How to host a garage sale in Canada

Hosting a garage sale in Canada is very easy if you follow these simple steps. These steps are:

1. Involve your neighbors

The neighborhood can help spread the word when people come together, sign up everywhere, and post balloons at intersections. Then, as everyone pools their resources — including multitudes of children — word will spread quickly.

2. Post an advertisement for your garage sale

Get the word out without spending a dime on advertising. Make use of free classified ads like Craigslist and Kijiji, and post on Facebook.

Make use of old-fashioned paper signs around your neighborhood. You can also search for your neighborhood’s name on Google to see if there is a website where you can post.

3. Rain date

Decluttering your home isn’t impossible despite a bit of rain. Consider setting up a portable gazebo outside just in case. A garage or shed would be an ideal location to hold the sale. You can also advertise a rain date if all else fails.

4. Price sale items ahead of time

You are more likely to undervalue a thing when you price items on the fly when people are right there standing before you.

Consider the price and pick one that’s reasonable.

5. Choose Saturday over Sunday

The pros and cons of both days are similar, but Saturday is the better choice. You can extend the sale a second time during the weekend, and Sunday can be the rain date if you need it.

6. Merchandise like a pro

You can improve your products’ appeal by arranging them neatly and well, just like you would in a store.

Clutter weighs us down, and getting rid of it makes us feel good. The feeling is even greater when you let go of money and make money by enjoying yourself.

Benefits of participating in garage sales

The summer garage sale season can be an excellent time for both buyers and sellers.

Garage sales serve the purpose of getting rid of old items from your house that you have no longer used. Alternatively, through your sale, buyers will acquire it and use it for their purposes. 

Garage sales are best held during the summer when you plan to clean your house and create some space unless you have never held one before.

Garage sales provide the best of opportunities to buyers. It helps you to maximize money and make good use of your time. 

Here are the benefits of participating in garage sales:

  • Purchase items at a low price

At garage sales, you can find cheap items and items that are both cheap and in good condition. There might be a higher price for that exact item on the market. Visiting a garage sale will help you find good things at a low cost. 

  • You can resell the items

Buying and selling are two sides of the same coin. If you decide that you don’t want to keep that particular item any longer, you can sell it at the same price or a higher price at your garage sale. That’s completely up to you.

  • Shopping multiple garage sales for items

It might happen that you don’t find the items you’re looking for at the garage sale. What would you do next? Look for some other garage sales nearby?

The chances are high that you will drive around and still not find enough garage sales or the items you want.

However, some apps can help locate garage sales within the vicinity. For example, in the app, you can check garage sales within 30 miles of your location, then you will get a list of sales within 30 miles of your location. 

How to conduct a successful garage sale in Canada

Do you know that you can make extra cash from the unused items sitting in your garage? You can have a great garage sale in Canada and make lots of money for yourself. It might be a tasking process but the dividends are always worth it.  

If you don’t know how to conduct garage sales, here are some tips to help you get started

Take out what you don’t need

Not everything in your garage is suitable for sale and they could be disrupting you from accessing the important ones.

Hence, all you need do is remove all what you won’t be needing. Decluttering is one of the profound ways to make you take inventory of all you have.

Hence, check through your garage or other available storage spaces for what you don’t need and take them out.

Sort and organize the items

A garage sale is no easy task. You will not want to have everything disorganized as it could prevent you from having a smooth sales. To sort and organize your items, there are three categories you need to take note of: Keep, sell and trash.

You keep the items that are still important to you, sell the ones that are good and useable and bin the out-of-use ones.

At this point, don’t be bothered about pricing until you’ve sorted and organized.

Fix a price for the items

This is another point where you need to work hard. For each item, it would be great to check how much other stores sell theirs, and fix a price below it. In addition, you can check online junkyard stores and use their prices as a yardstick to fix yours.  

You should be willing to bargain as some customers might not want to pay the fixed price. Hence, as a general rule of thumb, fix the prices slightly above your intended price.

Set a date and venue

This is the last part of planning a garage sale. You have to select a convenient and easily accessible place for the sales. It is advisable to use an open space so that the items would be properly displayed.

Understanding the concept of Garage sales

A garage sale is also called a yard sale, moving sale or tag sale. It is an informal occasion for the sale of used products by private persons.

In a garage sale, the sellers are not to collect business licenses. Generally, the goods in a garage sales are items that the household does not need again.

These goods are useable but their conditions differ. This means that some of these goods would only be useful for some months, while others might still last for a few years.

