Different flea markets are different.

We were selling every other weekend at a swap meet that was just getting started, indoors and heated in a hanger at a municipal airport.  It's in a fairly industrial area.  I sold power tools like crazy there, at a decent profit.  Sometimes 10 of them in a day, plus assorted small tools and other stuff. 

Anyway, that one went under, not enough vendors to pay the rent on the place unfortunately.  IT was really a bummer because it was a good group of people selling and run by good people.

We moved to another swap meet, farther away, indoors in a huge barn at the fairgrounds.  More traffic, more sellers, and I can;t move tools at all.  There are more vendors with tools of course, but they aren't selling all that many either.  Other stuff moves there better than at the first place of course, like I got a good price for an airsoft gun that no one had even looked at at the other place.

Also the people that buy at this one are much cheaper.  If I have something that retails at $200 marked at $25 people will try to get me to sell it for $5 then act all insulted when I won't sell for that.  That never happened at the other place.

Your post was an interesting read and something I'm sure we've all experienced.
I have four fleas in my area (within 10 miles of each other) and they are all a little different. I only sell at one of them.

If you have a $200 retail tool, why not put it on eBay for $35 to start and hope to get $50 or a little more?
I do this and have good luck with it. If the tool is specialized enough you can do even better, maybe get $100.

Anyway, thanks for the thread.

That was just a made up example.  I usually ask the same price on eBay/craigslist and swap meets.  For the bigger power tools shipping gets so expensive on eBay that it eats in to what you get for the item so I don;t often eBay bigger items.

That was just a made up example.  I usually ask the same price on eBay/craigslist and swap meets.  For the bigger power tools shipping gets so expensive on eBay that it eats in to what you get for the item so I don;t often eBay bigger items.

If I sell a bigger tool on eBay for say $100 and the shipping is $25 because of weight/bulk, that's the buyer's end to worry about. If he is getting a $250 tool for $125 total to him, I'd say he would be happy.

I always use calculated shipping and they can see what it will cost to their zipcode. I also charge a $3 packing/handling charge which I make apparent to them up front..it is automatically calculated in. That $3 helps pay for any eBay charges I incur and it can also account for any weighing or measuring errors I might make.

Yes they are very different. We have been bouncing around to different ones.

The real cheap Flea ($3per space) sales are all over the place. The vendors with tools seem to do pretty good there.

Another one the same driving distance in other direction of the $3 Flea, was different every time we went. The rent is $15 + Tax.  Saw a tool guy sell out buy 11:00 Am one day.

We went to a market our fellow vendors told us about. Loved it Rent $15 per spot. Very busy market. Sold a ton of glass ware (the crap that want sell at a yard sale). Had priced right though. Only problem over 50 miles away,  one way. All said and done we made very little. And with gas prices climbing will have to have a van full of free stuff to make that one work.  .

We have one only 17 miles away. Rent $12, you only get one table and can not bring any in. Have heard that it is pretty good. Guess need to try it it is close. Have heard different things that kids clothes and books sell well there, and we certainly have plenty of that stuff. But this market is dead in the summer months. 

Trial and error for the new kids on the block. 

Movieman has great advice and knows his market well, ie. customers what sells ect.

Also the $3 shipping and handling fee has saved this new to ebay seller on common noobie mistakes.

We only have two flea's in my area, only a mile from each other.  The first that I sell at is right next to the major highway and is $12 a spot.  Items sell all over the place.  Some days it's my world coins, currency, and DVD/CDs.  Other days it's nick-nacks and electronics.  I've learned to just take a wide assortment of everything.

About 1/2 of the regulars sell at this flea, the other half at the other flea.  Spaces there are only $5.  Not as much traffic but they tell me people that go there are mostly shopping.  Unlike the first one that has lots of non-shopping foot traffic walking for excercise or something.  Plan to give them a try one day and take truck/trailer with lots of cloths.

I have 3 flea markets in the city where I live and they all suck! Mostly walkers and pickers. The flea market I sell at is in a city 40 miles away, it has real shoppers. The money made is well worth the added expense of gas.

The flea I sell at is demographically 60% hispanic/immigrant, 35% Caucasian, 4% African american 1% Asian & others.

So when I have an expensive item new or fairly new I have to use different startegies to try to get the most money from the sale.

Caucasian shoppers tend to be more knowledgable about products and thier related costs. They tend to know when I am offering a good deal and will let me know it, but they are commonly still "tighter" on the purse strings.

Hispanics tend to not have a clue about products and value and don't know a good deal when they are looking at it. ($200 retail price item I am selling for say $50). They do know dealing is based on the "haggle" so they don't think they are getting a good deal unless they can haggle me down. They do tend to be "looser" on the purse springs up to about the $50 mark, anything higher is pretty tuff to squeeze out of them.

I my case if I am selling a $200 retail item at the flea and a Caucasian customer inquires I might say $60. They tend to know it's a good deal and if they are really interested but aren't sold yet I might drop it to $50. When Hispanic customers come by I tend to start rather high, say $100 and see what kind of reactions I get, probably have to drop it to $75 and let them "haggle" me down to $50 or $40.

