A successful garage sale is a well-prepared garage sale in advance. Tips from Fanny Guinochet.
franceinfo: First of all, you have to choose your location carefully?
Fanny Guinochet: Avoid, if you can, the stand in full dodger. People will pass but will not linger. Or at the bottom of a dead end where no one comes. The location depends on the municipality, but you will pay a few tens of euros for the location – depending on the size of the stand. And you will have to produce proof of insurance and often of residence.
Then on D-Day: arrive early, the best sales are often in the morning. Also avoid overcrowding your objects; know how to attract customers by putting your best items forward, clothes on a rack. Make a real sorting, leave at home the trinkets, the dog-eared magazines.
What is selling well?
Toys, playmobils, legos, kaplas, it’s hard to find, but prepare lots in freezer bags for example, with the prices written on them. It’s easier to sell. Children’s clothes, small ones, also work very well, but group them by size, by age, in separate boxes. On the other hand, the old coat of grandma, there, it will remain on your arms.
Books too, but again comics, manga are more popular?
Old crockery, old china, yes, there is a little revival. Finally, what sells very well are scooters and bicycles. Be careful, often you will barely even have time to get them out of your car when already specialists accustomed to buying them at garage sales will be there to resell them at a higher price on sites. Be careful not to sell them off.
How do you set the prices?
Already it depends on the purchase price, and the wear of the product, its rarity too. You can look upstream, which is practiced on resale websites like the good corner, but prefer low prices, because the idea is also to get rid of.
Adapt to buyers’ means. Prices are higher in Paris than in Hauts-de-France, because the average income is not the same. Know how to negotiate, but set limits on the items that have the most value. Have change too, it helps.
Finally, last advice: Be careful not to buy more than you sell because you will walk around the stands. And then, if you are addicted, know that there are sites like brocabrac.fr or videgreniers.org which list all the garage sales.