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How to Sell Clothing at a Yardsale?
My husband and I combined forces with our friends for a yard sale this fall. We had tons of stuff and quite the variety: home decor, electronics, speakers, tv's, dvd players, purses, shoes and all sorts of other jazz. The first thing we had to do was go through our house to decide what was going to be in the sale. Purging is something that is tough for me because I'm always scared I'm going to get rid of something I will need "someday" (which of course never happens). This time around I did a pretty good job, with the help of my husband encouraging me and reminding me that no, I will never need that bag, or that shirt, or those shoes ever again. One room at a time, we went through the closets, checked under the beds, looked in all of our storage bins, and designated one of our guest rooms as the yard sale room. We started this process in August, so as we found more and more things to sell, we placed them in the yard sale room. One night as the sale got close, we sat down and priced everything. We used masking tape and a red marker, that way we knew what was ours (our friends marked theirs in black marker). Our friends made some signs (below was after the sale, but thought I would show you the signs!), and the day of the sale finally came.
Even though it rained (despite the sunny forecast), we were prepared with canopies to cover most of our selection. The photo below was after the rain let up a bit, and my husband was brave enough to put the speakers out from under the canopy.
One thing we had plenty of was clothing, and we weren't really sure the best way to display all of it. We had shirts, sweaters, jackets, jeans, shorts, skirts and even a couple suits and bridesmaids dresses. As you will see from the photo, we gave it our best effort. (This consisted of a rope tied from a tree in the front yard to a hook on the front porch held up in the middle by a ladder. We hung the shirts on the rope, and we had all of the pants and shorts in bins on the ground.)
We put out plastic hangers with our clothes, which was tough to remember to get them back before people walked off with them. I should have looked at more research first. This site had a lot of good tips: http://www.yardsalequeen.com. (This site, for example, suggested using wire hangers or hangers that you don't want back.) I thought I would get some ideas for our next yard sale on our toughest challenge this time around...what is the best way to display clothing items?





