The second edition of the all comprehensive guide to profitable trading, covering all aspects over a number of weeks.

Last week, we covered the general tips and pointers for merching, looking also at general trading tips and delving into the title itself, with our weekly item recommendations. As promised, this week your shop itself shall be covered, and the realm of buying technique shall be delved into, and don’t forget the general item recommendations.

Firstly, we shall look at none other than your shop. Your shop displays your style, and also has a large role in deciding how well your stock will sell, and whether or not you will get yourself some common customers who make a point of visiting you when they need certain things. The most important thing with your shop is a clear presentation. Many people use the technique of sticking tall items at the back and small items at the front, as buyers can see everything, but item placement is far more important then that, and can have a much greater effect. Try creating an emotional response to an item by placing it in a nice design with other stock, perhaps make it appear like a room itself with the items around it. Also make what you wish to sell more than other items stand out from the crowd, by being placed in obvious places that immediately grab the buyers attention. Many serious buyers will skim through your shop for items they need, myself being one of those people, and will sometimes miss items if they aren’t easily seen immediately. By making common favourites and good sellers stand out in the room, you draw these shoppers in for a closer look. Another important factor is placement of any rubbish items you may have received, these should be hidden away where possible to not influence the first impression of a customer, however I somewhat recommend keeping them personally instead of just throwing them away through such media as the ecotron, due to part of my buying technique which I will delve into in later weeks, where I attempt to use small value items to clinch unsure deals.

My final point on shops is that about pricing. If your shop has a wide enough range in items then i would suggest making your shop over a number of rooms with a lobby with stickies clearly stating the price of the items in each floor, keeping one price to each floor. This means that the buyer is more certain of prices before going in and is taking you more seriously, and will likely not try to squeeze discounts out of you.

The next part of this article shall be looking at buying technique, and shall be delved into in further detail in later weeks. First and foremost, your buying technique must be well polished if you ever wish to get good deals. Here I really do recommend you portray yourself in a professional manner, and that you make sure the shop owner takes you as seriously as possible. Insulting the owner and/or suggesting that something is worth much less is more likely to result in them banning you from their room than them dropping their prices, which in itself is highly counterproductive. An important factor is to always ask for a price first, and be adamant that you wont offer. After they have stated their price, thinking about dragging them down is important, if not vital, and 90% of the time you can reduce the prices if you know how, even If it is merely a bulk deal that you receive. I will now give an example conversation to explain one very simple method of haggling.

Buyer – How much per Greek pillar?
Seller – 2 per 5c.
Buyer – Oh no thank you. I would go 1c per at maximum.
Seller – No that’s just ridiculous, 2c per i will do.
Buyer – How about 20c for the 12?
Seller – Sure.

Consider that in this example through just being firm and professional that this person has reduced the price that the seller is asking for from 2.5c to 1.6c per, which would add an extra 0.9c profit per item than if this person had bought at 2.5c, therefore showing how vitally important this can be.

The time has now come for the recommendations of items to trade with. This week two items shall be covered, and both rather fitting the time of year. First is the Short Grass Patch, which would come in at a general selling value of 3c. This item is arguably one of the most sought after items in shops, with very high numbers of these being sold each day, meaning that you will never have any problem selling this on at full price if you can get hold of some of it. Though these may be reasonably hard to get cheaper than 2 per 5c, when found at anything lower than this there is really an immense opportunity for very quick profit, and even at 2 per 5c these are worth buying just for some quick and easy profit, however only racking in 20% profit if bought at this price.

The other item for this week rather follows suit from this sticking to the patch theme, being the Sand Patch. As it is now summer again, these will be coming into high demand very shortly. There is often a lot of debate over whether these items are worth 2c or 3c, but if kept in your shop for long enough these will easily sell at the upper end of the range. It would be highly beneficial to get these patches before the whole Summer furniture range is released back into the cataloguer, as there will be a small price rise around this time, most likely at the 3c end, meaning any found at 2c or less at the moment make for a good short term investment.

This concludes Market Watch for this week. If you have any questions that you would like to be answered next week, or anything that you would like to be covered, please leave a comment below detailing what you would like to be included.

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