Flea Market Pricing
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.
I just wanted to say that one angle customers may take is that they can find the same item online somewhere at a cheaper price. This may or not be true, but it’s kind of like competitor pricing for EVERYBODY’S flea market across the country. It is not a bad idea to see if your item is selling on eBay to also gauge pricing. Regardless, the answer to the argument is that the customer can get it now instead of waiting, and doesn’t have to pay shipping to boot.