“It’s worth nothing in your closet…your attic…your basement.”
How often has any consignment, resale, or thrift shopkeeper said that phrase. After all, if something’s sitting, disused, in someone’s home, it is worth precisely ZERO to everyone.
This is the persuasion we use to get folks to give these items a chance to gain value, to be used…and to make the owner and the shopkeeper a bit of money.
We also use the “It’s worth nothing in your closet…” approach to emphasize that we are adding value to their items by providing a shop, customers, heat and light and showroom and credit-card capability. The amount of value we add depends solely on our skills, knowledge, and retail talents.
And our skills determine our profits.
So why, oh why, if you are buying outright, would you gift your seller with more than her item is worth to her, because of your work and expertise and ability to make money?
That’s what you are doing, if you base the price you pay on a percentage of what you can sell it for. . . rather than the value the seller assigns to her items. Pay X% of what you will sell it for? What you can sell it for to one of your shoppers has nothing to do with the seller’s subconscious appraisal of her goods.
Let’s take a look at some Traveling Pants. Josephine has them. She wants to sell them to you. How much does she value them?
Maybe she bought them on a whim and paid too much. Or bought them on sale or even at a garage sale. Maybe they were a gift from someone. Maybe she swapped the Pants with a friend.
Maybe she loves them and hates that they’ve never fit right. Maybe she hates the color. Maybe they have happy memories or unhappy memories.
Maybe she’s motivated to bring the Pants in to you because she’s a fervent recycler. Or maybe she’s really hard up for money. Or….
The point is, the Traveling Pants have a value to her, and that value, high or low, must be met before she will agree to sell them to you. Are you following me so far?
Now, consider. None of the above has a farthingsworth of influence on what the Pants are worth to YOU. Because what they are worth to your business has everything to do with the business you have built, that you run, that you finance.
In fact, the better a shopkeeper you are, the smaller your buy-outright cost of goods will be.
The smarter you are about your business, the more profit you are going to make. And that’s how it should be, right? The Traveling Pants aren’t worth more to Josephine because you are talented and pay attention your business. So why pay her X% of the value you have created?
Suspect that you’re not adding enough value to your incoming goods…whether you consign, buy outright, or turn charity donations into funding? Here’s a Product for the Professional Resaler that you need.
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I had a consignor whose husband owned a local, large, and public company. One day, this woman consigned a NWT item she’d bought mere weeks earlier for $1300. She couldn’t be bothered, she implied, to return it to the luxury merchant where she’d bought it, so she’d just let me sell it…for whatever.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 