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pricing at swap meet/show


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im considering on attending the event oct 6 in Kirkwood Missouri...its a 3 hr drive...I would like to sell a bunch of kits...just looking for general info on how kits sell at these type events...years ago when I lived much closer I attended this event and it seemed to me that kits sold for a little less than on ebay..any info or thoughts much appreciated.

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set your stuff up at the meet , then walk the show,check out the other venders with the same stuff  (as you). set your price a little under theirs, that will get customers to at least look at it . if your customers pick  up the model kit  or handle it, they are interested, get past all sales objections, close them and get the cash. treat yourself and wife to a steak dinner later. ( this will only work if you intend to sell what you brought and don't want to take it home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

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All of the above is good advice. I always priced my kits from $10 to $20 depending on their rarity. I have rented tables and still not sold enough to pay for it. Most sellers price very reasonably but there is always one or two that have the old and rare kits that start at $40 and go up. In my opinion the swap meets are the best places to buy and sell 

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 can honestly tell you. For pretty much ANY modern tool kit , made in the last 20 years or so  , $15 to $20 is pretty much the norm at shows

 

Even if its something very recent and you just paid $30 for. Your are not going to get your money back

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I used to sell pretty often at kit swap meets in Los Angeles.  It's a lot of fun, especially if you unload a bunch of kits and make some $$$. Things I learned, off the top of my alleged head...

1.  Go to Staples or Wal-Mart and get some small white price stickers.  Especially when the show first opens, your table will be very busy and mobbed. You don't want to be trying to quote prices to 5 people at once who are yelling "How much?"  This will also force you to think about how much you want to sell the kit for.

I always priced them a little high, to leave room for negotiation.  But still, my Number One rule was: "I'd rather sell cheaper than take them back home with me."  As the show gets closer to closing time, you'll notice other sellers marking stuff down.

2. Before the show opens, other sellers will be walking around looking for deals, probably including some pro kit dealers. If you're lucky, you may be able to unload quite a few kits before the show even starts. 

3. If possible, take a wife, kid, friend or other victim with you to help.  You'll be on your feet for several hours and will need bathroom breaks etc.  And you'll probably want to walk around and find some deals for yourself.  If you have to work alone, be very nice to the sellers on either side of you. They'll watch your table while you're gone.

4. Got lots of plastic bags hanging around the house?  Take a bunch with you and hand them out when somebody buys a kit.  A lot of people forget to bring bags, and they'll be grateful . So grateful they might even buy more kits.

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All good advice from Mike999....

If I want $10 for a kit I mark it $15 .... $20 I mark it $25....some people just pay that price and don't ask for a discount....    above that If I paid $30...$45 or more....I ask at least that.   and can decicde there if you want to sell it for less... I drop prices on my higher dollar items when I'm not doing as well as I wish.

Good Luck !!:)

 

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I agree with everything said,  price your kits to sell, not for show,  brand new kits or still fairly new kits, you can price them close to what you paid for them new, or what they could buy for from their favorite retailer, but dime a dozen kits, anything more than $10/15 and you will be bringing them home.

 

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In the mid 2000's I was laid off. I went to vend at several SoCal model shows. Here are my thoughts.

Alan's Ten Rules.

1. Take a comfortable folding chair.! You do NOT want to be at the mercy of the chairs the show, may (or may not) provide. Also, take a small Cash box. Have some change with you. Having to break a Hundred on the first deal of the day is hard.

2. Take a Cooler/Ice Chest with at least a 12 pack of what ever you chose to drink. The stuff there (if you can get it, will be overpriced or hard to get when you are thirsty)

3. Likewise, Take snacks. I prefer Jerky, Chips,Granola Bars, (and Twinkies...)

4. Consider how much you want to drag home with you, and price accordingly. Prices are higher in the morning and will taper off in the afternoon.

5. People LOVE Junk Boxes! I had a huge box of old parts and a stack of little brown paper lunch bags. $1.00 a bag, for all you can fit. I made $40.00 or $50.00 doing this. Just let'em dig around. Lots of stuff I would have thrown away found homes, and I made money.

