You might be cleaning out a basement or attic and have a pile of things you don’t need anymore, but they still work. Have you thought about selling to a pawn shop? First, if you want to do that you need to know what they buy. Pawn Shops will not accept your old mattress or vacuum; it’s not sanitary. You might then think about how you will get the best deal from the pawnbroker. Here are seven tips on how to get the best deals at a pawn shop.
Keep Personal Business Personal
The employee behind the counter doesn’t need to know your whole story. Your business is your business, and it should stay that way. The counter worker has heard so many other stories, and they are probably sick of people telling them everything.
Selling Out of Season
Make sure what you are trying to sell is something that can be sold close to the same time the pawn shop buys it from you. If you are trying to sell a space heater in the middle of summer, it won’t sell, so that you won’t get a great deal. You might want to wait to sell it until it starts to get cold.
What do they buy
If you try to sell a pawn shop something like a record player, and they don’t usually sell those, they probably won’t buy it from you. Before heading to your nearest pawn shop to sell, you should first look at what they have and think about whether or not what you want to sell them will fit into that catalog.
Condition of Your Item
Looks matter; pawn shops really do “judge a book by its cover,” or at least its condition. If you bring in a gaming console and all the edges and cracks are dirty, you won’t get the same price as something that’s clean and new. If you have the original packaging in tip-top condition, you would be surprised at how much that helps with the value.
Don’t Always Take the First Offer.
Some good pawnbrokers out there can convince people that the first offer is the best, and that is what they should take. These people don’t want to offend the pawnbroker, so they take the offer. It isn’t offensive to try to get a better deal. Before going to a pawn shop, you should know the price you want and the price you are willing to accept. If the pawnbroker hits somewhere in between, that’s great, but you can try getting it closer to the price you want. You can ask to raise the price ten percent, but any more than that might seem unreasonable.
Be Courteous
There are some things you should do when doing business with people that should be common knowledge. Be courteous to those around you even if you’re declining an offer or sense tension. Being kind and humble will open up for you. It might sound silly, but being nice to the person running the counter does help. They get a lot of crap and garbage during the day and you being nice is a good change from that. You will get better deals, and the whole process will go much smoother and nicer no matter the outcome.
Be Prepared to Leave
Sometimes it is best just to leave. Some pawnbrokers don’t try to hide when they are ripping you off or when they feel like you are just wasting their time. When you notice this, it is perfectly fine to walk away. There is probably another pawn shop just down the street that will give you a better deal anyway.
The last thing you need to do is find the right pawn shop. There are millions of pawn shops to choose from, and you never know what will happen until you get there. Use these tips to your advantage, and it might surprise you what kinds of deals you can get.
