I recently wanted to sell some gold. Not make a loand but sell it. I went to five different pawn shops and the highest offer I got was $65.00. I went to a place I found via Yelp a gold scrap dealer and got $475.00 for it.
So for gold and such you can easily do better. Of course these are selling not loans
My experience is the same as OP. I went to get a MIG welder. They wanted $200. It was very beat up and was missing the welding gas hose assembly & gauges. So it would have been $200 + $120 for the missing parts when a brand new welder, same brand, was $375. I asked if they would take it back if it didn’t work. “No”. I explained the problem with the missing parts and the cost of a new one and asked if he’d take $150 for it. “No”. Would he lower the price any at all? “No”.
So I went home and ordered a new one. I don’t understand that kind of business model?
Sheesh, none of you guys watch Pawn Stars? 
I recommend watching the show before doing business with pawn shops. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked on in disbelief at people trying to sell or pawn their stuff and thought ‘haven’t ANY of you people watched the show??’.
-XT
I do watch Pawn Stars (fun show). They often say that they will take less for stuff when they sell it. That’s why I’m surprised the pawn store I went to wouldn’t budge whatsoever.
Your best bet in that situation is to just move on. If you REALLY want whatever it was, keep an eye out and see if it just sits on the shelf for a couple of weeks, then go back in and ask again. Have a price in your mind that you’d be willing to take.
At a guess, the pawn shop probably paid too much for whatever it was and are trying to get that price back out of it…but if time goes by and they don’t sell it they will drop the price. They have too, since they don’t want inventory to just sit around forever…they paid money for it after all, and as long as it’s just sitting there they aren’t getting their money back out of it.
-XT
It sounds like it would be very lucrative to pawn or sell old electronics, as chances are they are actually worth less than a quarter of the new price.
This explains the high price of old electronics I’ve seen at the stores. Sorry, your Pentium 3 computer is not worth $300.
I’ll chime in and also say I have been dissappointed to the point of being shocked at what pawn shops charge for most stuff. The exceptions usually seemed to be when they had something but didn’t know its true worth (which given the internet these days is less and less likely). Something like the cadillac of binoculars that they thought was just another run of the mill 100 dollar pair. Or an ubber expensive backpack that they though was a run of mill one.
One sort of exception to this was in large college towns. Rich kids with a cash flow problem and lots of expensive toys often pawn some pretty nice stuff. You’d rarely get the deal of lifetime but once in a while you could get something like new at a pretty good discount. But most pawn shops in most place I’ve seen. A waste of shopping time, except for occasionally they might have interesting or unsual stuff you don’t see at a typical store.
But “we’re trying to get our price back” doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t matter what the pawn shop paid. What matters is what people will buy the item for. The price the pawn shop paid in 1998 is irrelevant. If you can get the item new for almost the same price as their broken down obsolete crap, then there’s no reason to buy from the pawn shop.
Especially when you can get cheap used crap from Goodwill. They price their shit to move. Pawn shops don’t seem to care whether they ever sell anything. People buy used crap because they want a good deal. I’ve never seen a good deal at a pawn shop. So why would anybody buy anything from a pawn shop?
Same experience here. I found a gold bracelet and went to 3 pawn shops. Highest offer: $122
Sold online at Empire Gold: $605
I own lots of Seiko dive watches. Used prices are far closer to $50 than $500 unless it one of the more unusual Seiko divers. New prices are usually $150-$250.
Any time I see a business that doesn’t seem to particularly care whether it sells anything, my first thought is: “Money laundering operation.”
But then, I am the suspicious type.
According to the owner of my favorite local pawn shop, they have a pawn shop equivalent of the automotive “Blue Book” that lists values on all manner of used crap. He uses that book as a guideline when deciding what to sell things for and how much he’s willing to offer on pawned items.
As for how much they’ll loan you when you just want to pawn something and come back for it later — I can’t speak for other pawn shops, but I discovered at this one that if you’re a “regular” and you have a good history of actually coming back to redeem your stuff, they’re willing to give you more.
Fortunately, though, I haven’t needed to use the pawn shop in the last few years.
I am glad I read this thread. A good friend of ours owns a pawn shop with her husband. They are quite successful and just opened up a second store this month. I went in there, looking for a laptop for our daughter. I was going to buy a new one, but was thinking that my daughter didn’t need a new one as she just wanted to go on the internet and use it for writing school papers. I figured I could get a used laptop for $150 or so.
Man, was I wrong. They had what looked like a two year old Sony Vio on display. They were asking $500 for the stupid thing. Since it was our friend I wasn’t going to tell her what I thought of their pricing, but I am thinking to myself, "who in the hell would ever buy that thing? " I mean, I could go down to Best Buy or Wally World and buy a brand new laptop for $300. It might not be the greatest, but it is new and has a warranty. I was thinking of offering her something less, but then thought she is never going to come down 80% on something.
How they stay in business is beyond me. It is one thing to be able to buy items from your customers for pennies on the dollar. But if you can’t sell any of those items because you are charging new prices for them you can’t make a living. Maybe I am just too stupid to figure it out.
