First question in a forum……
My boss wants me to buy him a second-hand basic camera for work, and wants to spend around $50.
My local Cash Converters has a few around $65 that will fit the bill, but I am stuck at $50.
Will they haggle the price down?
A very small manufacturer who has to watch costs closely.
He employs locals, and is very loyal to his staff.
Works for me.
Ask your boss for more money!!
yes they will…. they haggle to buy the stuff as cheap as possible so you can do the same when you buy.
I would just tell them the truth about your boss and the $50 limit… im sure one of the sales team will help you out.
I used to work at one of the bigger Cash Converters in Adelaide, and here is my 'insider' view on haggling with them:
Usually, you will not get more than 5% off the ticket price of anything under $100. Exceptions to this are only if there is a shitload of stock of a particular item (and cameras are often one of these items).
You are best placed to negotiate a discount if you are willing to forgo some or all of the warranty offered by Cashies on the item you are buying.
I certainly would never have been given approval to sell a $65 item for $50 (representing over 20% discount, which is more than staff get).
Best case scenario is that you might get $5 off if you are willing to drop the 3 month warranty down to 7 days.
Really, you should be able to find a suitable basic digital camera in a Cashies for $50 or so. Every time I go to Cashies these days, they are always overstocked and struggle to even give the bastards away. You can blame high quality cameras in smartphones for that!
i notice the price tag on items are so hign in the CC shops. its almost so stupid to buy on those prices. with 5% off, still way too high.
i dont think many people are buying stuffs from CC. ebay/gumtree is much cheaper.
so how CC shops make money if they keep buying and can not sell?
are they making money from people who desperately need cash thus sell and buy back (with inflated buy back price)?
Sadly, CC makes the vast majority of its money from pay day lending (or 'Personal Finance' as CC terms it).
The traditional pawnbroking section of the stores is really a diversion by comparison.
A bit like how the majority of money made by pubs in Australia is now from pokies.
You would nevertheless still be surprised how much second-hand gear the average Cashies will turn over in a given week. What a lot of OzBargainers seem to forget is that the average punter is not an OzBargainer nor a Gumtree-aficionado. They are also often not well-versed in the true prices/values of things, and will see last-years model at 15% off the current model as a bargain.
Lots of people also do buy-back the goods they pawned but could not afford to retrieve.
With levels of financial literacy in Australia ever-falling, and an increasingly 'mean' attitude shown by State and Federal Governments, businesses like Cashies stand only to improve their prospects in the years to come. :(
with that above practice, poor people will become poorer.
yeah i kind of imagine, people with no internet or credit card, addicted to gambling.
when they got cash they go to those shops. same when they need cash.
gosh. gov really need to spend more money in educate people.
People have to want to learn.
Government throwing a bucket of money in your face will not improve one's financial literacy.
sorry to go off topic, but could you share some insights on how Cash Converter decides the price offer when people come to sell their stuff?
I once tried to sell a brand new Sony Xperia Z (should worth over $600 at that time) but the guy said the max he could offer was $200.
They will only offer you 1/3 of the market price. So if the item worths $30 (or they think it will sell at $30), they will only offer $10. They will refer to gumtree prices too btw.
It also depends on how much of that item they have. So if they already have 5 Sony Xperia Z's in their store, you're not going to get much. In that case, try another store. Also, check their shop section first before going into the 'buy' section (were you sell). You will most likely get a better price from Gumtree or ebay.
at mine it was 25%, up to 35% if its was brand new!
If you have something brand new like that, even slightly used, you will almost always get a better price at a private sale. Sure, it might take 10-20 mins to make an ebay listing, but if you get $300 more for it.. that's well worth it.
Interesting - I knocked $280 off the price of a $600 1x12 guitar cab at CC's last year after some major haggling. Perhaps that was more to do with CC's putting a massive mark up on the product rather than a percentage based approach to the discounts.
The discount they can offer depends on how long it has been sitting there. If it has been there for months, you can usually get a good amount off.
interesting fact, if you look carefully at their price tags, the date it was purchased is written in code on the right hand side, the longer its been there, the better the discount
I've seen some labels that don't have a date code. Those that do … the year is obvious but the month and day isn't always. How do you read the month and day?
CC can't trade off warranties and consumer guarantees by law. I believe the ACL applies even to second hand goods.
this is not the case for all cash converters, the one i worked a would inflate their prices to allow for heavy discounting to make the customer feel they were getting a decent price. we would discount up to 40% on certain items
The last time I was in Dicksmith, I rememer seeing a Polaroid branded digital camera for $20.
Why bother - just buy new at OW
http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/pentax-efina-…
or kmart
http://www.kmart.com.au/category/electronics/shop-by-product…
or Big W (-;
https://www.bigw.com.au/photo/digital-cameras/bpnBIGW_000000…
That Barbie one looks the go.
I'd love to see it being used around the office. Would ensure some good laughs.
I hope they didn't take that picture of the office works camera with another Pentax Efina….
I've potatoes take better pictures than that!
The Barbie one is the best at:
1.3 MP Quality
Resolution: 640 x 480
Top notch.
