How To – Have the Best Stoop Sale, Yard Sale or Garage Sale

So you think you can sell. We created this step-by-step process to make sure you are doing it like a pro and aren’t carrying any of your unwanted stuff back into the house at the end of the day. Below is a handy timeline; clip it like a coupon and show the world you’re the best dang seller around!

Steps 1 through 10

1. Early Preparations - Up to 3 or 4 weeks before your sale, let your friends, family and neighbors know of your plans. By doing this, you are also publicly committing to your sale and this will help you start to evaluate the stuff in your life and prompt you think, “Do I really need these electric scissors?” and “Looking at these dusty weights is just depressing, I’m planning on running every morning before work anyway, so I don’t need them.”

2. The Sell Pile - Leading up to the sale, allocate a corner of your house to start building a pile of stuff that’s getting the boot. This pile will slowly grow and will help make the day-of process less intimidating. Consider photographing and Krrbing each thing as it gets relegated to the pile and use your Krrb corner as a way to preview some of the stuff you’ll be selling.

3. It’s Group Thang - Ask your neighbors if they want to get in on it and make a whole thing of it. The more people that are selling on the same day, the more potential buyers you’ll get. Just do your best not to buy up all your neighbors records and weights (oh right, the running) because we are trying to downsize, remember?

4. Rain, Rain, Go Away - Commit early to whether you are a “rain or shine” or a “rain date” kind of person. When you decide that, make sure you tell every one this small but important detail of your sale.

5. Leave A Paper Trail - The weekend before, make some fliers, photocopy them at work on recycled paper (come on, the boss won’t mind!) and get them up around the neighborhood, in local cafes and stores, and in the mail boxes of your neighbors. Use words like “gently used”, “vintage” and “barely-worn” and they’ll come running.

6. Krrb It - With the Krrb Weekly Digest going out on Thursday at 11am EST, you have the ability to reach a ton of your neighbors about your stoop sale. Before Thursday, post a selection of your sale items and create a dedicated Krrb post to the event itself. Your neighbors will thank you for alerting them and they’ll plan accordingly.

7. Chalk It Up - The night before, hit up the major corners of your neighborhood and chalk up the details. Something like:

Huge Yard Sale  
Sat: 10-5
123 Main St

8. Make er Pretty - On the morning of your sale, wake up early and wake your family and volunteers early. You want to be up and running by the time those early buyers are sniffing you out, you know the kind – they swear they’ll be the next to buy the priceless antique from the unwitting seller. Have some cute kids lying around just watching Saturday morning cartoons? Put them on lemonade duty. People think that’s cute and they’ll be lured into your sale.

9. Make It Easy To Buy - Set up tables for smaller items, clothing lines for clothes, baskets for rifling, just use recycled and reclaimed materials because the last thing we are doing is buying more new stuff. Organize your merch by theme, and consider tagging it with prices. Have recycled shopping bags on hand and change to break 20s.

10. It’s Easy Being Green - If not everything from your sale goes (though it often does, am I right?), have a plan on where and how you’ll donate the leftovers. Remember, even if it doesn’t get sold at your sale, it’s still handy to someone somewhere, so don’t trash it. Donate it!

Timeline Recap

Four weeks out: tell friends, family, neighbors; create a Sell Pile; rally your neighbors

One Week Out: flier your neighborhood, post your stuff and your sale to Krrb

One Night Before: chalk your sidewalks

Day Of: set up; lemonade; sell, sell, sell!

After: donate your leftovers.