The Psychology of a Successful Garage Sale

by Terri Emmett

A garage sale is a special weeding ceremony. Like a wedding ceremony, the garage sale weeding requires months of prior planning and preparation, and tears of joy are often shed once its over. The only differences are that a garage sale costs less to host, lasts longer than some marriages and more people show up for it.

The first order of business for either a wedding or a weeding is to set the date.

Spring and summer are notorious for the number of garage sales that pop up every weekend in neighborhoods of virtually every American city. Almost any weekend between the middle of March until school starts in the late summer, newspapers generally feature column after column of local garage sale listings. The minute Thursdays papers, announcing the weekend list of garage sales, are delivered to the local newsstands, garage sale enthusiasts hit the road. While clutching the classified section for dear life in one hand and cell phone in the other, drivers eagerly begin mapping out their planned weekend circuits of activity, searching for the highest concentration of sales that will be held within the closest proximity to others.

Fear of arriving too late at a garage sale and losing out on a special bargain creates the thrill of living on the edge for many garage sale enthusiasts. This is why so many early-birds will attempt to sneak a peek at the layout of goods before the posted business hours of your sale. Being allowed privileges others dont receive often supplies these shoppers with a feeling of prestige.

People love garage sales. Patrons will attend garage sales even if theyre held in the dead of winter. With this in mind, if planning a sale of your own, holding a winter sale could be especially advantageous because your sale would be the only one going on in the whole town during the cold winter months. Find a few friends willing to go in with you to rent a local city-owned, heated facility for a day or two around the end of January, advertise it well and the garage sale-deprived, bargain hungry enthusiasts will flock to your door in droves.

One way to help offset the building rent for a winter garage sale would be to sell early-bird tickets to the event for a few dollars each, granting ticket holders the exclusive privilege of shopping an hour or two prior to the actual advertised time of the sale, either the evening before or the morning of your sale. From the shoppers point of view, this would be considered an almost sacred invitation, giving them the feeling of having a true edge by being granted such an elite insider privilege.

The mere word SALE invokes primitive responses in the general public. No one wants to be left out of obtaining a bargain, and the dreaded, Sorry, no rain-checks, make any sale even that much more intensifying.

Everyone knows that sales are always only temporary - which commands an immediate response in the mind of any true bargain hunter. When items are up for grabs, the rule is that these bargains will be offered only on a first come, first served basis, which is the prime appealing characteristic of garage sales.

With this in mind, if you are hoping for massive amounts of traffic to your event, you should look beyond the simple Garage Sale advertising campaign and take it one step farther.

From a psychological perspective, your best action would be to take your prospective customers to the next level of thinking by utilizing an even more enticing advertising approach. Instead of holding a Garage Sale, like so many others on a given weekend, call your rose by another name: Advertise yours as a Household Inventory Reduction Sale or Ghosts of Christmas Past Sale or the ultimate, Household Liquidation Sale. By doing so, you will attract more attention and curiosity, which will, in effect, bring more customers to your sale.

Terri Emmett is a specialist in the fields of both ORGANIZATION and TIME MANAGEMENT. Please visit all her HOME AND FAMILY sites by linking from: http://www.housekeepersclub.com, http://www.charmcourse.com; or visit http://www.avonofamerica.com

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