My main point being I have found that for the most part my Hispanic shoppers don't recognize good deals right away so I don't make the price really nice when they first walk up.

I have 3 flea markets in the city where I live and they all suck! Mostly walkers and pickers.

Whoa, that fact alone sucks!  But I enjoyed reading your analysis of the shoppers by ethnic background, i.e. RACE and I would agree to that pretty much.

However the hispanics in my area do know the prices on tools...especially if they are from Harbor Freight!

I think we all use the ploy  of quoting different prices to different people (by race, age, etc) and I'm sure this is "profiling" which is a dirty word in police work, but no ad man or network executive worth his/her salt would survive without "profiling" a demographic and an ad medium combination that would return the most return for the dollars spent.

So, yes, we do it and we bump the price up to provide for the haggling for the most part, but there are exceptions such as pricing a brand spanking new book ($15 to $25 retail) at say $3 just to sell it, and then getting low-balled because they think every price is negotiable.

My "better half" tells me "it's a flea market after all" to which my response is..."I think I know this biz better than you do".  I don't mind people walking off if they don't want to pay my price. Someone else will buy it...if not that day, the next. If my life depended on making that sale it would be a different matter, but it doesn't and once you go the "too low" route or "turn and burn" approach, there's no going back.

Now don't get me wrong, if I "pick" something for $5 and want $200 for it, I have no problem going down to even $100, but that will be after I have exhausted eBay and Clist for possible higher profile buyers.

I have 3 flea markets in the city where I live and they all suck! Mostly walkers and pickers. The flea market I sell at is in a city 40 miles away, it has real shoppers. The money made is well worth the added expense of gas.

Thought we were alone in that problem.

and on the profiling most of our shoppers are retired. 

Thats what you get for being down in Florida, Money.  As for profileing - think I talked about that in another post somewhere on the boards.  Maybe it was about the haggle.  I agree with most everything Cobia said on the mix.  In my area I see normally the following:

White - Older - 15% or so -- will haggle
White - Young to mid - 20% -- buy w/o second thought
Black - Older - 10% -- some haggle, others just buy
Black - Young to mid - 30% -- most just buy (CDs, what I call pimp shoes, etc.)
Hispanic (old or young) - 20% -- 90% of them haggle, have a few that don't but normally on $5 or less items
Oriental / Indian - 5% -- haggle,  I semi-hate this group as they want to haggle quarter items and one old lady that acts like she don't understand English is a thief you have to watch.

Saturday I get more black/hispanic customers.  On sunday it's mostly white / hispanic with very few black.  Most of the black churches don't get out till like 2 or 3pm and flea closes at 4.

I know but Florida is pretty nice otherwise. 

We have not found the market that attracts a large Hispanic or black customers. Might be the one closest  to home. Need to find them they will buy what we have to sell.   

Fellow Hispanic vendor tried to haggle for a small trampoline but we would not budge he paid the price then of course I bought some tomato plants from him. Trading money. 

I never thought that adjusting price based on the race of a person is advantageous for good business.

I think it is not necessarily a judgement by race (though it could be) but rather a judgement based on ability to pay price "x" based on their economic status...that status MIGHT be affected by their race and it might not.

If I have an item for which I would want $25 if I could get it, I feel I am more likely to get that from a certain class of buyer (race or economic status).  If that item does in fact sell for that $25 that's great, but if it's been out a couple of times and doesn't sell, I might price it at $15 to someone who didn't look like they could go the full asking price. This would be if I didn't have a tag on it.  So, if I had in mind $25 and a likely "looking" customer "looked" like they would go $15, I would offer it at that.

Now if they then offered $10 or $12, I might stick to my $15 guns.

I really thing there are too many variables to really categorize who buys and who doesn't at what price. There are rich blacks, rich hispanics, poor whites and all combinations of above. Throw in a few Filipinos, Vietnamese, Cambodians, et al and you have to fly by the seat of your pants on each pricing decision.

Imagine what would happen if Wal-Mart were to adjust prices based on outward appearances? Do you think some people would be outraged?

The profiling listed in this thread is how different ethnic groups shop.

And in a flea market atmosphere it is not like shopping at Wal-Mart.  You have a sales person at every booth trying to make a sale, and knowing your customers and how they view things helps.

Hispanic all about the haggle, rarely the price.  So knowing that you have your price and can decide weather to haggle or not but knowing you are going to get haggled you are ready to handle it with class.

If you see a women with three kids in tow and she could really use a stroller and you have one, would you stick to your price or sell cheaper because she did not have enough money for it and looked poor ?

Karma  I would
Even if she is pulling my leg my good karma her bad.

hispanics haggle? bah humbug come to my market and ill let you play with a couple people straight off the boat from haiti and russia , now them is hagglers !

hispanics haggle? bah humbug come to my market and ill let you play with a couple people straight off the boat from haiti and russia , now them is hagglers !

More profiling.  ...........