Sep24th

Dealers Sell Themselves Short at Shows

By Adam McFarland | Posted at 12:43 pm | Filed Under Card Shows

Picture yourself at a card show. You walk up to a dealer, exchange pleasantries, and spot that card/autograph/figure you’ve been wanting. The price says $100. What do you do? Any collector with a brain starts negotiating. Not because they aren’t willing to pay $100 per se, but because they understand that every single deal in collectibles is negotiable. Same thing at your local card shop. Dealers are so desperate to unload excess inventory, that they are willing to eat away at their profit just to unload something. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is bad business, and it’s at least part of the reason that approximately 8,000 card shops that have closed since the early 90’s.

How much more profitable could the cards and collectibles business be for dealers if they decided to fix their prices and make them non-negotiable? I’m guessing quite a bit. People, particularly obsessive collectors, will pay for what they want. Business columnist and collector Jeffrey Gitomer recently posed this question in the Detroit Business Review after attending The National:

There are a small handful of dealers who will look me straight in the eye and tell me that $150 is their firm price. And you know what? I pay it. The same guy who reduced his price by 1/3 could have had more money if he had just changed his language, if he had just changed his manner, if he had more self-confidence or belief in what he was offering, or if he hadn’t developed the habit over the years of having to bargain, dicker, or haggle over the price with each customer.

As I said, maybe it’s a ploy and the seller only wanted $100. But the bottom line in sports memorabilia is that it’s a supply/demand marketplace driven by both desire, perceived value, actual value, and pride of ownership.

Regardless of your thinking (because many people think that their product is becoming a commodity — bad thought), if you were able to stand your ground by proving your value, and having your customer perceive that the value was there, not only would you earn your price, and get your price, but you would also have the beginning of a mutually respectful relationship that will end with customer loyalty rather than customer satisfaction.

Reality: More than 74% of all people are willing to pay the price. Ditch the other 26%, let them hammer your competition into no profit and bankruptcy, and concentrate on the customers who are willing to pay.

But there’s a secret: In order to get them to pay your price, you have to know which ones are willing and which ones are not. This requires engagement.

Oftentimes, when I ask a dealer, “How much is this?” he begins with a story rather than a price. A story of what the piece is, where it came from, why it’s unique, what gives it value, and why it’s worth owning. He’s proving the worth or the value by telling a story. The stories are not only compelling, they’re historical and actually heighten the desire to buy.

I’m a loyal customer to sports memorabilia. I will continue to go to the National and try my best to negotiate price at the point of sale. But the bottom line is if any dealer put up a banner behind his booth that said, “Our prices are fair and our prices are firm,” they’d make a heck of a lot more money at the end of a show, and so would you.

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3 Responses to “Dealers Sell Themselves Short at Shows”

Joey on September 24th, 2007 2:45 pm

Also for me if a dealer consistently marks up his items with the intention of meeting in the middle I tend to stay away. I want a consistently fair price that doesn’t start high and end up somewhere closer to the dealers number than mine.

By the way I can’t remember a time when I asked a dealer to take less than his asking price. I have put the item back and started to walk away and he has offered a lower price sometimes getting me to buy.

I don’t want to cheapen the card show experience by making it just like a garage sale. After all baseball cards are valuable and important unlike used cd’s and jeans.
Adam McFarland on September 24th, 2007 8:13 pm

Agreed completely Joey. I don’t think all dealers will align and agree to fixed pricing. If one guy doesn’t and the others don’t, the consumer can just walk to the next table and begin negotiating there.

I’d like to see the show promoters take charge and only allow fixed pricing. It’s in the best interest of their show - if dealers make more they’re more willing to come back and justify the table fee.
andar909 on August 11th, 2008 2:02 am

hi, andar here, i just read your post. i like very much. agree to you, sir.

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Dealers Sell Themselves Short at Shows

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