You may have heard or read plenty of move-related pieces of advice before you begin the move-out preparations, and the chances are that some of those moving tips will prove to be really useful while others will not be as useful as they seemed or maybe even utterly useless in your case.
The success of your house move will depend largely on the number of good decisions you manage to come up with during the home moving process, and one of the best decisions ever when moving house is to get rid of all items that you won’t ever need again so that you don’t pay for the transportation of unwanted stuff.
And what’s the best way to discard all unwanted things you won’t be moving to the new home? Sell them at a moving sale, of course, so that you can earn some extra cash and add that money to your moving budget.
But here’s the trick: in order to organize a profitable moving sale, you’re going to have to learn how to advertise a garage sale. Why? The reason is very simple indeed: if nobody knows that you’re having a yard sale before moving out, nobody will come to the event. And if nobody shows up at your moving sale, then you won’t be able to sell anything in the end.
Luckily, you have several very good options to advertise your moving sale in order to get the most out of it.
Face-to-face announcements
The thing is that you need an excellent garage sale advertising strategy to attract more people to your home on the moving sale date and thus make the pre-move event SUCCESSFUL (understand PROFITABLE).
The first good way to make your moving sale known is the so-called word-of-mouth approach. What it actually means is that you tell all your friends, co-workers, neighbors, and acquaintances about your upcoming yard sale, and of course, you also invite all of them to come over, if they can spare the time.
Also, a good tactical move is to ask your friends to pass on the information to their friends too, thus creating multiple information networks that should succeed in bringing more interested visitors to your pre-move sale event.
Good to know: Where to donate stuff when moving
Online advertising
Where to advertise your garage sale when moving house? Obviously, your best bet is to spread the word using the various online options that you should have at your disposal.
A well-designed and cleverly worded Facebook post will easily and quickly inform all your Facebook friends that you’re hosting a moving sale soon. But that’s not all – some of your pals will share the post with their own friends and that will increase drastically the outreach of your garage sale post.
Also, consider sharing your own post to various Facebook groups that you belong to – ultimately, the more people learn about your moving sale, the better. Of course, you can’t expect people who don’t live in the area to get particularly excited about your yard sale.
If you happen to be a Twitter fan, then you must also advertise your garage sale on the micro-blogging network as well. Compose a short and sweet tweet about the upcoming yard sale to inform your followers there.
Make sure you include vital information such as the date of the moving sale and the start time. Also, since there’s a high chance that your tweet get shared and re-shared, it’s a good idea to include the address of your home so that interested people can know where to go.
Specialized websites such as Craigslist
The good news is that there are specialized websites where you can advertise your garage sale with the purpose of attracting more people to it. You’ve got nothing to lose really – it’s free to post a yard sale on most websites, so just do it.
Which are the best sites to advertise a garage sale when moving house?
Of course, the most popular place to advertise your moving sale online is Craigslist – it lets people search for garage sales near their location. And that’s exactly what you want people in your neighborhood to do – to come to your garage sale and buy whatever items you wish to get rid of before moving out.
Other specialized garage sale websites such as Garage Sales Tracker and Yard Sale Search also give you the opportunity to popularize your sale event with the purpose of increasing the number of visitors and thus maximizing the profit.
Remember that when you advertise your garage sale online, posting plenty of quality photos and writing detailed descriptions of the items for sale are the two prerequisites that will help you get the most out of your moving sale.
Read also: How to get rid of things when moving
Local media
Where to advertise a yard sale? Consider running a garage sale ad in the local newspaper so that the news of your moving sale reaches more people in your immediate neighborhood. Depending on the specific area where you live, paying for some moving sale ads on the local radio can range from being a great strategy to being a terrible idea.
In fact, it makes a lot of sense to advertise locally when it comes to garage sales simply because almost all of the visitors there will be locals, plus maybe a small percentage of people driving by who must have seen your signs and posters throughout the area (see below).
The only downside to advertising your moving sale on the local media will cost you money that may or may not be a good investment, so in most cases, you should stick to online advertising (it’s free, mostly) and local advertising through signs and posters around the neighborhood (also free).
See also: How to organize a profitable moving sale
Signs and posters around the neighborhood
Together with advertising your moving sale online, the next best way to let people know that you’re selling your stuff is to create and place signs and posters within your neighborhood. That is a must-do task if you’re really serious about running a successful moving sale that will bring in much-needed money.
Here’s what you need to know when you’re set to advertise your garage sale in the area you’re about to leave soon:
- Create signs that will catch the eye (attractive) without being too flashy and gaudy. If possible, use original and creative designs that will make your announcement signs stand out from the rest.
- Use big letters so that even drivers can read your yard sale signs from their cars in motion.
- Be careful what information you write on those signs and posters. The date and the starting time of the garage sale should be present, of course. The best time to hold a garage sale before moving is the weekend when most people are off work and have more time for extra activities. Also, 8 am is a good time to start your moving sale.
- Use arrows to direct people to your place. Writing your home address on those signs may work well as well but it can also prove to be counterproductive because most people won’t bother finding the exact moving sale location on a map.
- Avoid getting fined by the local authorities by checking in advance where you are allowed to place garage sale signs and where you are forbidden to advertise a yard sale at all.
Don’t underestimate the importance of garage sale advertising. Ultimately, you want more people to come and look at the stuff you’ve put up for sale and that’s only possible when you’re willing to invest the required time and thought in creating a foolproof moving sale advertising strategy.
It’s no secret that organizing a profitable moving sale takes time. Therefore, consider hiring professional packers and movers to help you out with other aspects of the house move.
