Due to their relative inaccessibility, rural sales tend not to attract as many participants as do their suburban counterparts. A majority of sales take place on spring and fall Saturday mornings in suburbia and small cities to a lesser extent, they occur in urban areas as stoop or apartment sales. Bucking the early sales trend of large, costly items, today's sales derive the bulk of profits through the vending of small household goods appliances, tools, and used sporting equipment are in especially high demand. In recent years, garage sales have continued to thrive due to the national penchant for material accumulation and widespread dearth of disposable income: many Americans seek low-cost ways to satiate avid consumerist tendencies. It was in the years leading up to 1970 that residential sales became known as "rummage sales," a term borrowed from those sales given for charitable causes over the course of the next decade, the sharp increase in sales operated from the garage prompted a linguistic shift to the term "garage sale." During the 1970s, garage sales exploded into mainstream consciousness, earning a permanent place in American iconography and legitimizing the concept of profiting from discarded goods. Americana and collectibles, more popular in the 1960s than at any time since the nationalistic 1920s, became specialty items among the used home goods. Prior to 1970, goods featured at charity fairs or rummage sales became less extraordinary and more practical while a nineteenth-century fair may have featured a booth with souvenirs and curiosities alongside a booth with historic relics, garage sales more typically featured furniture, used clothing, and appliances. A postmodern adaptation of the mid-nineteenth-century charitable fair or bazaar, the garage sale tapped a national romanticism toward history and nostalgia for used goods. Suburbia became the fertile breeding grounds of garage sales, where unwanted items found new homes at the hands of housewives. In 1950s and 1960s America, increased affluence led many consumers to accumulate household goods in excess concurrently, increased home-ownership created the venue from which to sell these goods. The private setting and personal nature of such transactions foster exchanges that are at once commercial and hospitable.
Unlike flea markets, in which numerous dealers congregate to sell assorted wares, and auctions, in which an auctioneer markets various goods to the highestīidder, many garage sale transactions occur between the original owner of an item and a buyer. Typically, one or several families hold sales to recycle household goods, make a small profit, and socialize with neighbors buyers attend to purchase low-cost items, haggle recreationally, and discover the occasional yard sale treasure.
Each year, Americans host an estimated 6.5 to 9 million garage sales, vending used goods out of or near their homes.