No problem bargaining at pawn shops

[Paladin]

I envy your pawn shop stories, in my town there are TWO and neither one of them wants anything to do with tools. When they do have tools in, all of their stuff is priced at or above truck price. ( ! ) Most of the time, the pawn shops are jewelry oriented above all else.

Adam

I wonder if the "no tools" thing is a trend. When I was in Vegas, I hit probably 10 pawn shops, only 3 out of the 10 had hand tools. The rest has overpriced power tools and the rest of the **** you'd expect at a pawn shop. Fortunately, Idaho is 20 years behind the rest of the country!

 

[speed bump]

I never knew you weren't supposed to bargain with them. I have done pretty good for deals recently though.

 

[Bolster]

They are probably still in business due to their "other" business....laundering drug money....

Actually...now that you mention it...I think that's a real possibility. Any store that deals primarily in cash is attractive to the 'laundering' business. One that has market-defying prices on things...is even more suspect.

From what I've been told about money laundering, just having the store there is the important part...making it profitable is the last thing on their minds. In fact, it can even lose money, then it becomes a handy tax write-off.

By golly, that explains a lot.

 

[Lookin4'67Galaxieconv]

I never knew you weren't supposed to bargain with them. I have done pretty good for deals recently though.

Anytime you're dealing with stuff that is used, haggling is always acceptable. There is no MSRP on that stuff.

Hell, you can even haggle at department stores...when dealing with display models, closeouts, etc.

 

[Danglerb]

I think some pawn shops must hold out for the double hit, somebody pawns one thing, and buys something else.

IR231C for $95, they sell brand new that cheap or within a few bucks.

OTOH some people must figure its a pawn shop so it "must" be cheap.

 

[Major Ramifications]

Some people must figure its a pawn shop so it "must" be cheap.

I think there is a lot of that going on. There is a certain segment of the population that NEVER goes into regular retail stores (except maybe Wal-Mart) and doesn't really know what things cost. They allow themselves to be taken advantage of of by pawn shops because they assume it must be a deal if it is there.

Also, I wanted to mention to people NOT to try to negotiate price at regular retail stores. I don't know what stores do this, but it never ceases to amaze my coworkers and myself that people come into our store and want to make a "deal". Since everything we sell is already deeply discounted (overstocks, closeouts, scratch & dent) all this does is piss us off. I tell them that it is already a great deal, show them how much the item would cost another store, and tell them that we COULD raise the prices to make room for negoiating, but we would rather just charge the lowest possible price for everybody. To ask for a deal at a retail store is accusing us of charging too much in the first place. We just don't do that.
Most pawn shops, on the other hand, apparently price their stuff so high you are supposed to negotiate.

I wanted to mention again about MARY LOUISE. The shops around here use this system to mark the price they paid for the item on the price tag. M=1, A=2, etc. Thus, AEEE means that they paid $20 for it.

 

[Blacknwhitepit]

I wanted to mention again about MARY LOUISE. The shops around here use this system to mark the price they paid for the item on the price tag. M=1, A=2, etc. Thus, AEEE means that they paid $20 for it.

Good info!

When I was asking the best price on a set of two Craftsman BB Intermediate boxes yesterday, the saleschick looked at the tag (and was thinking hard when looking at it) and came up with a new lower price with certainty in her voice. I saw the same tag and thought nothing of it. Musta been coded!

-BWP

 

[64merc]

Good info!

When I was asking the best price on a set of two Craftsman BB Intermediate boxes yesterday, the saleschick looked at the tag (and was thinking hard when looking at it) and came up with a new lower price with certainty in her voice. I saw the same tag and thought nothing of it. Musta been coded!

-BWP

There are a couple of chains in my area that seem to use codes. Maybe this will help me crack them.

 

[bgott]

You need to figure out how long they have had the item in stock. You can get a better price on something that has been there 6 months compared to the price you'll get for something that has been on the shelf for three days.

 

[Adam McLaughlin]

I used to work for the Rohnert Park Police Department as an investigations intern, when I was there it was MY job to receive, index and data enter all of the pawn tickets from the pawn shop "buys" in the county for residents in Rohnert Park. I think in my seven months of free labor through my internship, I entered in over 6,000 sales transactions and FOUR of them were for our kind of tools. I believe that these were all Mac K.S. and some ratchets. I of course, went after the K.S. 2 end wrenches, seeing that the shop had paid $40 for the set, but found that they were asking $375 for the whole pack! Yow!!!

I really think that anyone trying to sell some tools puts them on eBay or something similar. Nowawadays - S.O. holds it's value above all else and most eBay auctions for sets of things go for AT or above new price, most of the time.

Adam

 

[Bolster]

... the shop had paid $40 for the set, but found that they were asking $375 for the whole pack! Yow!!!

I wonder if that's a rule of thumb...that a pawn shop pays about a dime on the dollar.

 

[Lookin4'67Galaxieconv]

To ask for a deal at a retail store is accusing us of charging too much in the first place. We just don't do that.

Maybe at the store YOU work at...but if I take your post literally, no one should dare try and make a deal at ANY retail store b/c to do so would be insulting to that store?!? Are you kidding?

 

[LoneGunman]

LOL money laundering in pawn shops? Do you guys have any idea how much heat a pawnshop draws from the local law enforcement agencies? There are a lot better businesses than a pawn shop to launder money. My pawn license was harder to get than my federal firearms license.

