think about the stacks of old newspapers you would have if you were to collect and haul away for the people in your
neighbourhood – say a ten pound stack of newspapers from each house on your street every Saturday.

The picture changes, doesn’t it?

If you’re serious, and get yourself properly organised, you can easily make £300 or more every weekend.

Right now, the going rate for old newspapers is about £50 a ton, depending upon your area.

Most recycling depots prefer the papers loose, rather than bundled or sacked. Check with the recycling plant you plan to
sell to before delivery to them.

Ordinary cardboard boxes which have been flattened is bringing approximately £75 a ton. If you’re going to collect old
newspapers, you may just as well take cardboard too. Most people have old boxes around that are jut taking up space, and some will even pay you to get rid of them.

You start by clearing a space in your garage for storage.

One side of a two-car garage, or just an 8 by 12 foot space would be sufficient.

If you have a garden shed that is dry, that would work well also. Some collectors even rent space in a neighbourhood
warehouse.

Next, you should place an ad in your community newspaper or the weekly shopping news, something like this: Junk, old newspapers and cardboard boxes hauled away. Phone 123-4567.

Then you visit your neighbours. Tell them you are collecting and hauling away old newspapers and boxes in the neighborhood each week.

You might even offer them £5 a month if they’ll have everything ready for you when you make your weekend collection rounds.

On Saturdays, starting at about 9.00am, rent an open trailer and hitch it to your car. If you have a pick-up truck, or can
borrow one, so much the better. With your spouse or kids, a couple of neighbourhood boys, or a couple of friends, start
making your rounds.

You drive the car with the trailer. Your helpers, one on each side of the street, knock on each door and ask the residents if they have any old newspapers or cardboard boxes you can haul away for them.

It would be advantageous for you to have a large sign on each side of your trailer, and on each side of the car as well. It
might read:

Paper Collection Service.

Visit the people you’ve talked to on your block first.

That will give you some paper in the trailer and from there, you
just expand.

Go to the next block and the next, driving up and down the streets, visiting, stopping at all the homes, in an ever
expanding ripple from your own street.

When your trailer is full of newspapers, you can either take them directly to your recycling plant and sell the load, or take them to your storage area, unload them and get everything organised.

It’s very important, though, that you get right back to the job of knocking on doors and collecting more newspapers and
cardboard.

Some people will (foolishly) collect a load, take it in for sale, and then waste time gloating over the easy money they’ve
just made.

One load won’t make you rich or even really pay for your time.

Get right back on the job and collect as many loads as the daylight hours will allow.

Make the same rounds: follow the same collection route, at least once every two weeks.

Once you’ve got the routine working well, you’ll be ready to hire a couple of college students to help, perhaps with another
car and trailer.

The best way to pay your help is with a percentage of the tonnage you sell.

And then too, once you have it all together, you’ll want to go with a truck or trailer that allows you to haul a couple of tons
of paper per load.

It’s important that you make regular rounds, calling on the same houses regularly.

After about six months of this, you’ll be ready to open a local recycling depot.

This simply means taking the accumulation of paper out of your home or garden shed and moving it to a business location.

Because of your advertising in the newspapers, and the sign on your truck or trailer, people will be calling you during the
week to come and pick up the paper they have ready for you.

Also, your neighbours will very likely be dropping by with armloads of paper for you from time to time, as well.

Specifically, these are the reasons you’ll need storage space to store the paper in your garage or other storage area until you have enough to load up and take to the recycling plant.

One of the best locations for your recycling depot is an abandoned or closed down service station.

Or perhaps a vacant plot, or even a corner of a large shopping centre parking area.

You’ll need some scales (you can rent or lease one of these for a small amount), and a quick set up tent or large truck.

What you want to do is establish a location where people can come to you.

They bring their newspapers, you weight what they’ve brought and pay them a penny a pound for newspapers and 2p a pound for cardboard boxes.

You can hire someone to man this centre for you during the day, or perhaps only open between 4 and 6 o’clock in the afternoons.

Advertise your hours, and be dependable, so that people can count on you.

To establish your location, you’ll have to check with the owner or management, and agree not to interfere with their regular mode of business.

If you do go to a shopping centre car park, sell them on the idea that your recycling depot – clean and neat – will actually
bring more people into the shopping centre on a regular basis. The important thing always is to establish yourself in the best possible location for the least amount of money.

Even though you have a collection depot, you’ll still want to continue your weekend collection rounds.

But with a collection depot, you can hire other people to do the driving, knock on doors, make the collections and transfer their loads into the depot facility.

If it’s a big truck or trailer, you’ll be selling ten to fifteen tons of paper whenever you make your trips to the recycling
plant.

Another important thing you should think about doing is getting the whole community involved with you.

Get them to thinking about recycling paper and selling it to you.

Run some promotions; work for free publicity; and be conspicuous.

Don’t be embarrassed; everyone is aware of the need for recycling everything that can be recycled.

And you’ll be admired as someone with the ambition to make it happen, picking up a good second income while you’re doing. storage area, unload them and get everything organised.

A NEW WASHING SERVICE

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A NEW WASHING SERVICE
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My name is Jilly Knott-Ford, I am single, in my late thirties, a fully trained audio typist, and live in a well known East
Anglian University town: I have found that I can earn all the money I need from washing jerseys at home!

Whilst most of the business comes from the student population during the months they are here, I also have many faithful customers among the locals who patronise my home laundry service the year around.

To be honest, once my reputation for careful workmanship and excellent results was established, I became deluged with work.

I am now prepared to wash other delicate things for my customers, who bring me various garments and household articles, which require special care in laundering, items such as knitted blouses and skirts.

I have recently started doing ‘lacey’ type underwear and silk items, and am currently negotiating to get some cards in the
local Knickerbox shop, etc.

The nice, airy garage attached to the house, serves as the Laundry Centre.

Here I have an old, but perfectly functional double porcelain sink; plenty of overhead lines; two large tables to spread some garments flat for drying; an automatic electric dryer which is suitable for some of the articles and an amazing collection of sweater and sock stretchers in various sizes all collected over the last two years!

Outside is another large table for drying purposes to be used when the weather permits – which is reasonably often hereabouts.

Interestingly, to start the business, I used Woolite Cold Water Wash for everything (made not so far away at Stowmarket,
incidentally) and although it costs nearly two pounds for an average thirty jerseys, I know that they will come up clean (in cold water; what a money saver!) in just 3 minutes!

Now I buy it a dozen or so at a time, and get some strange looks at the local Waitrose Supermarket!

I very much enjoy the independence of being my own boss and the satisfaction of remaining in my own home rather than having to go outside to work, though I also accept still the occasional temporary typing job, just to keep my hand in – I occasionally get the extra customers from colleagues, too – if I wear a nice cardigan there is always someone who will mention one they have that is such a pain to keep clean! My prices are undoubtedly a little higher than those of commercial laundries, but the customers are perfectly happy to pay more, knowing their fine, often expensive items are in expert hands.

If you wish to start a similar business, Woolite and a sink is all you need.

Perhaps a few leaflets around a local private estate followed by a personal visit two days later would get you all the business you need to start.