You can advertise garage sales very effectively for free. We will show you how.

1. Take advantage of listing your garage sale in free classified ads for two weeks prior to your sale, not just one week. Many newspaper classifieds are received on Wednesday or Thursday, and the extra week allows those people who don’t immediately browse their classifieds to find your yard sale.
2. Garage sale ads should be posted in multiple locations, both online and in newspapers. It does not take very long to make an online classified listing for your garage sale on Craigslist and in your local ‘Home Shopper’ classified newspaper.
3. Make sure that you list your estate sale on Craigslist. Most garage sale pickers start planning garage sales routes by finding good sales on Craigslist these days.
4. Garage sale signs are for navigation to your sale, not garage sale advertisement! Make sure your signs are visible from the roadway, so that customers can find their way to your sale. Do not rely on signs to bring in a high volume of traffic. For more tips on the design and placement of garage sale signs, see our related web page.

This is what your garage sale classified ad should contain:

• The particulars. Clearly state the days of the week and datesthat your sale will be open, the Times that your sale starts and ends, and the address. That should be the first line. You may wish to add the closest main intersection, but most people either have GPS, or can use Mapquest on their cell phones these days.

• If other families are contributing to your sale, list your sale as a‘Multi-Family Garage Sale’, or ‘Neighborhood’ Garage Sale. It gives the impression that you will have lots of good swag at your sale. The other families do not all have be physically present at your site. If they gave you some stuff to sell, that’s good enough for me.

• Descriptions that include phrases like ‘years of accumulation’,‘1st sale in years!’, and ‘Grandma’s first ever garage sale’ would pique my interest. How about yours?

• List some interesting items that will be for sale at your garage sale. Garage sale advertising really should not be any different than a sales pitch at a department store. Make people interested in going to your sale. What are people looking for that you can use to get them to your sale? Collectibles, Sports Cards, Vinyl Records, Good Furniture, Baby and Kids Clothes, Toys, Old Books, Sporting Goods, Hunting and Fishing Gear, and Name-Brand women’s clothes are several particulars that will bring in customers.

• Also, list large high-value items like newer electronics, bicycles, lawnmowers, outdoor play sets, large collections like stamp collections and music collections.

• Specify whether you allow ‘Early-bird Sales’. You have to understand that even if you started your sale at 5AM, you would still have a couple of die-hards there are 4:30. Early-birds can be good for getting a jump-start on your sales, but often, hosts are still trying to get their sale set up, and dealing with taking money and answering questions from these people can be annoying. I’ve always thought that it was inconsiderate of the early-birds anyway. I never go to yard sales before the start time, just for that reason.

“5-Family Neighborhood Garage Sale. 5525 St. Joseph Street in Montcalm. Friday May 4 and Saturday May 5. Sale Open 7AM-3PM. NO EARLY SALES.

Large accumulation, 1st sale at this address! Collectibles, Big-screen TV, CD’S & records, Food Processor, fishing gear, duck decoys, lots of man stuff & tools, women’s name brand clothes, kids clothes & Toys. Holiday decorations. See you here!”

For step-by-step directions for making a garage sale listing on Craigslist, check out this WikiHow page.