6 Don't be afraid to make deals. Many people will just pay the prices on the box. Others do not consider a day complete unless the have haggled for everything they buy at a swap-meet.Work with them.

7. Ripoffs! It will happen. Some guy haggles you out of a kit, and 30 minutes later, you see it for sale at his booth for twice what he paid for it. Nothing to be done, except live and learn. Don't let it stop you from dealing, but know it will happen.

8 Rare Kits. (or at least rare to you) Look on eBay or online for any kits you even suspect might be worth more than a run-of-the-mill kit.See what they are priced at and what they sold for. Forewarned is forearmed. This helps to prevent #7.

9. Lookout/Companion. Take somebody with you. This is not optional. As others have said you need time to Shop yourself, Take Restroom Breaks, and Step away for a few minutes. The day will be much longer than you thought, and paradoxically, over before you know it.

10. Last, Have Fun! This is not a chore! Plan to have a good time. Roll with the punches. You are guaranteed to forget something you wanted or needed. Be cheerful anyways. Afterall, you are a Modeler and this is what we do together. You are almost guaranteed to go home with something you did not expect, and something thay you have wanted for a long time. It happened to me at every show I went to.

 

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Mike999 and Alexis pretty much covered it all with some excellent advice.

In regards to pricing, I will say this- You stated you wanted to sell some kits, so price them accordingly. Whether you bought it at Ollies' for $7.99 or Hobby Lobby for $29.99, if it's a common kit $15-18 is probably all it will fetch, at best. I will package deals and if I feel generous, might sell for less if I truly want to come home with more money and less kits.

And unless it is some real OOP Revell kit, don't let the recent hysteria over a lack of kits fool you into thinking that ALL of your Revell kits are now rare and worth big money.

 

Finally, the buddy thing- (Spouse, girlfriend, friend or family member) is a must. If the show gets busy, you will need help.

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Top 10 list of things to help you KEEP the stuff you brought to sell:

1. Don't price anything, let people have to search for you to ask for prices. Never be at your own table and leave an uninformed friend or spouse there to have to keep saying "I don't know" to everyone - they'll love it and be sooo glad they came.

2. When someone asks you "how much?" Be sure to open the box and look through it as if you've never seen it before and are just now trying to think up a price. A real booster is to go on Ebay at that time and try to find another one for sale, that way you can put an accurate price on it. If one sells at that price, they must all be worth that much, right?

3. Spend all your time being on your phone or too busy talking with your buddy to talk to potential buyers. Works best with rule #1

4. Put everything behind locked cases as if it was a museum. 

5. Don't let anyone touch your stuff, after all it's too valuable to let them see what's in the boxes!

6. Be indifferent and snobby to answer questions, if they want it they'll pay whatever your price is. (Refer back to rule #1)

7. Be sure to RAISE your price if someone dares to make an offer on something. Better yet, smash the said kit in response to their offensive offer, that'll show 'em!

8. Always put your most interesting stuff in plain view with a sign that says "Not For Sale". Even better, get really irritated that people keep asking you "How much for it".

9. Tell everybody that you don't really need to sell this and say - "If I don't get what I'm asking I'll just put it up on Ebay". With an attitude like that, buyers will absolutely be dying to pay whatever your price is.

And finally rule #10. Overprice everything to be sure you don't get ripped off! Even glue bombs and broken parts must be worth a lot..... somewhere.

Honorable Mention... Pack up your table and leave early. After all, if they haven't bought anything by now, they must not be looking to by anything at all!

Later on, reminisce about the day by complaining to your friends that nobody goes to these shows to buy, they just want to window shop. Of course they don't, that's why they willingly paid admission to get in and then had to elbow their way through crowds of other "window shoppers" with cash in hand, trying to find special deals that snobby sellers don't think they are entitled to.

Please understand the irony in my advice. These are just some of my personal pet peeves, and I've seen them all!

