How to get ready for the sale
Registering is free, and all it takes is a gate and a few boxes of things. Registration is open until midnight on September 4.
A week beforehand
Go through the attic, the garage and the cellar, and put into one box everything you have not reached for in years. It is usually more than you expect. Anything broken or incomplete is better left at home: the point of the sale is that a thing goes on being useful somewhere else.
Collect paper and plastic bags. Most buyers turn up empty-handed, and having something to wrap a purchase in makes a real difference.
On pricing
Do not start from the shop price. At a garage sale, a good price is one that means you do not have to carry the thing home again. Round numbers work best: 200, 500, 1000 forints. For a larger piece of furniture, look up what something similar goes for second-hand and ask half of that.
Put a price on everything. Plenty of people will not dare ask, and will simply move on. We are making printable price tags for exactly this. Haggling is part of the day, but nobody is obliged to.
On the morning
- Have at least ten thousand forints in small change on you, in five hundreds and thousands.
- The table, the chair and the clothes rail are your own to sort out.
- Lay out half an hour early. Early risers do not wait for nine o’clock - that is true at every sale everywhere.
- Put the poster up on your gate, so passers-by can see there is a location here.
- Do not leave clothes in a box. What hangs or lies flat gets looked through; what is in a box does not.
Payment
Most places will be taking cash. Beyond that it is worth being set up for qvik: the buyer scans a QR code with their phone and the money is in your account within seconds, with no fee. Most Hungarian banking apps can set it up in a couple of minutes. If you have never used it, say so when you register and we will help.
Taking payment without cash
There will always be cash, but not with everybody. It is worth being ready for someone who arrives with a card in their pocket and nothing small on them.
- qvik - instant payment by QR code straight to your bank account. The buyer scans the code, the money is with you within seconds, with no fee.
- Revolut - if that is what you use, a payment link or a QR code is enough.
- Bank transfer - slower, but everybody knows how it works.
We show you step by step, with pictures, how to set it up, and there is a printable version you can put out on your table.
At the end of the day
Do not put whatever is left straight back in the attic. Have a think about whether it goes to a charity, or whether you keep it for the next sale, which we are planning for the spring.