Don't scoff at Barbie cameras! Philip Bloom can still do this with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VS3C183G8g
As xyron alluded to in a comment above, the stuff out the front in Cash Converters is pretty much just window-dressing for the main game.
I've never bought any secondhand jewellery or watches, but while I assume that they sell some of that merch, how they manage to shift any of the other stuff - often junk - given the marked prices, is personally beyond me. I do acknowledge, though, that xyron's reasoning for why some of the stuff shifts probably does apply.
I use to wander in occasionally and I tried in relation to maybe three items to negotiate prices that were half-decent. I'm quite the negotiator/haggler, but it was a waste of time.
I'm always willing to walk, and the last time I really did. It'd be close to 4 years since I last had even a glance in a Cash Converters.
It's all about the loan revenue - even moreso given the payday-loan-interest horrorshow playing out in some people's lives.
OP, try to find some other place - any other place - to spend that fifty bucks.
I use to wander in occasionally and I tried in relation to maybe three items to negotiate prices that were half-decent. I'm quite the negotiator/haggler, but it was a waste of time.
The two times I've tried negotiating worked good. First one the bloke was into retro games and we had about a 5-10 minute talk about games and collecting etc and he mentioned something about discounts, at the register he knocked off 2 bucks from the game making it a round $10. Cheap enough for Sonic 2, lol.
Another time at a different shop mum found a sewing machine that is worth well over $100 on eBay. It's a good brand and the store didn't have any idea about it, especially since they were guys. Checked they had all the cables and crap that goes with the machine and went to the counter. He rings up $69 bucks and I say with 60 in my hand "Will you do it for 60?" and he agreed without any fuss.
Perhaps it depends on your sales person.
'I used to' is what I should have written.
It sounds like you did very well on both occasions and, yes, salespeople definitely do vary…
I have bought a couple of things from pawn shops that were mispriced. This happened more back in the pre-internet days when people didn't know what grandads accordion was worth or that one particular guitar pedal was $150 new.
Not much point to them now from the buying side when they can see the eBay value of anything. Much less value to eBay too, for that matter now that there are so many more buyers around.
I still get the odd good deal for things outside of Sydney, or if something has an error in the listing like a misspelled word.
Consider this an initiative test and get the Pentax at Officeworks that Davros linked to.
Stuck with $50?
Go to Kmart, buy a 12MP camera for $39..
$11 profit $$$ :D
Tried it, and macro performance was rubbish.
Refunded an hour later.
Thanks, folks.
Off to Officeworks.
I would be looking for another job. I feel fairly certain this duty wouldn't be part of a job description. What we will he expect you to do next? Pick up his drycleaning … polish his shoes …
Nudie photos with his new camera:)
My old woodwork teacher brought his home camera into school so we could take photos for our VCE portfolio, some smartypants decided to browse through the photos and there was a few of a tripod set up next to a bed.. thankfully there was no nude photos!
Maybe he was just working on his wood in bed.
This man is a genius.
Why would I be looking for another job?
He is paying me my normal hourly rate to do it, plus car mileage.
Try being over 60 and made redundant the week before Xmas (never been out full-time work since I was 18) before you pass uninformed judgement.
He is paying you $20~ an hour, plus gas (+ car mileage/wear and tear on your car)
….to shop around for a $50 camera?
$50?? whoa dude…use your phone and keep the cash
Lets see Cashies buy it for $20 and ticket it for $65. And from what im reading they wont go discount below 5% ?
Educate your boss.
Advise not to invest in a camera. Ask him to get a phone on a contract which can be kept in your pocket at all times. You can make and receive calls for him and for your company as well.
If he is tight is this option - then educate him to join gumtree or ebay and teach him how to fish rather than make a habit of getting fish for him in the future……
I would carry this monkey once and get the future monkeys be carried on their own shoulders!!
Mmm we don't know how his boss uses it. Maybe he hands it out to staff to take photos of whatever. Or needs optical zoom. A phone camera wouldn't be suitable in those situations.
Having dealt with people like that, sometimes the best option is to just give them what they ask for instead of wasting your time having to teach them how to do things differently, as silly as it may be. Old habits die hard.
What if the camera needs to be shared? Buy everyone a new phone or give you his phone?
Shared camera, and need good macro performance.
Why have him do the work when he pays me a good hourly rate to do it for him?
I bought a Bosch rotary hammer drill that they had stuffed up the pricing on. They are $600 from trade tools and it was stickered at $29. I got it for $24 :-)
All you can do is ask.
ALERT: STINGY BOSSS!! QUIT NOW!! AND FIND YOURSELF ANOTHER BOSS!
Why would I be looking for another job?
He is paying me my normal hourly rate to do it, plus car mileage.
Try being over 60 and made redundant the week before Xmas (never been out full-time work since I was 18) before you pass uninformed judgement.
I used to work retail at a cash converters! depends on manager / day of the week. if its been a slow month and you get the right manager you can easily save 40% of stuff over $100
I haven't looked in Cash Converters for a long time the reason being most things are over priced.
I have seen second hand tools being sold for more than brand new price because people "assumed" it would be cheaper
Haha stingy boss!You don't work for a real estate agent or car dealer do you?