Yard Sale/Garage Sale

I find here in Boise that an 8am to 1pm is usually the prime times and also fridays seem to be more popular here.

Start at 7am-12pm. You're going to most likely have "early birds" who get there at 6am to get first dibs on anything good. I've even had them ring my doorbell and ask to see it then or ask if I had something they were specifically looking for. Most people dwindle around lunchtime because they're hungry. :) Good luck and get lots of $1 bills for change!

We usually do ours 7-1, but we start packing up around noon.

I would start early (7-8) and let the ending time be variable. I usually close down around 1 or 2 because all the "good stuff" is gone and I could sit there for an hour after that and only make a dollar or two per hour...not worth it. I have a garage sale every year, starting at 8 am, and I'd say most of my sales are made by 10:00. :) Good luck!

What day of the week are you having the sale?

If it's on a Sat. you want to open any time before 9:00. That means you're totally set up by 9:00. Whatever time you advertise expect people to start showing up an hour earlier.

Chances are you'll have very few customers after 2:00pm on a Saturday.

We (my BFF and I) had a sale at my house on Friday and Sat. We did from 8 to 4 on Friday and 8 to 12 on Saturday. Our goal on Friday was to get parents to stop on the way to and from dropping/picking up kids at school and people on their lunch hours. You would be amazed by how many retired men go to yard sales on Friday's while their wives are at work.

Don't post it to start before 8, because the "early birds" will be there by 6:45. No kidding. Even if you say "no early birds" they will come anyway looking for the best bargains. You might as well end it by 2, even 1, especially in the summer when it's hot and people make other plans. Depending on what you plan to do with the "leftovers" you might want to leave some time at the end of the day. For example, if the town dump closes at 3 PM, end the sale by 1 so you can load up the car and make a few "dump runs" by 3. You probably don't want to bring all that stuff back into the house. The other thing you can do is call a local charity that picks up household items, and schedule them for the following Monday. They pick up what's left and you can get a receipt for tax purposes. In our area, these organizations include Big Brother/Big Sister, The Epilepsy Foundation, Salvation Army, and many others.

Good luck and hope you make lots of $$!

.

I post 8 -1. am ready by 7:30. start packing up about 12:30. although if you advertise in the newspaper or Craig's list, you will have people as early as 6:30. That is just unbelievably rude and simply ticks me off. I've always told those people, "I'm opening at 8, you are welcome to come back then when I am ready for customers." It always makes them mad but they wouldn't go into Target an hour or more before opening? anyway, if you're ready a 1/2 hour before your posted time you should be okay and catch most of the early birds. as others have said, very little traffic after 11:30 or so.

We tried to start ours about 8 but put stuff out earlier. We had to pack everything up at night so it took a while to set up. And we went till about 3 or 4 except for Sat we went to about 1. We had ours Thursday thru Sat. We did our best sales Thursday.

ADD: Also if you can make your own signs an not have to have special ones make them out of neon green poster board. That way people can see them. We were told people could see ours in the dark.

On Saturday, from 8 to 5. Order a pizza.