Sometimes, these goods are up for sale because the owner does not need them again, or maybe they need some funds and they have nowhere to get money from. The advert for a garage sale can be put up on the internet, newspapers, flyers, the television, radio and the likes.

However, the common way to advertise for a garage sale is to post a sign on a plastic or cardboard.

The signs are posted at places where people would typically pass and take note of the time, location and event. In several cases, the signs indicate an arrow that gives direction.

The venue where the sale takes place is a garage or a driveway depending on the sellers’ preference. Some of the items sold at a garage sales are home appliances, decorations, books, toys, clothing, sports equipment, furniture etc.

Usually, garage sales take place on weekends. People who arrive early for garage sales are called the early birds, and most times they are the resellers who want to sell to other individuals. If you need unusual and rare items, the best place to look is during garage sales.

Also, during a garage sales, you can bargain because the prices are not fixed. Not every country organizes garage sales, as it is typical of only developed countries.  

WHAT GARAGE SALES INVOLVE IN CANADA

Garage sales are typical events in every developed nations. Almost all cadres of the society in a developed nation have imbibed the tradition of giving invitation to the public into personal garages, yards and driveways, for the purpose of selling used personal effects.

This can be said to be one of the most suitable and hospitable way of selling personal effects.

The garage sales for each country differs, and it is dependent on the region, weather, involvement of the community and the goods for sale.

For Canada, the garage sales come with their own distinctive style which makes them different from the rest of the world.  Canada is a country which is known for their long-periods winters, very cold temperatures, which affects the execution of garage sales.

Hence, all garage sales hold during summer, and the community come out in full swing to rend their support, by giving mouth-watering offers on the distinctive Canadian wares.

For some regions in the Northern Hemisphere, they hold their garage sales in summer, albeit a northern place like Canada, the summer time for garage sales is very compulsory.

In Canada, the temperatures during the winter months are almost below freezing point, and the fall and spring months are characterized by inclement and cold.

If the summer weather has not commenced, Canadians do not disturb themselves in planning and preparing for the garage sale.

Also, In Canada, Garage sales are a large community effort, and with difference to the United States which has a warmer weather, Canadians are known to be very social when it is summer, and anti-social when it is winter.

The summer months are usually periods when they hold most of their outdoor living.

It is a usual sight for you to see community garage sales in Canadian towns and cities, and this is because, the time for hosting them in is short. The Garage sales map are crafted, and the event is publicized on websites and newspapers.

The items up for sale at Canadian garage sales are fully Canadian. A typical collection of what garage sales would involve in Canada is, clothes, shoes, winter athletic equipment and the likes.

Tips for Garage Sale Shoppers in Canada

Tips for Garage Sale Shoppers in Canada

Have you ever made your way around garage sales in a Canadian city, searching for the item you set out for, taking care to stop and browse at every sale? Or, have you ever spent a day browsing sales without any goal other than to have a good time? Garage sales in Canada are a long standing tradition, as they are in the rest of North America. In the spring and summer months, people choose a day to set out all the personal possessions they are ready to part with and offer them for sale to anyone in the community who comes by. Being a garage sale shopper in Canada may be a one time activity or it may be a regular hobby. In order to have the best experience possible when garage sale shopping in Canada, consider the following tips from seasoned shoppers:

  • Select the garage sales that you are going to attend carefully. Good quality sales will make an effort to advertise, either in the local media or in street signs guiding the way to the sale house. By paying attention to how the sale is promoted, one can begin to tell what area the sale is in, how big the sale will be, what kind of selection the sale will have and whether or not it is worth attending.
  • Arriving early is important to your shopping success. As a day carries on, a garage sale is likely to offer fewer and fewer items. Getting there early ensures that the shopper will be able to browse the full selection of items for sale.
  • Try not to shop with specific items in mind for purchase, but rather come prepared for a shopping adventure of browsing. If you must shop with specific items in mind, be prepared to be flexible in what kind of style and quality of the item you will settle for.
  • Be prepared to haggle with the sale host for items. This practice is expected from garage sale shoppers and can earn shoppers excellent bargain prices on sale items.
  • Do not forget to come prepared for elements! This is Canada we are talking about, after all. In many areas, the weather can change at a moment’s notice from hot to drenched.

