Hopefully by the day of your sale you're prepared. You've put up your signs, gotten everything ready in your garage, and figured out your minimum prices for everything. If not, today is going to be terrible. I'm going to proceed assuming you've followed my suggestions.
You need to start setting up your stuff no later than half an hour before your advertised starting time, so if you advertised to start at 7:00 -- my suggestion -- be outside no earlier than 6:30. This way you're set up by 7:00; it takes longer to get everything out of your garage than you would expect. You don't want to organize your stuff on your driveway too much; when you're too organized, it's too easy to see everything you have. Leave items scattered around, don't keep neat piles, don't place items on tables, and definitely do not mark prices.
Marking prices is the biggest mistake you can possibly make. It both scares away people looking for good deals and limits your potential profit. At my last sale, my friend was trying to sell an old Polaroid camera. The camera is worthless on eBay; when people asked, he was telling people it was $15 hoping to settle for $5. One potential buyer saw it and got very excited; my friend recognized someone who would be willing to pay more than an eBay reseller. He told her he was asking $25 when she asked the price and they ultimately settled on $20. Had he marked his price at $15 (or, the more common mistake of marking the price at his minimum of $5) he would have settled on significantly less. Never mark your prices and be willing to ask more from people you think are more willing to buy the item.
When people ask you how much you are asking for an item, start high -- absurdly high. This way you have plenty of room to negotiate; enough room so that you will frequently settle for far above your minimum. At my last sale I sold a broken tape measure (yes, the buyer knew it was broken) for $1.50. My minimum was $0.25 because it was going in the garbage if it didn't sell but I started negotiating high.
If you have a lot of electronics or appliances you're trying to sell, it's a pretty good idea to run an extension cord outside you can test them. This way people can't try to reduce your price by claiming the item may not work.
Finally, be sure to have change and a lot of it. I usually have $4 in quarters, $1 in nickels and dimes, $30 in ones, and $20 in fives. This should be enough to get you through the day but you still may run out if you run into a lot of people paying in twenties. As a matter of personal preference I don't accept any bills greater than $20 because getting a fake $50 or fake $100 is far more damaging than a fake $20 -- and yes, I almost guarantee at least one person will try to pay with these higher bills.
This post pretty much finishes up everything I have to say about having your own sale. My next post will be a checklist for you to use for having your own sale and then it's back to my normal routine. I may eventually have some more posts about your own sale in the future should I think of more things.
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