Please stop making bad yard sale signs
Your yard sale information has to be visible by drivers. Sure, this sign is visible, but the information isn’t.
This blog post is directed to you, the person desperately trying to get people to show up at your yard sale, the person who’s never done one before and isn’t exactly sure how to go about it.
In particular, we need to talk about your yard sale sign.
There are lots of ways to do a really good yard sale sign. There are just as many ways to do a bad one.
We’ve offered tips before on this, but we’re going to do it again.
Why? Because we saw the sign you see at right and we couldn’t believe how awful it was.
So once again, here are the Do’s and Don’ts of yard sale signs.
- DON’T try to fit tons of information on your sign — like the hours of your sale. Just take the sign down when it’s over.
- DO create or draw a highly visible arrow pointing drivers in the right direction.
- DON’T use tiny lettering on your sign.
- DO make big, bold, black, highly contrasting letters on your sign.
- DON’T use colored markers to make it more “pretty.”
- DO make sure that a driver can see it and read the information in just a few seconds.
- DON’T buy pre-printed signs that offer you no space for putting the simplest details of your yard sale. The one at right is quite useless.
- DO make your own sign. All it really needs to say is “YARD SALE” and the address.
- DON’T hide your signs behind bushes or other obstructions.
- DO ask property owners if you can place a sign on their property.
- DON’T forget to take your sign down within a few days of your sale. The one at right was there a full month after the sale had ended.
So there you go, yard sale newbie, it’s really very easy. It’s also nothing to be lazy about. Good signage can bring a lot of customers to your sale, and the more customers the more money you make.
While I appreciate a well written sign, my beef is with the people who don’t take their signs down after their sale is over. Obviously these people must have all kinds of money that they bring in from their yard sales, because they apparently have never driven around wasting gas looking for a yard sale that doesn’t exist or has been done and over with for weeks. Gas is too expensive to look for old yard sales. After many lessons learned and wasted gas, we now only drive to ones with signs clearly stating the date and time. So people please be courteous of others and remove your signs when your yard sale is over. Just our two cents on the subject!