Tips for a Garage Sale Host in Canada

Garage Sales in Canada

Garage sales in Canada are unique as compared to the garage sales in the rest of the world. They have their own style and culture, and offer a one of a kind assortment of items. As a Canadian hosting a garage sale, you want to move as many items as possible by appealing them to your customers. There are a number of things a garage sale host in Canada should think of in order to host a successful garage sale. Rather than stumble through your garage sale event, consider the advice of avid garage sale hosts:

  • Carefully select your calendar date around weather trends and other major calendar events in the area. Pleasant weather and open calendars indicate the perfect garage sale conditions. Also consider which day of the week will bring in most customers and what time of day is best suited for a neighborhood sale. Being savvy of all these factors will raise the level of success of your garage sale.
  • Promoting the sale in advance drastically raises the level of foot traffic directed toward your sale. You can do this through media outlets, such as local newspapers of favorite community websites, or you can do it the old fashioned way and place signs up around the neighborhood letting people know dates, times and locations. For a busier sale, do some of both types of advertising!
  • Set up for the big day gradually instead of cramming it all into one day. This will give you time to prepare for and anticipate surprises. In setting up, be sure to cover details such as price labels, cash box preparation and a plan for how your sale items will be laid out.
  • A garage sale host should always have a back up plan ready for bad weather. It is a hassle to call off the sale and reschedule. Instead, have room prepared for sale items that are delicate or cannot get wet under neath a shelter, and have space ready for items that are able to get wet or wind blown outside.
  • Be prepared to negotiate the prices of sale items and quickly lump item prices together for large purchases.
  • The items that are left behind at a garage sale – the ones that did not sell – can often be time consuming to dispose of. Several ideas for what to do with leftover garage sale items are donate them to your favorite thrift store, or have a junk removal service come to collect them.
  • Be prepared to negotiate the prices of sale items and quickly lump item prices together for large purchases.

How Garage Sales in Canada are Unique

How Garage Sales in Canada are Unique

 by Guest April 24, 2015

Garage sales are universal traditions of developed nations. Almost every level of society in a developed nation embraces the tradition of inviting the public into individual garages, driveways and yards in order to sell used personal items. This is largely considered to be the most convenient and the most hospitable way of selling personal items in bulk. However, every country approaches garage sales in slightly different ways, depending on the country’s region, weather, community involvement and goods to sell.

In Canada, garage sales have their own, unique style that sets them apart from the rest of the world. Canada is known for its long winters and frigid temperatures, which certainly has an affect on how garage sales are executed. All garage sales are held in the summertime, and the community at large comes out to support them, making offers on the uniquely Canadian wares.

A number of regions in the North Hemisphere have their garage sales in the summer, but for a place as northern as Canada, summer time garage sales are an immovable necessity. Temperatures in Canada during the winter months are almost unanimously below freezing, and even the spring and fall months are marked by cold and inclement. Canadians do not bother with any of the plans and preparations that are made for a garage sale until the summer weather begins.

Garage sales are a largely communal effort in Canada. Unlike the United States, where weather is warmer, Canadians are less social in the winter and fiercely social in the summer. A huge majority of their outdoor living is done in the summer months. It is very common to see community wide garage sale events in Canadian cities and towns because there is a shorter block of time to host them in. Garage sale maps are made and the sale events are promoted in newspapers and on websites.

Even the items that are sold at Canadian garage sales are uniquely Canadian. In no other country’s garage sales can shoppers find quite as good a selection of winter clothes and shoes, winter athletic equipment and winter outdoor equipment.

A Successful Garage Sale in Canada

A Successful Garage Sale in Canada

Canada is a country that knows how to host a good garage sale. Garage sales are deeply ingrained summer traditions in Canada. There are several key features to tend to if you want to host a successful garage sale in Canada, however. There are seasons, times of day, days of the week, types of weather and other factors that can positively or negatively affect your Canadian garage sale.

  • The summer season is the time of year to host a garage sale in Canada. This is for obvious reasons. Canada is very far north on the globe and is subject to harsh winters. Canada’s spring season and fall season can also be very cold and dark in a number of places. By planning your garage sale for summer, you will guarantee long daylight hours and will greatly increase the likelihood of good weather.
  • Consider the time of day and the day of the week you are holding your garage sale. Most people hold their garage sales on weekends during usual business hours. This is smart, considering that daylight hours in Canada are long during the summer and many people who frequent garage sales, particularly seniors, enjoy starting their days early. Weekends are logical simply to ensure that people are not working instead of shopping.
  • It is very important to watch the weather forecast and be willing to change the date of your garage sale if the forecast is bad on your scheduled garage sale date. Weather in Canada, especially near mountains, can become ugly quickly and it is wise to be prepared for anything.
  • Advertising your garage sale is very important to its success. A garage sale cannot do well if no one knows about it. This is why signs on street corners and ads in newspapers and on websites is important. In Canada, garage sale season is short, so when it arrives, the whole community is actively awaiting them. When it is time, they will be looking for advertisements for garage sales.