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11 hours ago, alexis said:

 

10. Last, Have Fun! This is not a chore! Plan to have a good time. Roll with the punches. You are guaranteed to forget something you wanted or needed. Be cheerful anyways. Afterall, you are a Modeler and this is what we do together. You are almost guaranteed to go home with something you did not expect, and something thay you have wanted for a long time. It happened to me at every show I went to.

 

There are a lot of good tips in this thread, but planning to have a good time may be the most important - You'll have memories, stories, and friends that will last for years. 

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About a year ago I decided it was time to thin the stash, and pulled 150 kits to sell out of my stash of 500+. I set up a table at our local show, and did pretty well. I learned a lot (pretty much all of which is covered in this thread), and I had a lot of fun. I also had two large plastic bins of loose parts and another large bin a bagged junkers, and as mentioned above, the other modellers flocked to these bins in droves. Guys would root around for parts, then come by again and again for another dig. Also as previously mentioned, I brought along a friend, but almost as an afterthought. I was going to go it alone, but having a helper was hugely beneficial.

I keep pretty decent records of my stash/inventory, and my intent was to jot down the kits I sold as I sold them, along with the price I sold them for. Of course, during the early morning rush and other times of high traffic I was not able to keep up with my record keeping. Next time I will have the list of kits for sale made up ahead of time so that me or my helper (who is not a model builder) can fill in the sold amounts more efficiently during the rush.

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The parts bins and bags of junkers are my absolute favorites, I spend most of my time looking UNDER the tables rather than what's set up on top of it! While everyone else is looking through the unbuilt kits, I'm finding gems and bargains in the junk.

A seller, at the local kit show I go to, sets up multiple very  large boxes (5 to 10) of bagged parts, projects, pieces and glue bombs. That's all he brings, and he's constantly busy during the entire show. He probably takes home more cash than any of the other vendors - I know he gets MOST of mine!

Best fun I ever had at a kit show.

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Always remember: Nobody comes to pay full retail price for anything! If they wanted to do that, they could stay home and buy it on Amazon.

The fun of the kit show is the excitement of the treasure hunt and the camaraderie of fellow hobbyists. Go for the experience and the hope of finding something you've been looking for or have never seen before. If you go just to have fun, then you won't be disappointed. If you go expecting to make a financial windfall - then you may have it rough.

Take a wide variety of goodies - from high dollar prizes all the way down to bargain basement dogs. You never know who you'll appeal to, so have a little bit of everything for every price range.

Mix it up, don't just bring all of one kind of subject. At these shows, I always come across many vendors who only sell just books, or just aircraft, or military, or anime', or whatever. Since I'm not interested in any of those, I just walk on by those sellers and they don't get any of my money. However, sellers that have a variety of subjects will get my attention, because there's the possibility of them having something I may like - so I do stop and look through their stuff. Specialists also tend to know what they've got and will price it accordingly, so less chance of scoring a good deal with them.

I have also found terrific deals on model cars at train shows, full size car swap meets or collector shows dealing with topics other than model cars. Since models or cars aren't their main interest, they don't want model cars cluttering up their collections and will price them to get rid of them. I found a vintage AMT '28 Ford sedan and '40 Ford Sedan for $4 each at the Train Expo that way. I also scored an original annual AMT '70 Chevelle and MPC '82 El Camino with camper shell for $7 each at the Hot Rod and Classic car show and swap meet in Pomona, CA. several years ago. I also met a seller there who turned out to have a storage unit filled with model kits and he lived near me, so we scheduled a meeting for a future date to work out a deal on some of his stuff in that unit. I got a great deal and he got more money than he made at the swap meet that day. It worked out well for both of us. You just never know who you'll meet or what you'll find, So be open to trading, making deals and talking to different people. 

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57 minutes ago, Oldcarfan27 said:

Always remember: Nobody comes to pay full retail price for anything! If they wanted to do that, they could stay home and buy it on Amazon.

 

This,  ive noticed a lot of sellers here in my area at both the swap meets and contest have been slowly raising their prices to close to retail , but I think some of that is because the cost of the swap meets have gone up, so they are raising the kit prices to compensate.    Ive sort of lost interest in going and can stay at home buy the kits I might want online for the about the same price I would pay at the SM. 

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