Advertising hype can turbocharge garage sales

It’s that season everyone anticipates, especially given the current state of the economy. Time to dust off those discards and try to foist them onto the unsuspecting public in exchange for their hard-earned cash.
It’s garage sale/yard sale time.
Such sales are a great way to scrape together enough cash to, say, finally pay off last November’s heating bill.
But one of the disappointments of holding a garage/yard sale is the frustrating realization that no one else wants your crap either.
Some people refuse to shop at garage sales, theorizing that people who sell stuff at garage sales are living on the edge to begin with so, naturally, the quality of the stuff they sell doesn’t meet the minimum standards of acceptability, even for Waste Management.
My theory is that many garage sales are disappointments because a.) they are held too often; b) they don’t draw enough traffic; and c.) one man’s trash truly is another man’s trash.
But since this is America, it’s your God-given right to try to sell junk to your fellow man.
Many garage sales, of course, are advertised in the classifieds.
Classified ads, in fact, are much like garage sales. They match pre-owned goods with suckers.
HERE COMES THE SHAMELESS PROMOTIONAL PLUG: In my experience, Evening News classifieds almost are magical. Way better than Craigslist. Far better than eBay. Even better than MonroeList, for now. Whenever I’ve used The Evening News’ classifieds, I’ve sold stuff the same day the ad ran. It’s phenomenal.
Of course, that’s among the reasons so many people advertise their garage sales in classifieds. I’ve also found that even if you’re not looking to buy anything, Evening News classifieds are a good read.
For example, I was perusing them recently and found the kind of ad that always suggests a sad story: “Wedding dress. Never worn. $100.”
To the unpracticed eye, this sounds as if someone was left standing at the altar. Maybe a would-be groom got cold feet or had a bachelor’s party that got out of hand and led to activities that even true love cannot forgive.
If the seller is lucky, prospective buyers will look at that ad and say, “Oh, that’s so sad. I should at least take a look at that dress.”
If they do take a look, the prospective seller might crank up interest by playing the pity card, suggesting, tearfully, that fate intervened and her fiance contracted a terminal illness two weeks before the wedding. If this is played well, the sale will be made even if the prospective buyer thinks the dress is ugly and isn’t even her size.
But if you read between the lines here, you’ll be braced for deception. If a wedding dress was “never worn,” that seems to indicate it came into the seller’s possession without ever being tried on. At any rate, advertising the dress as never worn probably beats the heck out of a truth-in-advertising approach such as “worn once; has small stain” or “worn only two hours before I got sick drunk and puked all over it.”
Another ad that recently caught my eye was: “Stripper pole. Barely used.”. (I’m not kidding, that’s what the ad said.)
At first, I thought this was an ad for some kind of paint-stripping device. You know, something to get into those hard-to-reach places near the ceiling. A quick Google search revealed that a stripper pole might support activities that would sear the paint from your walls, but it wasn’t exactly what you’d find at the hardware store.
Although both ads made for interesting reading, they suffered from a lack of clarity that might have made the difference between a cash sale and an inventory overstock.
So here’s a tip for those planning to run garage sale ads: Spice them up a little and you’ll draw a lot more traffic and increase the potential for sales.
For example, consider this typical garage sale ad: “Huge sale, toys, clothes, tools, too many items to mention.”
With just a few additional words, it’s transformed from a ho-hum event to a can’t-miss sale: “Huge sale, toys, rare gold doubloons, clothes, surface-to-air missile, tools, small nuclear device, used stripping pole, misc. items.”
Twice as many words maybe, but at least triple the traffic.
You say you don’t have such items to sell?
No problem. Just tell customers the earlybirds scooped them up.

April 3, 2010
source: monroenews.com