Friday, March 5th, 2010...12:45 am
8 Simple Rules for Making a Successful Garage Sale Sign
Since I tapped myself out of freebies with Monday’s birthday freebies post, I don’t have any new Friday Freebies for you this week. However, I do have something just as good: tips on making a successful garage sale sign.
With spring just around the corner, people are probably starting to think about when they can have that first yard or garage sale so they can clear out their stuff. I happen to be planning a community yard sale in April, and can’t wait to set up my table and sell off my stuff.
Regardless of where you’re planning to hold your garage sale, Jonathon Papsin, founder of Tag Sell It, an online community connecting people with virtual tag sales as well as real-time ones happening locally, has some advice for creating successful garage sale signs. “I’ve seen everything from paper plates with chicken-scratch scribble to more elegantly constructed signs, most likely done by a professional,” he says.
While you don’t have to spend big bucks outsourcing your signs to a print shop, Papsin recommends that you always include the following 8 things in a garage sale sign–if you actually want to get people to show up and shop at your sale:
- The street address of the sale
- The time and date of the sale
- Arrows pointing shoppers in the right direction to get to the sale
- Big enough lettering so people can read it from far away
- Keywords on the sign that are likely to catch someone’s eye, like “Antiques,” “Art” or “Tools”
- Bright and bold signs and printing that catch people’s attention
- Not too much information that someone driving by can’t read your entire sign at 30 mile per hour
- Signs that are waterproof and windproof, in case Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate
You should always create multiple versions of your sign and place them in high-traffic spots on the way to your sale. He also recommends spreading the word by telling your friends, posting information about the sale on neighborhood and community bulletin boards (both online and offline) and, of course, listing your sale for free on Tagsellit.com. (Putting something in Craigslist’s “garage sale” section probably wouldn’t hurt either.) Finally, Papsin always advises people to take down their signs as soon as the sale is over so they don’t clutter the neighborhood and become a nuisance and eye sore.
Good idea for a post Leah. If you advertise your garage sale in local papers (and this is one of the few newspaper ads that consumers still look for regularly), the paper will often give you nice signs for free. Customizing them is a great idea.
Old political signs and real estate open house signs can be retrofitted as yard sale signs too. They often have those handy metal posts that make it easy to plant them in the ground.
Some communities have strict regs about where and when and how many signs can be placed, so it’s a good idea to check that out before you are faced with a fine!
I really enjoyed your post! As a frequent garage sale shopper, I’d like to make a comment about the advice to make multiple versions of your sign. When I’m following signs, I find it easier when all of the signs are uniform, otherwise I’m never sure if I found the garage sale I intended to go to when I followed the original sign. Thanks for reminding people to take down their signs! There’s nothing more frustrating than following signs for miles to find out the garage sale was held weeks ago.
Oh…garage sale….I had three during my lifetime so far…and sold few things, gave few things away, and the rest ended up at Good Will.
Garage sales are so much work to get ready for, and time consuming to sit through them.
I personally do not enjoy having them.
I love having garage sales, maybe because they’re a pretty good draw around here. I usually make at least $300 – we bought our son’s crib using garage sale money! I plan to have another one this summer to rid the house of some clutter. One thing I learned regarding signs – I used to make signs with marker, but it took forever to fill in bubble letters to make them really stand out. Finally I figured out that painting them took a lot less time and effort! You have to figure in drying time, but it’s a lot quicker to actually letter the sign.
We can all recognize garage sale signs because they shout GARAGE SALE but then somewhere lost beneath that is that small area to put the address and hours of the sale. I never have enough time to read the address while driving because my eyes just naturally hone in on the words GARAGE SALE first and by then I’ve driven past. For my signs I always write out my address at the top of the sign and it’s the first thing the driver reads.
I agree with Chrissy. It helps if all the signs look essentially the same.
And, personally, I prefer BIG arrows over addresses because addresses assume someone knows the area well enough to figure out where that might be.
We lived near a busy intersection in our old home, so we made Burma-Shave style signs. It had been a summer of bad weather, so the rhyme (on four separate signs, of course) read: “Lightning, Floods; Tornadoes, hail; Just can’t stop our; Rummage Sale!”
We had several people stop by just to compliment the signs – all bought something!