Not defending the business practices of pawn shops here, but in all fairness Goodwill doesn’t have to pay for their merchandise, which is why they can afford to price it dirt cheap. Whatever they’re selling their stuff for is essentially pure profit - and yes, I realize they’re non-profit, but you know what I mean. So long as they have enough to pay for their staff, along with the utilities and general upkeep of their stores, with a little left over for their various community programs they’re in the clear.
A possible explination but it doesn’t describe the pawn shop near me, it is not a ‘can’t afford a car’ neighborhood.
Hmmmm.
I hope I am not mucking up the thread but I noticed the same thing when shopping for used cars (I had a specific model I was looking for). They where priced so ridiculously high at dealerships near me that the number didn’t even make sense to use as a starting point to negotiate. Not that it mattered, they had no interest in negotiating at all 
About 5 months later after I bought my car (Private sale, reasonable price) I drove back to a few of the dealerships and sure enough the cars where still sitting there. :rolleyes:
So I guess the question could be expanded to “Why do some people seem uninterested in selling their products?” or “Why do some vendors price their products so high they have no chance of selling them?”
I buy a fair amount from my local pawn shop, and the sticker price isn’t even close to what they’re trying to get. They’ll usually knock off a good percentage (or start throwing items in) before I even formulate an offer. I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than about 65% of retail.
I’ve been working at a pawn shop for about eight months and I can clue you in to the business model.
For starters if you don’t look like you’re going to come back, I could care less if you get a good price. That means if you are well dressed and middle class I probably won’t come out from behind the bullet proof glass. How much we want the item in our store determines the price too. I want there to be things for the customers that pawn to look at, so they come back. Things that I don’t want you can get a great deal on. If you’re wondering if a pawn shop wants something try to imagine how long its been there. I’ve sold brand new lawn mowers for 40 bucks only because they take up too much room and have been in the back warehouse all winter.
So why are some things so expensive? Here is the reason: The people that buy from my store ride the bus. I have two 50" flat screen TVs one is retail the other is over retail price. Can you guess why? Its hard to get a 50" tv onto a bus and odds are you don’t shop around at best buy if you ride the bus. That means you don’t know what its worth plus its a pawn shop so you think, “this must be a good deal”.
Want to know how to get a good deal? Find a slow pawn shop and build a relationship with the workers/owners. We will work with you on the price but not if the first thing you say to us is a low ball offer. Instead chat us up about the item. Tell us what you’re looking for. I have lots of things that I hold in the back because I don’t want to offend the customer that lost the item due to money problems. If you can buy it without me putting it on the showroom floor all the better. Good luck. There are some great deals to be had but only by smart buyers.
Just thought I would offer this… You’re much more likely to be able to negotiate the price at a ‘locally owned’ pawn shop, as opposed to a *‘chain store’ type of pawn shop. YMMV
*(ie: Cash America, in my part of the world.)
In a general sense, they probably paid too much at auction for their used cars. To be honest, most people in the used car business are not exactly geniuses. They might know how to sell a car, and the smarter ones can run a business well.
Here’s a good story that might explain it:
I grew up with a VERY smart guy who happens to work for the family business, a used car dealership. The business did fine when it was his father going to auctions and buying used cars, but when my FRIEND starting going to auctions instead, WOW! They make about 100K a month in pure profit. They sell about 50% of their inventory on Ebay/Craigslist/etc…, and they sell about 80-100+ vehicles a month. VERY few used car dealers sell that many, and they only employ about 8 salesmen.
They’re actually one of the top 20 Ebay Auto dealers, Shamburg Auto Sales. How did this happen? My friend grew up in the business, and LOVES new technology. He’s practically the only used car dealer in the state that actually spends much time online. He also goes to 4+ car auctions every week. (most dealers go about 2 times a month, or less.) Between his decades of knowledge about cars and their value, his constant online research (he checks what vehicles are selling for on Ebay daily, as well as many other sites), and the fact that he knows on a daily basis firsthand how auction prices are fluctuating, he nearly ALWAYS makes at LEAST $1500 on a car, even after repairing it, advertising it, and cleaning it.
I’ve seen him make $14,000 on a party bus before. He bought it at a little redneck car auction in South Carolina, it was a last-minute add, a very unusual item, and the other buyers had no idea what it was worth, and were afraid to bid on it. He bought it for 14K and sold it for 28K 10 days later, on Ebay.
I worked for him for 6 months, and I saw him lose money on 1 car out of about 500+. It was an old Porsche 911 that had been racing-modified with a Chevy small block, and he paid $20K for it. He bought it out of pity from a grieving widow, so I don’t think it counts.
So yeah, an internet-savvy dealer who does their research, goes to auctions constantly, and knows the business well can sell you a car really cheap, and STILL make good money.
Guys like him are rare as hen’s teeth in the used-car business.
A lot of them go to auction once a month or less, have no idea what cars are selling for online, and end up overbidding. They might sell 5-8 cars a month, to people they know, and think they’re doing great. ROFL
The only other possibility is that those car lots that YOU went to happen to be targetting people with TERRIBLE credit. You can people like that a lot more because you’re handling the financing (no bank will touch them, these days) and pretty much charge whatever price and interest rate you want.
I might be getting the wrong impression from your post.
But, it seems as though you are saying that I need to prove myself as being worthy
of being your customer. Seems like a lot of time and game playing is necessary just to get a good price on a used item.