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hope i helped =]

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Garage sale tips: How to negotiate yard sale pricing

Even if you’re shy, you can haggle over prices at a garage or yard sale. Here are the key tips from the king of the garage sale, author Bruce Littlefield, of Garage Sale America.

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“Bob, We are at the Pasco county flea market and have been since September of this year and the economy is terrible and haven’t found the right niche with the people who do go there.  There is around 70 to 80% of old people who go there and they walk around like they are half dead and don’t seem to be buying anything.  This is in Florida.”

My response to Ron was:

“Well, you bring up an excellent point.

I have a couple of thoughts:  First, if we get real basic, we need 2 things to be successful in a flea market business.  One is traffic or people.  Without them, it doesn’t matter what our product is, we won’t sell anything.  OK, now all that traffic has to buy our flea market items, I call that conversion, as we need to convert that traffic into traffic that buys stuff.

So, if you are at a flea market where the traffic (people) don’t buy, then don’t waste your time at that market.  Find a flea market in a nearby town or city and scope it out to see if folks are buying.  If you are in an economically depressed area where people go to the flea market just to take a walk, then you will have to find another market.

So, go to a different flea market, and see if folks there are buying.  If they are, then find out what kind of products they are buying.  Take a note pad and write it down.  Those are the kinds of products you should be selling.  I’ve seen some so called flea market “experts” tell people to try to be unique and don’t sell what others are selling.  Well, I got news for them, those flea market vendors that are selling stuff have figured out what sells.  You need to sell what they sell, only do it better, or slightly different, or sell those products back at your original flea market.  Then, after you are able to at least start selling those flea market items, experiment with other flea market items to expand your offering, but only little by little so you can test the market before taking a big leap.  See the results and make adjustments.

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Now that we have a good handle on the types of products to sell at flea markets, let’s look at how to price them.  Flea market pricing can be a tricky process.  But don’t let it throw you or bog you down.  The great thing about price is that it is totally up to you and within your control.  Ultimately, the customers determine the price at which they are comfortable buying at.  All you have to do is to figure out what that is, but it’s not that hard.  Let’s take a look at several pricing strategies for your flea market items:  mark up, competitor, and negotiated.

Mark Up Pricing

Mark up pricing means starting with the cost of the item and adding usually a percentage to that to come up with the price.  If a flea market item costs $1 and you mark it up 100%, the result is a $2 selling price.  The advantage of this method is that it is easy to do.  It is a relatively simple mathematical formula and exercise.  The disadvantage of the mark up method is that it can be difficult to know what percentage to use when pricing products.  I mean, is a 100% markup a good markup, will customers buy at that price, will I make any money at that price?  These are all very good questions.

To answer these questions, consider using the mark up method as just one part of the way to determining price, just one tool in your flea market tool kit.  You will see as we move along our discussion of flea market pricing, that it is best to use several methods to determine price of your flea market items.  Let’s look at competitor pricing next.

 Competitor Pricing

Competitor pricing is simply pricing your flea market items close to similar products that others selling those same items are selling at.  Remember there is nothing wrong with using the information that others have used and the experience others have experienced to help you in your decisions.  If more than one vendor is selling at or near the same price, it is a good indication that they have found the proper price.

Competitor pricing is typically the best and quickest way to do research on pricing.  Simply walk a flea market, make note of products that you might be interested in selling, also note their price, and then try to find a supplier of that product so that the cost is such that it will provide a profit at the price you noted.

There is a time when I would not use competitor pricing.  And that is when the price a competitor is using is below the cost of the product.  This would mean you are losing money on each sale.  Either the other vendor is buying at a lower price than you or he is losing money on the sale.  Either way, reconsider your price at this point.

As you might have guessed, mark up pricing and competitor pricing should be used together to best determine the proper pricing of flea market wholesale items.  One last pricing method should be used as you sell your products and that is negotiated pricing.

 Negotiated Pricing

Negotiated pricing is pricing that is determined at the time of the sale.  We use negotiated pricing when buying a car.  Negotiated pricing is less formal that the other two methods, but is still very useful.  Always be open and willing to negotiate.  However, don’t feel bad about holding your ground with what you consider your lowest price to be.  Try to upsell when people start negotiating.  I mean try to get them to purchase more in return for giving them a break on price.  See if you can always get something for your decrease in price like more sales.

The amount of negotiating that you do will depend upon the kind of flea market items you sell.  Higher priced items leave more room for negotiation so you will do more negotiation with them.  That being said, most of the time, you will not have to negotiate and people will pay the price that is marked.

Keep in mind that negotiating can start with you, it doesn’t have to start with the customer.  When someone is interested in your product or products, they might need just a bit of a deal to get them to buy.  You will have to be aware of their actions and possibly suggest a deal to them if you feel they might walk away without buying.

Negotiating is definitely a skill you will learn.  There will be times when you may have gone too low on price.  That’s ok, just learn from it and don’t do it again.  If I told you all the mistakes I have made since getting into business for myself, I could write another 100 pages.  But the key is to learn from everything you do.

As you may have determined, pricing entails using sometimes all three pricing methods, mark up pricing to make sure you make enough profit, competitor pricing to ensure you are competitive with others, and negotiated pricing as the deal is taking place.  The great thing about price is that it is totally within your control so you can adjust continually if needed.

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