Home East Side Re-Rides Consignment Leathers and Motorcycle Gear How Does Consignment Work?
Let’s pretend this is your jacket. Ain’t it beautiful? Let’s sell it!
You loved this thing, there’s nothing wrong with this thing — but now you want something smaller, or bigger, or brown, or with less zippers, or with more zippers, or with more armor. Or you ordered it online and it came out of the package shaped like a human being who is completely dissimilar from you. Whatever the reason, here’s this thing, and you’re not wearing it.
You can always try putting a classified ad up yourself. Sometimes that works really well! But sometimes people are (ahem) less polite than they could be. And sometimes it’s hard for someone to travel a distance to a stranger’s house and try on their clothing in front of them. Awkward.
Once a month, at month-end (actually just after month-end, but you get the picture) we shake the database, which takes the prices each Thing sold for, apply the consignment percentage, and gives us a total amount that we’re going to send you. Basically, all the preceding month’s sales turn into a huge pile of personal letters itemizing which Things sold that month from your collection, and how much we’re sending you for each, and the cheques to go with the letters.
Those cheques and letters go into the Big Accordion-File-of-Picking-Up, and if you don’t drop by to get it that month, we stuff it in an envelope and send it to you by Canada Post.
But what if I want my Thing back?
But what if the Thing doesn’t sell?
We call you and ask you to reclaim your item. We’ve tried selling it, and given up because we see people are not interested.
When I bring in the Thing, how do we determine the selling price?
It’s sort of a balancing act between getting you what it’s worth, and offering it at a price which will make buyers happy to purchase it and take it home.
On our side, we consider what the item would have cost new, what a similar item is now fetching new, what that type of item is fetching currently in the North American secondhand markets, how old the thing is, how much wear there is, or how many major or minor faults it may have, how collectable the brand is, whether it’s vintage-just-old or vintage-must-have-it, and whether that class of items is much in demand (cafe racer-style jackets) or not at all in demand (90s-style lambskin jackets). We also may know from experience (and statistics!) that a particular thing in this store sells best at a certain best range.
On your side, you think about whether you want to hold out for the highest return, or whether you want to price a thing attractively so its delighted new owners will take it home as fast as possible (which gets you your consignment cheque sooner).
Does it sound complicated? Yeah, it kind of is.