Pawn shops are high on retail pricing because they don't care about the retail end, they will not go broke not selling merchandise. The WHOLE idea with a pawnshop is the finance and storage charge, which in Florida is 25% a MONTH, with a 300% APR they do not need to sell merchandise. The merchandise they do sell is often sold to customers from the pawn end of the business and often is layaway.

Sure it's nice to sell merchandise but the money is in the loans and retailing is second. If Joe Blow is in looking at a wrench and wanted to haggle and interupts while I'm writing up a pawn transaction form ,Joe Blow gets blown off and told the "price is the price" while I treat my pawn customer like gold.

Another pricing code widely used is "money talks" MS would be $10, MYS would be $150 ETC.


Another reason for high prices is the customers themselves, everyone thinks they can get a better deal than what the sticker says. When I opened up I priced things realistically, I did not have a lot of room so I liked to move merchandise. My standard thing was to loan around 25% of retail and sell for 50% retail. Even at 50% of retail everyone expected me to knock half off the price. So I did like every other pawnshop does, set my prices right below full retail , let them haggle and sell for the same 50% of retail. It would have been so much easier and less time consuming the first way.

 

[kf4zht]

Just a couple weeks ago I picked up a 180 amp tig torch, regulator and cables for $80. Still had the origional tungsten in it that had never been ground down.

Not too many high end hand tools around here right now, I have been seeing some specialty snap-on stuff like coolant pressure testers and fuel injection stuff showing up. I figure it is just time before some of the shops start laying off people and more sockets and basic hand tools start coming in.

What is a good price on a ramset gun? Shops are full of construction tools right now, figure a ramset would be a nice tool to have.

Still need to figure out what the code is in this area, but since all of the ones left (except 2 that are mostly worthless) are a sort of chain they probably use the same code.

 

[Blacknwhitepit]

Here is an example of the code on a box. I bought this for $40 (With bottom box as well) is it the "MONEYTALKS" Code? $23.33? or something else. I figure the 'N' probably should be a 9 or 0 though.... I will have to figure out these things!

It shouldn't be hard to figure out .... Look throughout the store at every piece of merchandise with a tag and find all ten letters. numbers 1, 2 and 3 should be easy to figure out by looking at stuff that should cost $100, $200 and $300 respectively.

Possibly use an anagram solver and be logical about placement of the number 0 and other key numbers

Anagram Solver

I am going to give this a try.

'

-BWP

 

[LoneGunman]

It would not be $23, too weird of a number, it will end in 0 or 5, $10,$15 ETC. If it's 4 digit as that one is it could very well be a month and/or year code also, thats what I would use when I had the shop. MS128 would be $20 loaned in december of 08. If you spend a half hour in there you will figure out the code, it's easy to figure out, most people don't realise what the code is for so they don't bother trying to figure it out.

Thinking about it, it could be a $23 if it was a multiple item pawn, then theyd devide the amount pawned by the number of items. They also might be using the code for not what they have in it but what the bottom dollar is for it.

Another idea is to hit franchise pawns and see what's been in there the longest, franchises like Cash America will drop prices the longer the merchandise remains on the shelf and they will also deal very easily when it's near the end of their quarter.

 

[Scooterfish]

Lone gunman

I understand the money end is on the pawn (interest charge) not selling to retail customer. However in the current enviorment if 80 % off pawns are not picked up wouldn`t the store want to move (sell) items to keep cash flow up.?

 

[Blacknwhitepit]

I went back to the pawn shop and cracked the code.

I wrote all the letters down and figured that V was 1, O was 2 and N was 0.

As I left I got in my truck and looked at the letters I wrote down and figured What word(s) has 10 letters that is VO.........N and have a K E L S A G W.

You guessed it.


The code was....




VOLKSWAGEN !!!!!!!


The code on my toolbox says $20.00


-BWP

 

[speed bump]

I never really thought about it much in the hawk shops but here is how it generally works here.

If the pawn shops buys something from someone outright it goes out at 50% of what they have it marked at. Pawning something is probably worse than that.

I always know for sure I can get roughly 20% off of marked price for anything marked with a price. The longer its been there or the more I haggle the better I do.

 

[64merc]

I went back to the pawn shop and cracked the code.

I wrote all the letters down and figured that V was 1, O was 2 and N was 0.

As I left I got in my truck and looked at the letters I wrote down and figured What word(s) has 10 letters that is VO.........N and have a K E L S A G W.

You guessed it.


The code was....




VOLKSWAGEN !!!!!!!


The code on my toolbox says $20.00


-BWP

You're my hero. J/K but that was really cool!!

 

[64merc]

Another reason for high prices is the customers themselves, everyone thinks they can get a better deal than what the sticker says. When I opened up I priced things realistically, I did not have a lot of room so I liked to move merchandise. My standard thing was to loan around 25% of retail and sell for 50% retail. Even at 50% of retail everyone expected me to knock half off the price. So I did like every other pawnshop does, set my prices right below full retail , let them haggle and sell for the same 50% of retail. It would have been so much easier and less time consuming the first way.

I certainly understand all of that, but my beef is with the shops that put a sticker price right below retail price (or above) and won't budge. That's just plain stupid in my opinion.

 

[Bolster]

VOLKSWAGEN !!!!!!!


The code on my toolbox says $20.00

VERY clever, B/W. You rock.

 

[Papawswrench]

I have been to many pawnshops in my day, usually just cruisin', looking for real old stuff, hardly ever newer items. Often the old wrenches are either mixed in with the rusty box lots, or the owner has seen one like them on Ebay and thinks it is a high dollar collectible. He then prices it like an antique store would, and wonders why it never sells.
Others have adjusted to Ebay and sell a lot of the better vintage tools there.